wxPython (Posts about Life)

New Horizons

Robin — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:12:00 GMT

For the past few months I have been working for Enthought and helping out with a new upcoming product. Since that is about to transition to a more long term employment opportunity for me I figured it would be a good idea to let the wxPython community know about it, and also to let you know about some aspects of the job that some may find a little surprising, before you hear about it as rumors or gossip.

We'll miss you Neil

Robin — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 10:51:00 GMT

Neil Armstrong

We'll miss you Neil. Breathe free. Fly high.

OS X Lion Was My Idea

Robin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:35:00 GMT

Several months ago Microsoft had an ad campaign where they would have an average Joe or Jane talk about some cool wizbang feature of Windows 7 and how it was all their idea. It was one of Microsoft's better ad campaigns, and was actually understandable by the average person without requiring the viewer to know industry inside jokes, or to understand Jerry Seinfeld, to be able to "get" the gist of the commercial. It also employed some cute gimmicks, such as when the person was remembering back to how they thought up the wonderful new idea the directors used a different actor who was younger, thinner, cuter, handsomer, and had way better hair than the real person.

Happy Towel Day!

Robin — Wed, 25 May 2011 14:08:00 GMT

Do you know where your towel is?

In memory of Laddie

Robin — Sat, 22 May 2010 11:37:00 GMT

Tribute to a Dog

The best friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us, may be the first tothrow the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads.

The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog. A man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer. He will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings, and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

If fortune drives the master forth, an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies. And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by the graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even in death.

George Graham Vest, 1870

Tweet, Tweet!

Robin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:47:00 GMT

A number of people have asked me about it and so I finally decided that it is high time that I give the whole twitter thing a try. Of course I've gotten into it late enough that my usual user name, RobinD is already taken, although that page returns an error. (I suspect that somebody got their account suspended...) Strangely enough somebody has already registered the wxPython name, although they haven't tweeted anything since last July... Anyway, if you'd like to follow me or send me messages on twitter I am known there as RobinD42. Bear with me while I take my first steps in this new environment...

Time Machine Saves Bacon

Robin — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:10:00 GMT

Yeah, I know what you're thinking... That headline sounds like something you might read while standing in the checkout line at the supermarket next to photos of aliens from the future rescuing some baby porkers from the path of a Vogon engineered tornado headed for the next trailer park on their list of sites to demolish to make room for a new highway. Well if that's what you're thinking (come on, admit it, you know you were) then you're wrong. Keep reading for some info about another kind of Time Machine, and another kind of Bacon.

"Tranquility base here, the Robin has landed..."

Robin — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:25:00 GMT

Since a number of folks have expressed interest and concern I thought I would give a quick update on my working situation. This week I've started a full-time consulting job with a small software group at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. If you attended PyCon a couple years ago then you may have seen their talk about IntúaCare and IntúaDesign. That is the project that I'll be working with. I'll be working with wxPython a lot, and probably also working on wxWidgets and wxPython to some extent as well, although not as much as I did with OSAF.

I'm excited to be working on this project. Not just because of wxPython, but also because I have previous experience with the subject matter. My first major job out of college was working on software products that had a lot of the same goals as the IntúaSolutions products: essentially to be a highly dynamic and flexible solution for collecting and reporting medical patient care data in hospitals. The key here is the "highly dynamic and flexible" part, the intent is to have a set of domain-specific tools where unskilled (a.k.a non-programmers) but knowledgeable people can easily tailor the application to the needs of each hospital, or even each department within the hospital. My former experience with this was back in the dark days of DOS so the products had only a textual user interface, but I think we managed to accomplish a lot with it and it was a very successful product line, and at least as of a few years ago it was still going strong, although they've modernized a bunch of things since I worked there.

Obviously a few things have changed in the computer world since then. I discovered Python a year or so after I left that job and I've always wondered what it would have been like if we had used Python as the internal macro/calculation/filtering/query language instead of our home-grown RDL (for anyone outside of the marketing group and the customers that acronym stands for Robin Dunn's Language, otherwise it is Rule Definition Language.) Since that time we've also gone through the rise of the graphical user interface, the explosion of the World Wide Web, and my current notebook computer has 7.5 times the number of pixels on screen and 8 times more RAM than the hard drive space in the brand new top of the line desktop computer I had when we started that project! It should be fun to be able to apply modern technology and my new skills to similar features and issues that I dealt with 14-18 years ago.

I've linked to this video as a way to let you know how big of an effort this job search seemed to be at times, and also how good it felt when it was finally complete.

:-)

All good things...

Robin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:42:00 GMT

As they say, all good things must come to an end. However no matter how much you expect the inevitable, it's still a bit of a downer when it does happen.

The Open Source Applications Foundation has been sponsoring my work on wxPython for about 5 years now. I spend about half of my time working on Chandler, supporting the other OSAF engineers with wxPython questions or problems, or in working on specific needs that OSAF has in wxWidgets or wxPython itself. I'm free to spend the other half of my time working on wxWidgets or wxPython in whatever way I want. Typically I use a big chunk of this time supporting the wxPython community, answering questions on the mail lists, tracking down bugs that people report, etc. but I also work on other features or long-term goals for wxPython that may not necessarily line up with some immediate need that Chandler has. It's been a real good deal for everybody involved. I've been able to get paid for working on my favorite hobby, the Chandler project has gotten the support and expertise that they needed, the wxPython community has also had a large block of my time and attention, and wxPython itself has had many improvements and enhancements that I likely would not have had time for otherwise.

This week OSAF announced a restructuring and downsizing of the Chandler team. They want to shift the focus more towards gaining more users and, since it is an Open Source project, the building up of a volunteer developer community. The other goal behind the transition is a desire to stretch out the remaining funding until the project can find a way to become self-sustaining. As you've probably guessed by now, I was not one of the worker bees kept in the hive. I've got a few weeks left on my contract and then I'll be making my own transition to something else. Although I've known this was coming, I didn't expect it until the end of this year, so it's still a bit of a disappointment.

So what does this mean for wxPython? Hopefully nothing, other than some reduction in the time I am able to spend focused on wxPython. It would be great to be able to find someone willing to support my working on wxPython part time like OSAF did, but it's probably pretty unlikely that that particular lightning will strike in the same place twice. On the other hand, I expect that my next gig will be something that at least uses wxPython so there will be some opportunities for some of that work to roll down to wxPython and the community. Of course, on the gripping hand, if you or somebody you know would be interested in sponsoring at least part-time work on wxPython, please do contact me.

Update: This news was noticed by the New York Times.

So maybe it's not a fad afterall...

Robin — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 20:19:00 GMT

A few years ago I realized that this whole "blogging thing" wasn't just a passing fad, and decided that maybe I should jump on the bandwagon and do a bit of blogging myself. After all, within certain communities I'm a fairly well known Internet personality, the de-facto leader of one of those communities, and involved in several others to varying levels. So why shouldn't I blog?

Fast-forward three years... Looking back I see a series of Life Events™, tons of work, and plenty of excuses that have gotten in the way to actually moving forward with this project. However a few days ago a family member asked me to set up a blog for them on my site, and I decided that I couldn't make excuses to myself any longer and that it is past time that I do one for myself. So I set this up at the same time as the other blog and here it is. Now I have a place to write about Life, the Universe, and Everything, and anything else that tickles my fancy from time to time. Hopefully you'll enjoy reading as much as I hope to enjoy writing it.