Have been very busy at work lately.  We made the decision about a month ago to switch (most|all) new projects over to use Python 3 with Apache, mod_wsgi, and AppStruct.  You may know what the first 3 are, but the 4th??

Special thanks goes to Graham Dumpleton behind mod_wsgi, and James William Pye behind Python>>Postgresql.   They are not involved or affiliated with AppCove or AppStruct (aside from great mailing list support) BUT if it were not for them, this framework would not exist.

AppStruct is a component of Shank, a meta-framework.  A stand-alone component in it’s own right, it represents the AppCove approach to web-application development.  Most of it is in planning, but the parts that have materialized are really, really cool.

Briefly, I’ll cover the two emerging areas of interest:

AppStruct.WSGI

This is a very pythonic (in my opinion) web application framework targeted toward Python 3.1 (a challenge in itself at this point).  We really wanted to base new development on Python 3.1+, as well as PostgreSQL using the excellent Python3/PostgreSQL library at http://python.projects.postgresql.org/.  However, none of the popular frameworks that I am aware of support Python 3, and most (if not all) of them have a lot of baggage I do not want to bring to the party.

Werkzeug was the most promising, but alas, I could not find Python 3 support for it either.  In fact, I intend to utilize a good bit of code from Werkzeug in finishing off AppStruct.WSGI.  (Don’t you just love good OSS licences?  AppStruct will be released under one of those also).

HTTP is just not that complicated.  It dosen’t need bundled up into n layers of indecipherable framework upon framework layers.   It doesn’t need abstracted to death.  I just needs to be streamlined a bit (with regard to request routing, reading headers, etc…).

Python is an amazing OO language.  It’s object model (or data model) is one of (if not the) most well conceived of any similar language, ever.  I want to use that to our advantage…

Inheritance, including multiple inheritance, has very simple rules in Python.  Want to use that as well.

Wish to provide developers with access to the low level guts they need for 2% of the requests, but not make them do extra work for the 98% of requests.

Speed is of the essence.  Servers are not cheap, and if you can increase your throughput by 5x, then that’s a lot less servers you need to pay for.

So, how does it work?

Well, those details can wait for another post.  But at this point the library is < 1000 lines of code, and does a lot of interesting things.

• A fully compliant WSGI application object
• 1 to 1 request routing to Python packages/modules/classes
• All request classes derived from AppStruct.WSGI.Request

The application maps requests like /some/path/here to objects, like Project.WSGI.some.path.here.  If there is a trailing slash, then the application assumes that the class is named Index.  The object that is found is verified to be a subclass of AppStruct.WSGI.Request, and then…

Wait!  What about security?

Yes, yes, very important.  A couple things to point out.  First, the URLs are passed through a regular expression that ensures that they adhere to only the characters that may be used in valid python identifiers (not starting with _), delimited by “/”.  Second, the import and attribute lookup verify that any object (eg class) found is a subclass of the right thing.  And so on and so forth…

But you may say “wait, what about my/fancy-shmancy/urls/that-i-am-used-to-seeing?  Ever hear of mod_rewrite?  Yep.  Not trying to re-invent the wheel.  Use apache for what it was made for, not just a dumb request handler.

What about these request objects?

They are quite straightforward.  There are several attributes which represent request data, the environment, query string variables, post variables, and more.  There is a .Response attribute which maps to a very lightweight response object.

Speaking of it — it has only 4 attributes: [Status, Header, Iterator, Length].  As you see, it’s pretty low-level-wsgi-stuff.  But the developer would rarely interact with it, other than to call a method like .Response.Redirect(‘http://somewhere-else.com’, 302)

Once the application finds the class responsible for handling the URL, it simply does this (sans exception catching code):

RequestObject = Request(...)

with RequestObject:
   RequestObject.Code()
   RequestObject.Data()

return RequestObject.Response

Wow, that’s simple.  Let me point out one more detail.  The default implementation of Data() does this:

def Data(self):
   self.Response.Iterator = [self.Text()]
   self.Response.Length = len(self.Response.Iterator[0])

So the only thing really required of this Request class is to override Text() and return some text?  Yep, that simple.

But typically, you would at some point mixin a template class that would do something like this:

class GoodLookingLayout:
   def Text(self):
      return ( 
         """<html><head>...</head><body><menu>""" +
         self.Menu() +
         """</menu><div>""" +
         self.Body() +
         """</div></body></html>"""
         )

And then it would be up to the developer to override Menu and Body (each returning the appropriate content for the page).

Ohh, you may say.  What about templating engine X?  Well, it didn’t support Python 3, and I probabally didn’t want it anyway (for 9 reasons)…  If it’s really, really good and fits this structure, drop me a line, please.

What about that Code() method?

Yeah, that’s the place that any “logic” of UI interaction should go.  I’m not advocating mixing logic and content here, but you could do that if you wanted.  You will find in our code, a seperate package for application business logic and data access that the request classes will call upon.  But again, if you are writing a one page wonder, why go to all the trouble?

The only requirement for the Code() method is that it calls super().Code() at the top.  Since the idea is that the class .Foo.Bar.Baz.Index will inherit from the class .Foo.Bar.Index, this gives you a very flexible point of creating .htaccess style initialization/access-control code in one place.  So in /Admin/Index, you could put a bit of code in Code() which ensures the user is logged in.  This code will be run by all sub-pages, therefore ensuring that access control is maintained.  Relative imports are important for this task.

from .. import Index as PARENT
from AppStruct.WSGI.Util import *

class Index(PARENT):
   def Code(self):
      super().Code()
      self.Name = self.Post.FirstName + " " + self.Post.LastName
      # some other init stuff
   def Body(self):
      return "Hello there " + HS(self.Name) + "!"

Summary of AppStruct.WSGI…

To get up and running with a web-app using this library:

1. A couple mod_wsgi lines in httpd.conf
2. A .wsgi file that has 1 import and 1 line of code
3. A request class in a package that matches an expected URI (myproject.wsgi.admin.foo ==  /admin/foo)

Speed?

With no database calls, it’s pushing over 2,000 requests per second on a dev server.  With a couple PostgreSQL calls, it is pushing out ~ 800 per second.

AppStruct.Database.PostgreSQL

This is not nearly as deep as the WSGI side of AppStruct, but still really cool.  To start off, I’d like to say that James William Pye has created an amazing Postgresql connection library in Python 3.  I mean just amazing.  In fact, almost so amazing that I didn’t want to change it (but then again…)

What we did here was subclass the Connection, PreparedStatement, and Row classes.  (well, actually replaced the Row class).

Once these were subclassed, we simply added a couple useful features.  Keep in mind that all of the great functionality of the underlying library is retained.

Connection.CachePrepare(SQL)
Connection._PS_Cache

Simply a dictionary of {SQL: PreparedStatementObject} that resides on the connection object.  When you directly or indirectly invoke CachePrepare, it says “if this SQL is in the cache, return the associated object.  Otherwise, prepare it, cache it, and return it”.  This approach really simplifies the storing of prepared statement objects in a multi-threaded environment, where there is really no good place to store them (and be thread safe, connection-failure safe, etc…)

Connection.Value(SQL, *args, **kwargs)
Connection.Row(SQL, *args, **kwargs)

These simple functions take (SQL, *args, **kwargs) and return either a single value or a single row.  They will raise an exception is != 1 row is found.  They make use of CachePrepare(), so you get the performance benefits of prepared statements without the hassle.  More on *args, **kwargs later under PrePrepare()

Connection.ValueList(SQL, *args, **kwargs)
Connection.RowList(SQL, *args, **kwargs)

Same as above, except returns an iterator (or list, not sure) of  zero or more values or rows.

Row class

Simply a dictionary that also supports attribute style access of items.  After evaluating the Tuple that behaves like a mapping, I decided for our needs, a simple dict would be a better representation of a row.

Connection.PrePreprepare(SQL, args, kwargs) -> (SQL, args)

Ok, so what’s the big deal?  Well, the big deal is that we don’t like positional parameters.  They are confusing to write, read, analyze, and see what the heck is going on when you get about 30 fields in an insert statement.  Feel free to argue, but maybe I’m not as young as I once was.

We do like keyword parameters.  But postgresql prepared statement api uses numeric positional parameters.  Not changing that…

The most simple use case is to pass SQL and keyword arguments.

"SELECT a,b,c FROM table WHERE id = $id AND name = $name"
dict(id=100, name='joe')

It returns

"SELECT a,b,c FROM table WHERE id = $1 AND name = $2"
(100, "joe")

Which is suitable for passing directly into the Connection.prepare() method that came with the underlying library.

I don’t know about you, but we find this to be very, very useful.

If you pass tuples of (field, value) as positional arguments, then they will replace [Field], [Value], and [Field=Value] (in the SQL) with lists of fields, lists of values (eg $1, $2), or lists of field=values (eg name=$1, age=$2).  That really takes the verbosity out of INSERT and UPDATE statements with long field lists.

Conclusion

This is just in the early stages, and has a good deal of polishing to be done (especially on the WSGI side).  My purpose here was to introduce you to what you can expect to get with AppStruct, some of the rationale behind it, and that it’s really not that hard to take the bull by the horns and make software do what you want it to (especially if you use python).

Feel free to comment.

Please…may I sniff your Klompen Kloggen?  What?  Here, right in front of everyone?  I’ve got my Klompen Kloggen pouched at the moment, but I’ll take it out and roll it between my fingers, before I firmly massage it into that small bowl of yours.  The shank will need to be necked before you bring it to your lips and inhale deeply, because the stem is still a little moist.  Who would have thought that pipe smoking was so complex?   

She wants my Klompen Kloggen

The best kitchen investment I ever made were my knives. I purchased the Shun Classic Series

8″ chefs knife  http://www.kershawknives.com/productdetails.php?id=253&brand=shun

3 1/2 in. Paring kife  http://www.kershawknives.com/productdetails.php?id=244&brand=shun

honing steel   http://www.cheftools.com/Shun-Classic-Honing-Steel-9-inch/productinfo/12-0884/

I really dont have a need for anything else, actually I could do just fine with only my chef’s and steel, the steel is a must I use it all the time.

I’ve used my chef knife almost daily for the last 2 years without a sharpening and the blade is still sharp, although I’m feeling like it might be ready for one soon.  Im not good with a stone (the only way I’ll have it sharpened) so I need to find me someone who is a badass with one.

The feel of these knives are amazing but what actually sold me on them, well at least for the chefs knife is their “D” shaped handle.  While I am left handed and these knives are designed for the right handed  the unique design molds to my hand perfectly how I hold it, if you are in the market and especially left handed you should check these out.

“Don’t touch my dick, don’t touch my knife.”
— Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly)

 King Kong by Shank

2009 (17 tracks, 58:52)

hip-hop/rap

CBS is all over the news that someone was stabbed at 1am this morning.  I guess the new froyo place is not keeping away the crime.  Whoops.

Over the past few months I’ve been enjoying a rebirth of my golf swing and thus my game under the mentorship and tutelage of Don Trahan and his wonderful Peak Performance Golf Swing.

I now have a set of clubs (Tour Edge – Wide Soles) that I can hit well from LW to 3i. This has enabled me to improve my GIR stat.

Everything was going along smoothly when all of sudden I couldn’t make solid contact with the ball. The dreaded Sh….’s appeared. What was I doing wrong? I wondered. I went to the range. No help. I found a practice area where I could hit full 9’s – oh no, what the heck is going on?

To go from feeling powerful and in control of my swing and game to this – oh the emotional  roller coaster ride of golf.

Don Trahan has drilled into me that the problem was most likely to be found in my set up.

Today was my day off and I wanted to play badly. It was a dry, but threatening fall Seattle day. I decided I’d best go to the range and find out where the balls were going. Oh no! Not that again. I finished the bucket without figuring anything out and decided to go to another range near-by that I felt more comfortable at.

I started off poorly. Wham, I hit a good shot. I checked my set up to see if I could discern what had changed. It was my GRIP! My thumb was rolled over to the right further. A shift of only 1pm to 2pm. A shift from a weak grip to a slightly stronger one.

This tiny, simple change made all the difference in the world. All of a sudden the balls were flying staight and the distances I’d been used to albeit 5 yrds less due to the colder temperature.

I was really shocked to realize that this minor adjustment could cause shot an improvement. I found myself thinking, “How can I mark my grips so I’ll make sure to put my thumb in the right place.”

Guess Don is right when he says, if you’re not hitting it well there’s probably a problem with your grip, stance, or alignment – your set-up!

Shank is the second game from Klei, makers of XBLA hit a few years back Eets: Chowdown. They also had a hand in N+, also for XBLA. This time around Klei are going down the road of scrolling beat em up and boy are they doing it in style! The amazing graphic novel visuals combined with violence the likes of which would make John Rambo blush to make an action game to beat all others. The game strikes me as the bastard son of Metal Slug and Castle Crashers and that sure makes for a pretty baby!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgXdG0J_9fI

MG

I haven’t updated this blog for weeks! I’m really sorry. I’ve been in Germany for 2 weeks, then been busy with filming (SHANK – in cinemas May 2010) and now I’m preparing myself for my California holiday with my bestie Sab plus we gonna film another music video next Sunday.

Busy beee…oh yesh!

Just thought I’d give you a bit of a BEST OF the stuff I found within the last few weeks …..

The 13 Most Unintentionally Disturbing Children’s Toys

http://www.cracked.com/article_17493_13-most-unintentionally-disturbing-childrens-toys.html

reeeeeeally digging the yodeling lederhosen by the way!!

Baby dancing to Beyonce

Oh and let’s add some CHOOOOOOOOOOOONS =)

BASHY

AKALA

MR SHAODOW

THE BASEBALLS

THE PRODIGY

If you want to get involved and see your face on the big screen alongside Bashy,  Adam Deacon (Kidulthood), Kaya Scodelario (Skins) and D Double E, email your name(s) to CastingForShank@googlemail.com, then turn up tomorrow morning.

Ten days ago, I arrived back to the farm, jolly, clean and eager to do some damage to some apple suckers. Oo, oo, it was a quick start to the dirt as a visit to the rental shop brought us this little beauty.

The newest Deere in my life.

Our new toy came equipped with an earth moving bucket in the front and 2, 2 foot shanks in the back. Oh my, what a marvel! So, it was done, and the John Deere 450 was to be delivered that afternoon. We departed the rental shop to the words “Good luck. You’ll find things you never knew you had.” Hmm. I thought I heard that one somewhere before. No matter. Off, to the site.

With the intention to shank all ten acres our first day ended by carefully staying to the west side of the new road made in July. Why? Well, “you’ll find things you didn’t even know you had” turned up a six inch water main, we didn’t, well, even know we had. Darnit. All that work tracking down information about the previous orchard water system in July certainly didn’t prepare us for this mondo pipe! It was as if it had been born from the stars and birthed from the earth beneath our eyes.

What was that?

Zoiks!

So, our first eager day of shanking ended with sun down at seven. Phew!

WineGirl,

WG

John Deere 450

The Challenge

The Enemy

Lunchtime

The Challenger

Lowering the Shanks

Future of Chelan Terroir

Nothing's too big for the Shanker!

A tangled web we weave.

Getting Rid of Junk

Can we list "old iron pipe" on Craigslist?

The Super Shank Damages

Shank, the side-scrolling beat-em up that made me renown fate in the genre.

Back in the 90’s, I used to change controllers on my NES regularly. The Ninja Turtles and Double Dragon were just a few of the causes. Can’t have a beat-em up without beating-up those buttons.

Buttons to buttons and dust to dust. There seems to be a lot of it in the demo (grenade dust, that is).  And guns, lots of guns. Chainsaws too.  All of them to backup the main weapon, which is the SHANK.

Besides the killer arsenal, there is a combo system as well that produces endless amounts of eye candy, lots of bad guys and bosses and an impressive visual style that ’s almost like playing through a comic book’s pages.

More info to come about Shank, that’s for sure. Keep in touch.

Those countless hours of Ninja Gaiden finally paid off for one serious gamer.

