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IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?

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  IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-26 11:01 -0700
    Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2014-08-26 14:46 -0400
      Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-26 12:20 -0700
        Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-26 12:44 -0700
          Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-26 12:58 -0700
            Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-08-26 21:15 +0100
          Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with   a big stick, or what? Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2014-08-27 10:03 +1200
            Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-26 15:55 -0700
              Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-27 08:25 -0700
            Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-08-27 10:01 +1000
              Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-26 17:06 -0700
              Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-08-27 10:18 +1000
          Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-08-27 00:20 +0100
            Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-26 16:29 -0700
              Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2014-08-26 20:51 -0400
                Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-26 18:11 -0700
                  Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2014-08-27 00:03 -0400
                    Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-27 02:12 -0700
      Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-26 12:26 -0700
        Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Zachary Ware <zachary.ware+pylist@gmail.com> - 2014-08-26 14:46 -0500
    Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2014-08-26 18:59 +0000
    Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-08-27 09:07 +1000
      Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-26 16:25 -0700
        Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-08-27 09:42 +1000
        Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?] Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-08-27 10:04 +1000
          Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?] Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-26 17:08 -0700
            Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?] Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-08-27 10:21 +1000
              Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?] Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-26 17:58 -0700
                Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?] Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-26 18:06 -0700
                Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?] Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-08-27 12:36 +1000
                  Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?] Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2014-08-26 20:13 -0700
                    Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?] Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-08-27 14:55 +1000
                      Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?] Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-27 01:50 -0700
                Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?] Chris “Kwpolska” Warrick <kwpolska@gmail.com> - 2014-08-27 10:12 +0200
                  Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?] Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> - 2014-08-27 02:04 -0700

Page 2 of 2 — ← Prev page 1 [2]

#77066

On 2014-08-26, Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> wrote:

Careful.  If you hit it with a big stick it might fall on your head
and give you a concussion making it hard to remember to not mention
the war.

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! I hope the
                                  at               ``Eurythmics'' practice
                              gmail.com            birth control ...

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#77079

On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 4:01 AM, Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I've been using IDLE with Python 3.4.0 on Windows XP (SP3), since March this year, and since May I've been running IDLE almost continuously, using it scores of times every day,
>

Just to clarify: When you say "continuously", do you mean that you
keep it running for long periods of time? Because I've had various
issues on XP with leaving Idle running forever - it begins to take
arbitrarily long to switch back to it after leaving it, umm, idle for
a while. This is on a 32-bit system with 2GB of RAM. These days, I
tend to shut Idle down when I'm done with it.

ChrisA

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#77081

On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 00:07:03 UTC+1, Chris Angelico  wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 4:01 AM, Twirlip2 <ahr...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> 
> > I've been using IDLE with Python 3.4.0 on Windows XP (SP3), since March this year, and since May I've been running IDLE almost continuously, using it scores of times every day,
> 
> 
> Just to clarify: When you say "continuously", do you mean that you
> 
> keep it running for long periods of time? Because I've had various
> 
> issues on XP with leaving Idle running forever - it begins to take
> 
> arbitrarily long to switch back to it after leaving it, umm, idle for
> 
> a while. This is on a 32-bit system with 2GB of RAM. These days, I
> 
> tend to shut Idle down when I'm done with it.

I do really mean "continuously". I'm hopelessly addicted to listening to repeats of classic comedy programmes on Radio 4 Extra; I often listen at bedtime, and first thing in the morning; and I keep my computer running 24/7 (shutting it down only when I'm away from home overnight). Since I require Python in order to listen to my beloved radio programmes reliably (don't get me started on the subject of the thrice-accursed BBC website!), I therefore have IDLE running all the time, very probably sometimes for weeks on end.

There have been a few times when IDLE has become unresponsive, or awkward, in some way(s) - which I'm afraid I can't clearly remember, because it only happens every few days, and never bothers me that much - and then I do shut it down and restart it.

When I'm experimenting, or changing some BBC-related data, which my stupid code - now being fixed, I hope! - can't re-read without being re-imported, I often have to perform a Ctrl-F6 to restart the shell; but that's different, and is unrelated to performance problems, of which (until today, when it was my fault) there have been few.

My computer is also a 32-bit one, which I built in (believe it or not) 2003; it has only 768MB of RAM (and used to have even less).  Until this year I was also (believe it or not) using Windows 98SE. (No problems with IDLE on that, either, that I can remember.)

[By the way, I see that Google still haven't fixed the problem of posters' e-mail addresses becoming undisguised when they're quoted, which used to bother me years ago.  I do have Forte Agent installed on my netbook, but I only use it for e-mail, and I no longer have a Usenet account.  I'm starting to wish that I had one, because I really don't want my e-mail address being harvested by spammers (again)!  Spam, spam, spam, spam, ...]

