Parsing

Bah. Parsers: straightforward in theory, fiddly in practice. I have a mostly-reliable lexer (in that it's generating the right tokens, but my comment-stripper mysteriously seems to be executing before it should, messing up URIs that contain hashes…), and a grammar that compiles, though it would be a stretch to say that it works. When I look at it with a clear head, on a cooler day, with pad and pen, it will all fall into place.

Speaking of working, I'm going to stop for the evening. I've got to make my way into London tomorrow for my paperwork-heavy US Embassy interview, and I'd like to be relaxed. I won't be, of course — it will be incredibly hot, and if there's one place not to be when it's a blazing hot day it's on a train.

Lesson for the evening: appreciate just how lucky you are, and try not to worry about things you have no control over. Now, to put it into practice….

Posted at 2005-06-20 14:27:28 by Richard • Link to Parsing
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ab.py

I noticed that Leo Sauermann linked to my Address Book converter, so I took the time to upload a new version. This one is a little better, but more importantly works on Tiger. It's also the cruddiest piece of Python I've ever seen, so if you value your sanity (particularly if you know Python), don't read the code.

It's due a rewrite, I think.

Comments welcome.

Posted at 2005-06-20 09:37:43 by Richard • Link to ab.py
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iPod to car stereo redux

A mere 4.5 days after I ordered a VR3 FM modulator, it arrived from the States. It's small, well-made, comes with a little cable, and does exactly what it claims to. Props to the seller, benboxalljnr.

The quality isn't up to CD — to be expected — but on car journeys should be fine. That's FM for you.

The advantages are that I didn't have to drill, cut, or solder anything, and it didn't cost me very much at all. I'm willing to sacrifice a little quality for that.

Interestingly, I don't think the sound quality is quite as good as my sorely-missed tape adaptor, but it's a good deal better than Anthony's (which was so awful I actually chose silence over listening through it).

Posted at 2005-06-20 08:07:40 by Richard • Link to iPod to car stereo…
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Internet Computing paper

Our (by which I mean Mike, Tim, Diana, and myself) IEEE Internet Computing paper is in the latest issue; rather handily, 5 copies arrived in the post this morning, so that's birthday presents sorted for a while!

Bibliographic information is up on my slim-line publications page.

Posted at 2005-06-20 03:58:09 by Richard • Link to Internet Computing…
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