When I created dpaste, I tried to make it both a simple browser-based tool and a simple RESTful API. With very little work you could write a script that created a new paste item with a single POST.
Over the life of the site a few people have discovered and played with that “secret” API. I’ve now made it a bit more official. The new API has its own URL (versioned, even!) and is more tolerant of missing data, just like the web form.
“I’m a PHP programmer and I want to check out this Django thing. What should I do?”
I’ve been seeing this kind of question pop up more and more, and I have a few answers.
First-hand experience as well as many conversations with developers online have led me to the same conclusion: the curious person behind such a question should be encouraged and assisted. (I’ll call that person “Pat” for the rest of the post, for convenience and conscientious gender-neutrality.)
There are connections between programming and my favorite ice cream.
In our new book on Django, I used the sentence “My favorite ice cream is Herrell’s” in some example code where I needed text – a tribute to my favorite local ice cream parlor.
Walking by Herrell’s this afternoon, I saw Steve Herrell inside. Because I had a copy of my book with me, I decided I’d see if he wanted to take a quick look at the code snippet. He did. He took this odd testimonial with grace and good humor, and thanked me.
This post is not about any of my usual software or hardware topics, but it still is nerdy.
The flashlight.
Parliament’s classic song on the subject tells us that “everybody’s got a little light under the sun.” It’s good to have a little light, especially when the sun isn’t around. But some little lights are better than others.
The best thing that has happened to flashlights in recent years, especially little ones, is the rise of the LED. Compared to their predecessors, LED lamps are smaller, more efficient, more durable, and much longer burning.
It will surprise few that I have not yet given Apple $10 for the privilege of upgrading my iPod touch (“iPt”) firmware from 1.1.5 to 2.x.
At first, I resisted out of attachment to the open source software I had installed via Cydia – with no supported “upgrade” process per se, I would have had to reinstall all my packages manually. Then I saw that my core uses of the iPt (email, web browsing, audio, calendar, contacts) all used the Apple software, so I leaned toward the upgrade.