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#77083

On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 9:25 AM, Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I do really mean "continuously". I'm hopelessly addicted to listening to repeats of classic comedy programmes on Radio 4 Extra; I often listen at bedtime, and first thing in the morning; and I keep my computer running 24/7 (shutting it down only when I'm away from home overnight). Since I require Python in order to listen to my beloved radio programmes reliably (don't get me started on the subject of the thrice-accursed BBC website!), I therefore have IDLE running all the time, very probably sometimes for weeks on end.
>
> There have been a few times when IDLE has become unresponsive, or awkward, in some way(s) - which I'm afraid I can't clearly remember, because it only happens every few days, and never bothers me that much - and then I do shut it down and restart it.
>
> My computer is also a 32-bit one, which I built in (believe it or not) 2003; it has only 768MB of RAM (and used to have even less).  Until this year I was also (believe it or not) using Windows 98SE. (No problems with IDLE on that, either, that I can remember.)
>

Yeah, that's how I used to use Idle too. I'd fire it up basically as
part of the bootup sequence (My Computer, Drive C, Desktop, Firefox,
Chrome, RosMud, and Idle 3.x), and never shut it down. These days, I
tend to fire it up when I want it and shut it down when I'm done.
However, that could be because this particular XP installation is
getting long in the tooth, and I've been seeing issues switching to
Firefox after it's been running for a while. Some day I'll probably
throw Debian onto this box, but at the moment, it's my only real
Windows computer left, and since I've pledged to support Windows with
certain of my projects, it's best I actively use Windows sometimes.

On my Linux boxes (mostly some version of Debian, but with hardware
like you describe, I'd be looking at AntiX), I don't generally use
Idle at all - I just hit Ctrl-Alt-T and type "python" or "python3",
and use command-line Python instead.

ChrisA

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#77085 — Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?]

Twirlip2 wrote:

> Since I require Python in order to listen to my beloved radio programmes
> reliably (don't get me started on the subject of the thrice-accursed BBC
> website!), I therefore have IDLE running all the time, very probably
> sometimes for weeks on end.

Well, don't keep us in suspenders, tell us what you use!



-- 
Steven

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#77087 — Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?]

On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 01:04:18 UTC+1, Steven D'Aprano  wrote:

> Twirlip2 wrote:
> 
> > Since I require Python in order to listen to my beloved radio programmes
> > reliably (don't get me started on the subject of the thrice-accursed BBC
> > website!), I therefore have IDLE running all the time, very probably
> > sometimes for weeks on end.
> 
> Well, don't keep us in suspenders, tell us what you use!

Sorry, I don't understand.

(Unless it's a Monty Python quote?  I never wanted to be a computer programmer, anyway.  I wanted to be a ...)

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#77089 — Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 10:08 AM, Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 01:04:18 UTC+1, Steven D'Aprano  wrote:
>
>> Twirlip2 wrote:
>>
>> > Since I require Python in order to listen to my beloved radio programmes
>> > reliably (don't get me started on the subject of the thrice-accursed BBC
>> > website!), I therefore have IDLE running all the time, very probably
>> > sometimes for weeks on end.
>>
>> Well, don't keep us in suspenders, tell us what you use!
>
> Sorry, I don't understand.
>
> (Unless it's a Monty Python quote?  I never wanted to be a computer programmer, anyway.  I wanted to be a ...)

I'm assuming the "in suspenders" part is either Monty Python or Fawlty
Towers (normally people would say "don't keep us in suspense"). But
the rest of the question is serious. What is it you do with Idle that
lets you listen to the radio reliably? I'm guessing this is streamed
over the internet and you're getting around some stupid limitation,
but I second Steven's request that you share your tricks!

ChrisA

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#77090 — Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?]

On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 01:21:32 UTC+1, Chris Angelico  wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 10:08 AM, Twirlip2 wrote:
> > On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 01:04:18 UTC+1, Steven D'Aprano  wrote:
> >> Twirlip2 wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Since I require Python in order to listen to my beloved radio
> >> > programmes reliably (don't get me started on the subject of the
> >> > thrice-accursed BBC website!), I therefore have IDLE running all the
> >> > time, very probably sometimes for weeks on end.
> 
> >> Well, don't keep us in suspenders, tell us what you use!
> 
> > Sorry, I don't understand. [...]
> 
> [...] But
> the rest of the question is serious. What is it you do with Idle that
> lets you listen to the radio reliably? I'm guessing this is streamed
> over the internet and you're getting around some stupid limitation,
> but I second Steven's request that you share your tricks!

