Trent Mick

February VanPyZ meeting at ActiveState on Tuesday

2010-01-30T14:16:00.000-08:00

The February VanPyZ meeting will be hosted at ActiveState this coming Tuesday evening. I posted details on my work blog. Myself and Michael Grünewald will be speaking on recent ActiveState Code work and Brett Cannon will be speaking on his importers project. See you there.

"VanPyZ" is the Vancouver Python user group.

Komodo 5.1.1: fixes, path mode in Fast Open dialog, Perl::Critic integration

2009-04-02T06:50:00.009-07:00

We (ActiveState) released Komodo 5.1.1 today. Get it here:

Komodo IDE: http://www.activestate.com/komodo/downloads/

Komodo Edit: http://www.activestate.com/komodo_edit/downloads/

Or, if you are currently running Komodo 5.1.0, click "Help > Check for Updates...". This is a bug fix release and is recommended for all users. See below for details.

Bug fixes

Two important bug fixes in this release are:

Fixed problem in re-generating the variable tabs in the debugger (Komodo IDE) which caused slowdowns and hangs when debugger was run repeatedly. (Bug 82518, bug 82542, bug 82426, bug 82557).
Fixed a bug where closing a tab would switch to the wrong remaining tab causing potential problems, such as the Komodo window titlebar no longer updating properly (bug 82474).

See the Release Notes for a full list of changes.

A couple new features

This release also include two tweaks to existing features that didn't quite make the final 5.1.0 release.

Fast Open dialog

The Komodo 5.1.0 release included the new "Fast Open" dialog. In Komodo 5.1.1 the fast open dialog now has path mode support. This means that you can now use the fast open dialog for opening:

an absolute path: /etc/httpd/httpd.conf
a relative path (where relative is relative to the directory of every tab you have open in your Komodo window): ../foo.py
a path under your HOME directory: ~/wrk/coolstuff.rb

Note that the latter also works on Windows if you manually set a HOME environment variable to whereever you tend to put your files. For example, on Windows XP, I certainly don't use "C:\Documents and Settings\trentm" as my main working directory.

PerlCritic

Perl users of Komodo can now easily get syntax checking results from Perl::Critic -- "a static source code analyzer based (mostly) on Damian Conway's book 'Perl Best Practices.'". To setup you just need the "Perl-Critic" and "criticism" Perl modules installed. With ActivePerl you can do this:

ppm install Perl-Critic
ppm install criticism

Then select the warning level in Komodo's "Perl" preferences panel. This screenshot shows the result of "Brutal" warnings on Gisle Aas's LWP::UserAgent.

Users interested in more in-depth analysis and integration with Perl::Critic should take a look at ActiveState's Perl Dev Kit 8.0.

General information

Komodo IDE 5.1 is a free upgrade for Komodo IDE 5.x license holders. Your license entitles you to run Komodo IDE on any of the platforms we support (Windows, Mac OS X and Linux). Komodo Edit 5.1 is, as ever, open-source and free.

downloads	Komodo IDE \| Komodo Edit
forums	http://community.activestate.com/products/Komodo
email	http://listserv.activestate.com/mailman/listinfo/komodo-discuss
bugs	http://bugs.activestate.com/enter_bug.cgi?product=Komodo

New Recipes feed improvement

2008-07-25T02:08:00.009-07:00

The new ActiveState Code site improves a little bit on the feeds for new recipes.

Before

After

ActiveState Code: lauched!

2008-07-24T12:45:00.009-07:00

We launched ActiveState Code today, and there was much rejoicing. Yaaaah!

ActiveState Code is a site for sharing code recipes. It is the replacement for the popular ASPN Cookbooks (especially the Python Cookbook, which was a collaboration with O'Reilly and Associates that resulted in two print cookbooks using recipes from the site). The new site adds things like tagging, the ability to add recipes in a number of other languages, and a fresher and hopefully more usable site.

Migration should be easy. All recipes from the Python, Tcl and PHP Cookbooks have been carried over. Redirects maintain all old aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbooks links. Recipe id and author ids have been maintained. The ASPN Cookbook categories have been translated into tags in the new system -- full details here.

I welcome any feedback on the site.

Switching from ASPN Cookbooks to ActiveState Code today

2008-07-24T01:30:00.009-07:00

We hope to be switching over from the ASPN Cookbooks to the new ActiveState Code site today. Please be patient if the site is down for a short while. We expect the process to take about an hour or two late this afternoon (PST).

I've had lots of good feedback from the Python community (Apologies if I haven't gotten back to you yet. I will.) and have made a number of changes based on that feedback. I'll post more details once the site has been switched over.

ActiveState Code: the new ASPN Cookbooks

2008-07-08T07:32:00.009-07:00

ActiveState Code has been launched (in beta)! ActiveState Code is a new site that will be the eventual replacement of the venerable ASPN Cookbooks -- in particular the popular Python Cookbook.

What this site offers over the ASPN Cookbooks:

a complete visual refresh (long overdue)
full tagging support of recipes
support for many many more languages (the ASPN Cookbooks were restricted to Python, PHP, Tcl and XSLT recipes)

In addition, the new site provides a sound foundation for other improvements -- so tell us what you think!. What is missing? What doesn't work? What would make the site more useful for you? for your community?

While the site is in beta, new recipes, comments and votes are not saved -- instead the site's data will be sync'd from the ASPN Cookbooks most nights. The plan is to fully move to this new site in two weeks, shutting down the old ASPN Cookbooks (redirects will preserve all old links).