Programming Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jan 19, 2023

• Makulu Max Development notes updated. - MakuluLinux

  We have updated the Makulu Max development notes with highlights from the last time we updated ( October ), The highlights now show all development notes up until 07 January 2023. We will continue to update the notes until Max is ready for Public release.

• Qt Quick additions to Qt5

  Some time ago we released some QML components as part of the Qt6 which was well received. However, this led the Qt5 users not having them as Qt5 cannot have new APIs without extra magic. So, as some of you already saw, we removed the prices of the marketplace items that this is about.

  So, unless you have not done it, now is good time to enhance your Qt5 environment with modules like TreeView, CalendarView and Multieffects. If you are not familiar with these, here's a small recap:

• Dave Airlie: vulkan video decoding: anv status update

  After hacking the Intel media-driver and ffmpeg I managed to work out how the anv hardware mostly works now for h264 decoding.

  I've pushed a branch [1] and a MR[2] to mesa. The basics of h264 decoding are working great on gen9 and compatible hardware. I've tested it on my one Lenovo WhiskeyLake laptop.

• The Biggest Problem In Real-World Computer Programming

  Indeed, there is an old joke about consultants (or whizkid new workers) who come into a shop, rewrite everything using the coolness-of-the-week, get it halfway working, then move on to the next shop, leaving dozens or hundreds of workers spending the rest of their careers trying to clean up. It's funny because it's true. The overwhelming majority of work in our field might best be described as cleaning up after somebody else who never knew how to end a project.

• Game of Trees 0.80 released.

  Game of Trees 0.80 has been released (and the port updated).

• Functional Classes

  What are those elements? It seems obvious that the classification structures of objects ought to be high on the list. Namespaced function libraries like java.lang.Math are another obvious choice. In the one case we have a batch of functions that manipulate an internal data structure. In the other case we have a batch of functions that manipulate an external data structure.

  The essential charachteristic of these elements, these batches of functions, is that they are internally cohesive. That means that all the functions in the batch are strongly related to each other because they manipulate the same data structures, whether internal or external. It is that cohesion that drives the partitioning of a software design.

• Examples of problems with integers

  Like last time, I’ve written some example programs to demonstrate these problems. I’ve tried to use a variety of languages in the examples (Go, Javascript, Java, and C) to show that these problems don’t just show up in super low level C programs – integers are everywhere!

  Also I’ve probably made some mistakes in here, I learned several things while writing this.

• Evolution Preserves the Status Quo

  In other words, the point of natural selection is to act as a preservative around important functions of the organism. Sure, some degree of improvement happens the way I used to think; some random mutations are actually good. But these are usually smaller, incremental improvements. Here’s the trick: changes to inconsequential functions aren’t obviously bad, so they might survive. The largest number of mutations happen in functions with low utility.33 And indeed, biologists measure the utility of a function by its rate of mutation. Inconsequential functions can still change quite a bit, because natural selection does not guard them as jelously.

• gui_engine function hierarchy

  It is looking good as a GUI toolkit for the initrd, so embarking on analyzing how it works. There is no documentation and just one example, 'example.c'. The file 'gui_engine.c' provides functions that an application can call.

• Statically-linked gui_engine example with TTF support is 560KB

• pandoc 3.0 released

  Split pandoc-server, pandoc-cli, and pandoc-lua-engine into separate packages (#8309). Note that installing the pandoc package from Hackage will no longer give you the pandoc executable; for that you need to install pandoc-cli.

• Can I Program a Raspberry Pi with Python Over SSH?

  Python is a versatile and widely used programming language for developing various useful applications in the field of robotics, IoT, Big Data, and Machine Learning. People mostly used this programming language to develop websites, applications, automate tasks and perform data analysis. This language is the official language of the Raspberry Pi system, thus, it’s fair to say that it plays an important part for the users using the Raspberry Pi OS GUI version on their device. However, the question needs to be asked whether there is a possibility to program the Raspberry Pi with Python over SSH. The reason is most people preferred accessing the Raspberry Pi terminal over SSH.

  This article is a detailed guide for those users who want to learn Python on Raspberry Pi through SSH.

• How to fix an IndexError in Python

  If you use Python, you may have encountered the IndexError error in response to some code you've written. The IndexError message in Python is a runtime error. To understand what it is and how to fix it, you must first understand what an index is. A Python list (or array or dictionary) has an index. The index of an item is its position within a list. To access an item in a list, you use its index. For instance, consider this Python list of fruits:

  This list's range is 5, because an index in Python starts at 0.

  Suppose you need to print the fruit name pear from this list. You can use a simple print statement, along with the list name and the index of the item you want to print:

• Util::H2O and More, during Ordinary Times

  During the 2022 Perl Advent, in particular the entry for December 06; Perl Advent fans were introduced to a little module called Util::H2O.

  A lot has already been said about Util::H2O, and this author uses it a lot in client and production code because it helps produce very clean and maintainable HASH reference heavy code. So much so, that he created the Util::H2O::More module to encapsulate some common tasks and additional capabilities for working between pure Perl data structures and blessed objects that have real data accessors, in a natural and idiomatic way.

• Perl Weekly Challenge 200: Arithmetic Slices and Seven Segment Display

• This Week In Rust: This Week in Rust 478

• Building up Rust

  My first languages were IBM 360 Assembler and C. I've always been fond of low-level languages. If I were going to become a developer today, my first choice would be Rust. The language has already become a critical system-building language for the Linux kernel, Windows, Chrome, and Android. But, as a young language, it still needs help moving forward, and that's where the Rust Foundation’s Community Grants Program comes in.

  These provide funds to Rust developers and others in the community to support the work of Rust’s hardworking maintainers and leaders. It consists of financial awards ranging from $2,500 to $15,000 USD that fund short-term Rust-related projects, carried out by both individuals and organizations.

• Hello, PNG!

  I'm writing this article to fulfil my role as a PNG evangelist, spreading the joy of good-enough lossless image compression to every corner of the internet. Similar articles already exist, but this one is mine.

  I'll be referencing the Working Draft of the PNG Specification (Third Edition) released in October 2022 (!), but every feature I mention here should still be present in the 1.0 spec. I'll aim to update this article once the Third Edition releases officially.