geraldew articles - 29 total
Character Encoding with the Python os module and Unicode
descriptions of how surrogateescape allows for recovering invalid byte sequences in strings of unspecified encoding
Changing SQL Dialect From Teradata To SQLite
annotated notes from converting a 2,000 line SQL script
Using SQL to discover problem dates in your data
an annotated real example of SQL for finding extreme date values on a Teradata system
License approval differences of the FSF and the OSI
Are there actually significant distinctions between the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the Open Source Initiative (OSI) in terms of the licenses they approve?
Some Simple Scaling Progress Indication Log Functions
a description of some Python functions I wrote for use in one program that maybe presents a useful idea for other situations
Coding Diary 2023-03-19 an undesired feature in filecmp.py
a walking tour through a problem and its fix
Musing about Programming - Abstraction vs Specifics
an exploration of thoughts about program descriptions and their implementations
Python Tkinter - An Exercise in Wrapping the ComboBox
Annotation of my process for making a Combobox that uses key-value pairs instead of just single values
A Beginner's Guide to Copyright, Programming and Software - Short Version
an attempt to explain copyright first and then place Free and Open Source Software in that context
Python Settings with Enumerations Saving and Loading as JSON
A Python way of handling Settings that supports Enumerations and has Saving and Loading with JSON
Supplying encrypted credentials for use on a remote service - via bash, OpenSSL, OpenSSH and Python
a way to securely embed a credential to be supplied with a program when it gets put somewhere else for scheduled running
Coding Diary 2022-06-17
Summarising my week in code - and a whole lot of VBA DAO code examples
Python Tkinter and the vanishing Combobox default value
description of a mistake I repeatedly make when using Tkinter in Python and its general solution
Some Teradata SQL Fun with Dates Differing by Months
Taking the issue of SQL dates and month differences a bit further
Laughing at myself - a small debugging story
the fine art of staring at nothing - also fun with Python and filename encodings
Grrr Character Encoding
a personal summary of character encoding issues and history
A Windows 10 Update Time Check
a time log and thoughts while running Windows 10 update on a rarely used setup
Meta Coding - Deriving Algorithms and Seeking Solutions
why derive your own solutions versus looking them up online
Some Aphoristic Laws
some observations that for fun I have dressed up as "laws"
A minimal Python Tkinter Parent-Children Data Form
An example of a Parent-Children Data Form using minimal imports
SQL for detecting contiguous and non-contiguous date spans
an example of using SQL to work out where there are gaps between date ranges in a table
SQL to derive subsequences
example SQL to derive subsequences according to when some value in a table changes or stays the same
A Data Spider in Recursive SQL
An example of recursive querying following chains of linked records. Of note, is that it implements a concept of controlled following by link types.
Ubuntu Linux installation to a USB external drive with EFI boot
The goal here is to create a fully-functional forever-updateable system. This is a tech person's guide, for sharing with other tech folk. I'm not attempting to make this completely newbie friendly
Name Coincidences and the Occasional Coder
Discussion with code example of the problem with re-using the same name for variables/objects/etc
A Common Misunderstanding about Re-licensing
I'll try to explain my understanding of that concept. That people probably mean "re-use" instead.
A plea for blogging about SQL
A small open plea to people writing posts about SQL