Here is a rule of thumb for thieves, don’t break into a residence of some college kid who owns a sword and wants to put it to real-life use. One burglar disregarded this rule and got his ass shanked to death.

This once again proves that it is truly impossible to defend against the Up, Down, Left, Right, A, B, Select, Start combo move.

Enfuego.

Eat, Tweet, Rocksoft. Visit our Twitter

Sometimes I just want to be left alone with my thoughts. Is that so wrong? I love my family, I do. But can I have a moment? Please! I know I’m basically awesome, but surely, they can function without me for a wee bit. Gee whiz, just some time alone every now and then, that’s all I ask! Plus, last time I checked, they all had opposable thumbs and an ounce of smarts, so I know they could rustle up some dinner on their own if they tried. I’m just saying.

Otherwise, I may have to go to prison, so I can finally enjoy my quiet time – alone in my cell for hours on end. I think I can make that happen. I have some ideas…

Detalhes sobre mais esta bomba para o XBLA

MADRE!! De éste juego no sabía nada y ya se ha convertido en una necesidad vital para un servidor. Espectacular realización. Dibujos animados de alta calidad en formato jugable 2d. La acción pocas veces ha tenido tan buen aspecto.

Днес както си се рових в “GameTrailers” реших да вида какво ли интересно има в новия “PAX”.Разгледах, и да попаднах на изключително добрия трейлър на “Uncharted 2″ но за жалост той няма да се появи на нашите персонални компютри.Затова се загледах като цяло за нещо PC и открих “Shank”, игра която на първо четене не ми говори нищо но то винаги е така.След изглеждане на трейлъра обаче желанието ми да знам повече за играта нарастна !

Играта не е от онези със супер графика, а тя е по скоро от онези кежуал игри които те взимат и не те оставят докато не приключиш с тях.Напоследък има доста голям инвазия на такива игри като последния и най-пресен пример е “Shadow Complex” от “Epic Games”(създателите на “Gears Of War 1,2), и той също се оказа със супер позитивни оценки и чувства сред феновете.Преди това пък и “Bionic Commando Rearmed” също се хареса на доста хора,  дори повече от по – добре графически способното продължение на поредицата.И ето сега се намесва и “Shank” първоначално с нищо не излъчваща жажда за борба с големите заглавия, но всъщност именно този геймплей който не те задължава и те разтоварва е ключа към играта.Все пак за това игрите са забавление нали ?

Още нищо не може да се каже за играта, защото сме видяли само един трейлър но до сега той говори супер добре за нея.

From Klei Entertainment (guys who made Eets), they just revealed Shank at PAX09.  Here’s the first trailer.  This game looks very fun.  Will probably be available for PC, and maybe XBLA and PSN (cross your fingers).

Durante il Penny Arcade Expo, che si è tenuto nella giornata di ieri a Seattle, Klei Entertainment ha annunciato lo sviluppo di Shank, un platform game a scorrimento orizzontale che arriverè su PC e sul Live Arcade.

Di seguito un video di dimostrazione :

Se tem um gênero que está esquecido na indústria atualmente, mas que já deu muito o que falar (sem contar os shooters de nave), esse gênero é o beat-em-up, ou, em outras palavras, o andapradireita-bate-andapradireita-bate-comeohosbife-andapradireita…

Porém alguém decidiu ouvir as preces dos jogadores ao redor do mundo que, como eu, passaram tardes inteiras no fliperama, jogando Tartarugas Ninja, Cadillacs and Dinossaurs, Final Fight, Sengoku Basara, entre outros. Trata-se da Klei Entertainment.

Recentemente, foi liberado o Trailer de seu novo projeto, que você confere abaixo.

Caramba, como eu gostei deste vídeo! Dá pra ver muitas influências nele, como a de Prince of Persia (quando ele “anda” no outdoor) e de Devil May Cry, nos combos que começam com golpes e terminam com tiros. Fora que a parte artística tem recebido cuidado especial, com boa iluminação e closes de câmera dramáticos. Mal posso esperar.

Não há uma plataforma oficial para seu lançamento, mas especula-se que será disponibilizado para compra pelo sistema Live da Microsoft.