I'm happy to oblige, but: (1) it's past my bedtime, so I'll have to be
brief; (2) the background, concerning the BBC's "Listen Again" facility,
is quite complicated; and (3) my present Python code is simply awful (it
was my first serious Python program, apart from a few short mathematical
routines for computing values of some complex analytic functions), which
is why, during the last week or so, I've been dipping into Chun's book
on Python, reading through Bertrand Meyer's 'Object-Oriented Software
Construction' (2nd ed. 1997), and trying to reorganised my awful code
into classes and smaller modules, so that I can begin to rewrite it in
a more robust way (i.e. (a) it will work more robustly, and (b) it also
won't fall apart as soon as I try to change it).

So, please give me a few weeks to improve my code, before posting it. (I
recently came across somewhere on the Web where you can post code, but I
forget where.)

As for the background:

All I used to need to use was a simple Windows batch file (of course, a
simple Python script would have been better, but there was no real need
for it) which called XMPlay with some WMA audio stream URLs, which were
easily calculable from the day of the week and the time of day at which
the desired programme was transmitted.

But a few months ago, the BBC, in their wisdom, changed all that, in such
a way that it is now logically impossible to calculate the WMA audio stream
URLs from any information available to anyone except a BBC technical insider.

A more sophisticated approach therefore became necessary.

At the Beebotron, where I post under the pseudonym 'Matamore!' (named after
a deluded grandiose lunatic, if you must know!), there was a very long and
convoluted discussion about the problem.  Here is the thread (but you won't
thank me for pointing you to something so rambling!):

<http://beebotron.org/phorum/read.php?5,57006>
"No international streams after 9:30am 01-May-2014"

I followed some of the suggestions made in that thread, by people more
knowledgeable than myself, and set about using Python to automate the
manual procedures they described.  I just hacked the code together [in
one of the two pejorative senses of the verb "to hack"!] - in a single
module, with dozens of global variables, precious little error-checking,
and an idiotic dependence on the BBC not changing any detail of their
website (in spite of the fact that they muck about with it regularly!).

Still, the code works, well enough that I can rely on it for my daily
fix of radio.  It would probably even work for anyone else who tried
it (on Windows, Linux, or just about any other OS). It's a mess, but
it does at least keep local dependencies in a configuration file. (I
had no trouble getting it to run on two different PCs, under both XP
and Win98SE - and, if I recall correctly, also Vista, but I never use
that laptop.)

It just pulls a lot of HTML and XML from the website, and extracts the
addresses of various other pages, and eventually *.WMA streams, and
hands the stream URLs over to XMPlay <http://www.un4seen.com/>.

It 'knows' what pages to visit, because I have manually built up a plain
text file containing a list of (at the moment) 274 BBC radio programmes,
represented by 579 different mnemonic key strings - of which the user
only needs to type in a sufficiently long initial segment to disambiguate.

Anyone else could use the same list, or build up their own, or use mine as
a basis for their own. (I just maintain it using a text editor.  I haven't
[yet] attempted to do any database programming.)

I have plenty of ideas for improving the program, but first I have to
re-organise the present spaghetti code in a more logical fashion.

That's what I've been doing for the last week or so.

(Did I say I'd be brief?  Zzzzz...)

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#77092 — Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?]

On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 01:58:16 UTC+1, Twirlip2  wrote:

> It's a mess, but
> it does at least keep local dependencies in a configuration file. (I
> had no trouble getting it to run on two different PCs, under both XP
> and Win98SE - and, if I recall correctly, also Vista, but I never use
> that laptop.)

Correction: in my tiredness (it really is past my bedtime, and it's been
a long day), I was confusing the present Python-based system with my old
Windows batch file.  I only have the Python code going on my two XP
machines (and I think on the Vista laptop as well). I don't anticipate
any difficulty in converting the Python 3 code to Python 2, so that it
can run in under Win98SE (where I don't want to reinstall anything, in
case Windows doesn't play nice, and wrecks my dual-boot setup), but I
haven't actually got around to doing it yet. (Also it would probably be
better to wait until I've improved the Python 3 version; I can manage
without radio listening on the infrequent occasions when I still boot
into Win98SE.)

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#77094 — Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 10:58 AM, Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> wrote:
> So, please give me a few weeks to improve my code, before posting it. (I
> recently came across somewhere on the Web where you can post code, but I
> forget where.)

