derb; Script to Create podcast RSS feeds

I wrote a tiny script that creates an RSS feed for all the audio files it finds in a folder. I call it derb. My mother gets devotional songs and sermons on cds, which I rip to MP3 files and then dump on her phone for her.1 She listens to them all the time, and now three of her friends want to do the same too. I thought of just sticking them in my self hosted Jellyfin instance,2 but then I realised, all of them have erratic, slow internet....

September 14, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

TIL: The Difference Between a CLI Tool and a Freeze Tool

I keep writing these tiny utilities for myself in Python and while I love writing in Python, I definitely don’t enjoy the little war dance I have to do everytime I want to run it on a new machine. Keeping track of virtual environments, and then installing packages in them, quickly gets tiresome. I want to just run the program once I’m done with it. Like a C program. Or Rust....

March 1, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

What I Learned Today (8th of February, 2023)

Don’t know if it’s the gym or the regular work beat, but I seem to be waking up later and later everyday. I don’t know what to do about this. I feel a little anxious about not having enough hours in the day. Python Why use comprehensions? Because it reads better. Like I advice the young ones in DPGLUG on writing. Write short, choppy sentences. They read better. With my problem sets … I should stop trying to generalise in advance and solve the specific problem first....

February 8, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

What I Learned Today (7th of February, 2023)

Yesterday, took a lot out of me. Took it easy today. Python Got today’s assignment done well in time; and then went out looking for better ways to write it over again. Writing code is getting exciting now. Just like how I learnt to write in my teens. Write. And then go figure out, how I’d do it better. Busywork Spent a coupla hours doing some busywork for A Thing; that if it pans out will be a good thing for me....

February 7, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

What I Learned Today (6th of February, 2023)

Everything went to hell in a handbasket today. Time was short. I got up late. I forgot, I had physio. So most things got slightly abbreviated or dropped. Python Did not complete my assignment. Flunked it again. But on the plus side, those 45 minutes were some of the hardest thinking and iterating, I have done in weeks. So there’s that. And on the plusser1 side, I am proud of having stopped and then looked for help....

February 6, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

What I Learned Today (4th of February, 2023)

A week in! Woohoo! Python Exercised with dictionaries today. Today was the first time, I could not solve my assignment, no matter what I tried. Lessons learnt: Stick to a schedule and do hard stops, since Python is only a small part of what I want to learn Learn to quit sooner. I’m like a dog with a bone, when it comes to problems. This approach may have helped me in the past, but it hinders me a lot, when writing code....

February 4, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

What I Learned Today (3rd of February, 2023)

Slightly distracted day, today compared to the rest of the week before. Well, c’est la vie. Python Read about functions, key functions, and asterisks Practiced list comprehensions and dictionary lookups Learnt and practised some, about decimals and rounding up Devops Devops-ish? Upgraded the BIOS of my desktop to the current the latest available version. I was on v1.5, when I had last done it in July ’21. Now I am on v1....

February 3, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

What I Learned Today (2nd of February, 2023)

Long day today1. I thought I got nothing much done, until I wrote this post. So, more incentive to keep writing these. Python Learning about how to make keyword arguments stick. And how to think about structuring programs Devops Deep dive into how to add prow job listings to the dashboard and viceversa; how to go about looking for the job from the dashboard Urdu / French Lots of practice with vowels and the ‘jiim’ group of letters....

February 2, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

What I Learned Today (1st of February, 2023)

Did a full day. But is this sustainable? I’ll know in a week or so. Python Finally figured out what def __init__ (self): does in an class, in a way that makes sense to my mind. If I create an class and I want it (i.e. the objects created with it) to take in arguments, then I need to define an __init__ method to set it all up. For e.g. if the class definition is just class chantSomeName(): where do I reconcile the fact that I need to pass in a name that needs chanting?...

February 1, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

What I Learned Today (31st of January, 2023)

Been knocked down a little too much over the past few months. This is me, getting up from my knees. Doing some things daily to learn. To give myself grace To be kind to my self. Python Morsels Getting back into the swing of writing code. Today was basically just looking at a blank screen and wondering why nothing would come out. Urdu Started with module one of Rekhta’s wonderful Aamozish....

January 31, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza