Executable Abstractions 2004/1

PyDS Wishes

As mentioned earlier, I like PyDS, in particular for its upstreaming facilities and its native language.

But, I am finding some enhancements that I need to work on. Here's some notes to self of things to do.

Categories: Basic categories work. However, it turns out that currently, PyDS only supports a flat set of categories, no hierarchy.

This will not do in the long run, but for now I will live with it.

PyDS as a Service: Need to convert PyDS to run as a windows service

Pinging: For some reason, pinging of weblogs.com and the like is not working, even though I think I've configured it correctly. Could it have something to do with the fact that I am upstreaming via ftp?

Python Spoken Here

Python will play a role in the explorations here. I have grown increasingly enamored with python over the past 6 months as I've become acquainted with it, and find myself turning to it more and more.

Frankly, in a way it seemed more like it found me. All of the emerging technologies that I was exploring (that list will have to wait for another post, but I can at least mention Jabber, mod_pubsub, and Leo) seemed to have one thing in common - they all had either python foundations or python interfaces! If I was to blend them all together as I envisioned, I would need to learn python. That was the start, roughly 9 months ago.

Then selective attention kicked in. Suddenly, everywhere I looked, python was popping up, and I found that many of the modelers and hackers on the 'net that I most revered were in fact python-heads at heart.

And finally, about 4 months ago, as I got my new domain registered and hosted, and was trying to determine how to most easily bootstrap my blog, I found PyDS, a blogging system that not only supported upstreaming (which I needed), but also was crafted in, what else, python.

PS: This post is also a first test of categories in PyDS

Executable Abstractions

OK, finally, the first real post on this new domain name and new blog.

So, what are 'executable abstractions'?

This is a term that is general enough for a modeler/hacker like myself to give me a lot of latitude in what I cover here, but that also captures the essence of two personal passions.

It is broad and general in that it is a fair way of describing any runnable code; I think I first heard someone use it in a sentence in a post by Don Box.

More specifically, though:

I realize this is still rather vague. The purpose of the work on this site and blog is to explore these two areas, as well as their confluence. Hopefully the meaning will emerge over time.