If you're looking for hosting, I recommend one of the source control
hosting sites - github.com (for git), bitbucket.org (for hg), etc.
They generally have more facilities than just "a place to post code";
with GitHub, which I use extensively, you get issue tracker and such
as part of the package. If you're not already using some kind of local
source control, I recommend either git or hg, and most importantly, I
recommend actually using source control, because you'll be glad of it
:)

ChrisA

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#77096 — Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?]

On Wednesday, August 27, 2014 8:06:24 AM UTC+5:30, Chris Angelico wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 10:58 AM, Twirlip2  wrote:
> > So, please give me a few weeks to improve my code, before posting it. (I
> > recently came across somewhere on the Web where you can post code, but I
> > forget where.)

> If you're looking for hosting, I recommend one of the source control
> hosting sites - github.com (for git), bitbucket.org (for hg), etc.

Bitbucket has both git and hg with git the default (nowadays). And it
has free private repos (shareable by upto 5); with github you have to
pay through your nose.

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#77099 — Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 1:13 PM, Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 27, 2014 8:06:24 AM UTC+5:30, Chris Angelico wrote:
>> On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 10:58 AM, Twirlip2  wrote:
>> > So, please give me a few weeks to improve my code, before posting it. (I
>> > recently came across somewhere on the Web where you can post code, but I
>> > forget where.)
>
>> If you're looking for hosting, I recommend one of the source control
>> hosting sites - github.com (for git), bitbucket.org (for hg), etc.
>
> Bitbucket has both git and hg with git the default (nowadays). And it
> has free private repos (shareable by upto 5); with github you have to
> pay through your nose.

"etc". :)

Also, why bother with private repos, if you're using this as a means
of posting code? Just post public repos. I have a lot of them:

https://github.com/Rosuav

Quite a few aren't of great interest to most people, but there's
nothing secret there.

ChrisA

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#77120 — Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?]

On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 05:55:28 UTC+1, Chris Angelico  wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 1:13 PM, Rustom Mody <rus...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Wednesday, August 27, 2014 8:06:24 AM UTC+5:30, Chris Angelico wrote:
> >> On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 10:58 AM, Twirlip2  wrote:
> >> >
> >> > So, please give me a few weeks to improve my code, before posting it. (I
> >> > recently came across somewhere on the Web where you can post code, but I
> >> > forget where.)
> 
> >> If you're looking for hosting, I recommend one of the source control
> >> hosting sites - github.com (for git), bitbucket.org (for hg), etc.
> 
> > Bitbucket has both git and hg with git the default (nowadays). And it
> > has free private repos (shareable by upto 5); with github you have to
> > pay through your nose.
> 
> "etc". :)
> Also, why bother with private repos, if you're using this as a means
> of posting code? Just post public repos. I have a lot of them:
> 
> https://github.com/Rosuav
>
> Quite a few aren't of great interest to most people, but there's
> nothing secret there.

I'm only writing the code to please myself (primarily so that I can listen
to Web radio without a clunky Web interface, but secondarily so that I can
learn to write half-decent programs - which I have never done); so I'm free
to experiment with a style of user interface which is logical (to my mind,
at any rate!) but extremely quirky (possibly downright perverse), and would
probably annoy the hell out of anyone else who tried to use it!  So, I feel
quite deeply inhibited by the idea of posting all of the code publicly (as
opposed to whichever piece of it I'm having a problem with).  But people
did keep asking what I was 'using'. I don't /mind/ posting the code (when
I've rewritten it - which I've only just started doing); and then, anyone
else can use it, if they want - but very much at their own risk (to their
sanity and blood pressure, I mean!). One of my long-term aims is to learn
something about GUI programming, and then I'll probably try to develop a
saner interface to the same kernel functions.  Indeed, the project seems
to be large enough to help me to learn about many aspects of programming
- and I also have the idea of reading a book with a title something like
'Seven Languages in Seven Weeks' (yes - by Bruce A. Tate), and trying to
re-implement the project in as many languages as possible (possibly even
including C++, which gives me the willies); but Python appeals to me the
most to start with, and there's plenty for me to learn about it before I
start thinking of being ... er ... unfaithful to it with other languages.

I'll only learn if I'm willing to expose my code to criticism - even
ridicule and contempt, on occasion - but trying to do /all/ my work in
public would almost certainly inhibit my creativity just as much as my
perversity, so I'm not exactly eager to do it!  My natural inclination
is to be silent and secretive, but that's probably part of why I've
never learned to program well (or indeed to do anything else well).

