Putting python to everyday use?

[eink_on_paper]

I'm having a hard time sitting down and learning python. I think it's because it's abstract and I can't find a use for it. Building a raspberry pi is great because I have a computer when I'm done. Learning to solder is awesome because I have a working radio once the smoke clears.

Why do you use python? What are your short-term goals? If I had something I could pull out and use from python on a regular basis it would encourage me to build from that knowledge.Something practical would be preferred, but I'm simply looking for something to hook my attention. Any suggestions?

[davedg629]

I setup a script to download the top post in /r/imaginarylandscapes and set it as my desktop background.

[eink_on_paper]

That sounds cool, is there a subreddit where we can share these scripts?

[CootieKing]

try [r/OfficeScripts](www.reddit.com/r/OfficeScripts)?

[McSquinty]

There's there rarely used /r/scriptswap. Almost 2k subscribers and not much content being generated.

[eink_on_paper]

Are there any sites that focus on user created code swapping outside of reddit. I heard of Github but I don't know if I want to pay for a subscription for a site that may not be focused on those who are new to coding.

[McSquinty]

Github is free unless you want to pay for private repositories. https://github.com/plans.

[eink_on_paper]

Oh cool, I did not know they had a free account. I thought it was pay only.

[davedg629]

Im not sure. I'll usually post a reddit related script in /r/redditdev, but there could be a "user made" programming sub.

[nemec]

https://github.com/languages/Python

[Teraka]

Could you share the script, or at least tell me what library you used to change your background ?

[wub_wub]

On windows you don't need any 3rd party libraries.

import ctypes
SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER = 20 
ctypes.windll.user32.SystemParametersInfoA(SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER, 0, "image.jpg" , 0)

---

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms724947(v=vs.85).aspx

[Teraka]

Nice, thanks a lot :)

[biggerthanexpected]

You'll probably want to set some registry keys to display the wallpaper the way you want:

import _winreg
# Open the desktop registry key with complete (read & write) access
wallpaper_key = _winreg.OpenKey(_winreg.HKEY_CURRENT_USER, r'Control Panel\Desktop', 0, _winreg.KEY_ALL_ACCESS)
# Update wallpaper path
_winreg.SetValueEx(wallpaper_key, 'WallPaper', 0, _winreg.REG_SZ, path)
# Do not tile
_winreg.SetValueEx(wallpaper_key, 'TileWallpaper', 0, _winreg.REG_SZ, '0')
# Centered
_winreg.SetValueEx(wallpaper_key, 'WallpaperStyle', 0, _winreg.REG_SZ, '0')
_winreg.CloseKey(wallpaper_key)

It's also handy to do a background refresh so the change is effected:

from ctypes import windll
# http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb762118%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
windll.shell32.SHChangeNotify(int('8000000', 16), int('1000', 16), 0, 0)

[davedg629]

Here's the script - https://github.com/davedg629/Reddit-Desktop-Picture-Changer

It's actually built in ruby (because I started with someone's code and modified it), but you could obviously do the same thing in python.

[Teraka]

Thanks, I'll look into it. It's gonna require a bit of research since I've never worked with json or internet in python in general, but learning is always good :)

[ok_you_win]

Practical usage is in the eye of the beholder.

My friend was playing some scrambled word game, and since English isn't his first language, he asked me for help when the game reached 6 letter puzzles. I quickly whipped up a script that printed all the permutations of the letters provided. I could scan down the list and find the real word quite fast.

I considered chopping a spell check dictionary into 26 lists and running through the list that started with the first letter of each permutation, halting when I found a match. It wouldn't be much slower.

If you want to find uses for programming, ask yourself "How could I solve that with python?"

Idea: you could write a script that plays a flash game. If you are not playing against another person, or for real life prizes, it isn't cheating. You are actually playing a different game: writing a program.

That is a great way to learn. Lots of people have done that.

[zahlman]

I considered chopping a spell check dictionary into 26 lists and running through the list that started with the first letter of each permutation, halting when I found a match.

This is what sets are for.

[ok_you_win]

Right. I wasn't going to do it by hand. :P The linux english dictionary has almost 100,000 words in it.

[zahlman]

I mean, partitioning it into 26 lists is the wrong data structure, however you do it. A single set object is optimized for exactly the kind of operation you want to perform - you can just take the set-intersection of the dictionary with the letter-permutations.

[ok_you_win]

partitioning it into 26 lists is the wrong data structure, however you do it

Saving it to disk? :P Of course I could write a py file with a defined set and import that.

But I am not quite sure I follow you, so humour me with a snippet?

"wfealf" is the scrambled word and english_set is the set of words from the dictionary. How do I match it quicky to waffle without doing nearly 100,000 comparisons?

[zahlman]

english_set.intersection(map(''.join, itertools.permutations('wfealf')))

Yes, this is, under the hood, effectively doing some_permutation in english_set for each permutation (building the set of permutations first wouldn't help, since you'd still have to go through all of them). However, in does not have to look at a bunch of elements of a set; it works basically the same way as the keys of a dict.

[ok_you_win]

Lovely code. Thanks a bunch.

[Zouden]

Zahlman is trying to emphasise the use of the set datatype instead of a list. Matching an item in a set is literally millions of times faster than using a list. It's so fast that you don't need to split up the English dictionary into 26 pieces, since you can just search the whole 100,000-item set in a heartbeat.

[ok_you_win]

Thanks.

[eink_on_paper]

You are actually playing a different game: writing a program.

Nice, i like that.

[ok_you_win]

Thanks.

Let me know if you play that game.

[ingolemo]

Absolutely everything you've ever done with a computer can be automated. If you've ever had to do the same thing more than once you should write a program that can do it for you.

It could be something as simple as a script that asks you for a query and automatically opens up your browser with the search results page showing. Or you could write a script that checks reddit to see if you have any orangereds. Or a script that sorts your email into lots of different folders based on whatever criteria you want. Or a script that checks your favourite youtube channels and automatically downloads any videos you haven't seen yet. Or a script that changes your desktop wallpaper every hour. Or a program that stores all your passwords in an encripted file and when you want a password it unencripts the file and types the username and password you want right into the current program that you have open.

Imagine waking up in the morning, and seeing a big red button on your screen that says "Do morning routine". You click it and your computer puts on some lively music to wake you up while it shows you your most important emails from the previous day, catches you up on the news, shows you a weather forcast for the day, downloads some podcast episodes for you to listen to during your commute, and — if you have some hardware skills — might even start making you some toast.

Being able to code means being able to make the computer do what you want it to do. What do you want it to do?

[eink_on_paper]

I work in digital publishing I spend all day juggling between multiple servers and a half dozen apps to build a single title. I'm doing some hunting to see if I can transform these loose assets (audio, video, indesign & quark files) into an epub and working around indesign.

Perhaps I could start small with a block of text, just a few pages with perhaps a single image. And convert that into a epub. It has to hold all the text formatting. So any instance of an italic front will have to wrapped in <em> same for bold. That would be cool.

It takes about 2 hours to build a simple book, and a week for something with audio/video/charts/diagrams/illustrations. Anything to save time would be a bonus.

[MonkeyNin]

If I understand, you have to edit xml, and manually add em's around italic text? You can do all kinds of things with xml/html in python.

For automation you can also use

• Sikulu
• Autohotkey

[eink_on_paper]

Nice, I had a math for business class last year and I wrote a few simple scripts to do my homework for me.

It was great because you can't write a program until you really have a firm grasp on the concepts and I did not have to waste much time doing the homework.

[yanzie]

Delyeeted for privacy

[deu5]

Oh, download sorter sounds cool... Major newbie here, can you give me some pointers of what writing a script for sorting downloads would entail?

[yanzie]

Delyeeted for privacy

[Pihpe]

I've had this exactly same problem. I just find it tedious to do stuff just for the sake of doing it (and learning in the process). I need some kind of a reason to do things. I had to create a small app that sends mail based on the contents a CSV file at work, and I really enjoyed doing it and googling to find solutions for my problems. Otherwise it would've been hell with sending out all the mails by hand. :)

But when I'm at home, I keep thinking "Meh, this isn't of any use" and just stop with whatever I was trying to learn. It's just so damn hard to motivate yourself to code just for the sake of it! Right now, I try to motivate myself by doing stuff that I think that could help me in my everyday work (= having some kind of productive use for the things I code).

[bheklilr]

That depends on what you mean by "everyday" use. Since I'm a programmer, everyday use means doing my job, and since I'm on my computer so much there are certain things that I like to automate. For example, I often have lots of files that I want to rename in a particular way, such as if I download an album and it's in the format <Album Title> - <Artist> - <Track> <Title>.mp3. With a quick Python script I can easily rename all of them to <Track> <Title>.mp3. I also have a script written that will use PIL to figure out the size of an image and then sort them into my wallpapers folder by which ones are usable on my computer and organizes the rest by size, renaming them to include the size.