I probably rambled on too much there (on the Net I've often tended to
overcompensate for my silence), but the gist of it is that if people
/want/ to try out my peculiar code for themselves, they're welcome to
- in a way, I'd be sort of flattered by the interest (no-one at the
Beebotron seemed interested in trying it, but then, it's not a forum
for programmers, although there are some there, who maintain it) - but
I'm not actually writing it with public acceptability in mind, and it
would inhibit me quite severely to have to do so (at this early stage,
anyway).

I found last night that I'd written more about it at the Beebotron in
May than I remembered.  There are some examples of user interaction,
timings and screenshots, particularly ...

here <http://beebotron.org/phorum/read.php?17,57317,57833#msg-57833>
(22 May) and ...

here <http://beebotron.org/phorum/read.php?17,57317,57935#msg-57935>
(26 May) ...

in a thread that I started on 8 May:

<http://beebotron.org/phorum/read.php?17,57317>
"Thoughts about designing scripts for radio listening"

But I'm changing the command-line user interface a LOT - in order to
experiment freely with some still-vague notions about what 'objects'
are - so the newer version might not actually be 'improved' in some
ways!

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#77118 — Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 2:58 AM, Twirlip2 <ahrodg@googlemail.com> wrote:
> It just pulls a lot of HTML and XML from the website, and extracts the
> addresses of various other pages, and eventually *.WMA streams, and
> hands the stream URLs over to XMPlay <http://www.un4seen.com/>.
>
> It 'knows' what pages to visit, because I have manually built up a plain
> text file containing a list of (at the moment) 274 BBC radio programmes,
> represented by 579 different mnemonic key strings - of which the user
> only needs to type in a sufficiently long initial segment to disambiguate.
>
> Anyone else could use the same list, or build up their own, or use mine as
> a basis for their own. (I just maintain it using a text editor.  I haven't
> [yet] attempted to do any database programming.)
>
> I have plenty of ideas for improving the program, but first I have to
> re-organise the present spaghetti code in a more logical fashion.

I have a better idea: use an existing solution.  get_iplayer, to be precise.

See here: http://www.infradead.org/get_iplayer/html/get_iplayer.html

It’s written in Perl.  They claim to have a Windows installer.  I have
not tested the Windows thing, but it worked fine when I set it up on
Linux, and managed to download a radio programme on August 12th.

Sample usage (on Linux, you might need to adjust for no grep)

$ get_iplayer --type=radio --refresh | grep 'Chris Evans'
12876:  The Chris Evans Breakfast Show - Borrowing Boyfriends, BBC
Radio 2, Discussion & Talk Shows,Entertainment,Music,Radio
12877:  The Chris Evans Breakfast Show - 21/08/2014, BBC Radio 2,
Discussion & Talk Shows,Entertainment,Music,Radio
12878:  The Chris Evans Breakfast Show - Peter Capaldi, Daniel
Radcliffe, Jon Hamm and Ruby Turner, BBC Radio 2, Discussion & Talk
Shows,Entertainment,Music,Radio
12879:  The Chris Evans Breakfast Show - John Bishop sits in, BBC
Radio 2, Discussion & Talk Shows,Entertainment,Music,Radio
12880:  The Chris Evans Breakfast Show - Babooshka!, BBC Radio 2,
Discussion & Talk Shows,Entertainment,Music,Radio
$ get_iplayer --type=radio 12878 --get

And kaboom, #12878, "Peter Capaldi, Daniel Radcliffe, Jon Hamm and
Ruby Turner", is downloaded and stored on your hard drive.

-- 
Chris “Kwpolska” Warrick <http://chriswarrick.com/>
PGP: 5EAAEA16
stop html mail | always bottom-post | only UTF-8 makes sense

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#77121 — Re: Python conquors the BBC [was Re: IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?]

On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 09:12:07 UTC+1, Chris "Kwpolska" Warrick  wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 2:58 AM, Twirlip2 <ahr...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > I have plenty of ideas for improving the program, but first I have to
> > re-organise the present spaghetti code in a more logical fashion.
> 
> I have a better idea: use an existing solution.  get_iplayer, to be precise.
> 
> See here: http://www.infradead.org/get_iplayer/html/get_iplayer.html
> 
> [...]

I certainly remember checking out the get_iplayer website (also, the guy who
wrote it has posted at the Beebotron), but I don't remember thinking that
it did exactly what I wanted - otherwise, of course I would have used it,
as I have been using the Beebotron itself for years (and still use it, when
it does something that my code can't do).

Equally (or even more so) on the other hand, it is a practical certainty
that my idiosyncratic Python code - written (I can't emphasise this enough)
entirely to please myself - will not do exactly what anyone else is likely
to want!

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