Repos / hi.imnhan.com / 4e15e42cae
commit 4e15e42cae8d738b37a72124e0d333588728fe62
Author: nhanb <thanhnhan483@gmail.com>
Date: Fri Jun 7 13:46:39 2013 +0700
Automation post
diff --git a/content/modern-vim-plugin-management-pathogen-vs-vundle.md b/content/modern-vim-plugin-management-pathogen-vs-vundle.md
index 6906389..605623a 100644
--- a/content/modern-vim-plugin-management-pathogen-vs-vundle.md
+++ b/content/modern-vim-plugin-management-pathogen-vs-vundle.md
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
title: Modern vim plugin management - Pathogen vs Vundle
slug: modern-vim-plugin-management-pathogen-vs-vundle
lang: en
-category: Tutorials
+category: tutorials
tags: vim
summary: Pimp your vim with little effort
diff --git a/content/why-i-use-linux-automation.md b/content/why-i-use-linux-automation.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..091e35e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/content/why-i-use-linux-automation.md
@@ -0,0 +1,118 @@
+Title: Why I use Linux - Automation
+Date: 2013-06-07 08:02
+Category: tutorials
+Tags: python, linux
+Slug: why-i-use-linux-automation
+Summary: Repeating is boring
+
+(In this post, when I say Linux, I mean any popular GNU/Linux distribution. Hope this clarification
+will keep the nitpickers away.)
+
+First let's discuss *why* automation rocks.
+
+# Repetition is evil (and boring)
+
+As a (would-be) software engineer, the *repetition is evil* notion has been planted in my head for
+far more times than anything else, and for good reasons.
+
+People are far more prone to error than computers, and doing repetitive tasks creates just too
+much room for that. Computers, on the other hand, do everything exactly how you tell them to do,
+with extreme speed and accuracy.
+
+Moreover, let's face it: We developers are all (or at least mostly) lazy. Not the "I'm don't
+wanna do anything" kind of lazy, but more of the "This crap is boring and not challenging at all,
+why the hell am I wasting time for it?" type. We've all got better things to do with our lives,
+like re-watching the last episode of BBC's *Sherlock* to look for clues to how he faked his death,
+or trying to figure out what that "Han shot first" meme means (sorry, I'm from the later
+generation).
+
+# Automation needs command line tools
+
+Because, of course, GUI programs are (nearly) impossible to interact with in our scripts. Sure
+you can try mouse click emulation tools and stuff like that, but is it really worth the effort?
+And I'd bet anything that those tools are far from reliable (GUI latency, anyone?).
+
+And this is where Windows falls short. Most (if not all) Windows tools are designed for GUI, and
+the whole Windows ecosystem is built around GUI use.
+
+It's a whole different matter in Linux: from the good old awk, sed, grep, wget to the new shiny
+aria2... Almost anything you can think of is available as a command line tool.
+
+# Putting them all together
+
+Just like any UNIX-like system, Linux tools utilize the One True Phylosophy: Do only 1 thing, and
+do it well. (okay, I'm paraphrasing a bit, but you get the idea)
+
+The true power of command line tools is when they are used together. Let's take a look at a
+[python script](https://gist.github.com/nhanb/5726342) I wrote last night to download the whole
+beginner course from [justinguitar](http://www.justinguitar.com).
+
+The real flow starts from line 48:
+
+ :::python
+ # Fetch index pages which has links to all beginner lessons
+ r = requests.get('http://www.justinguitar.com/en/BC-000-BeginnersCourse.php')
+ start_page = r.text
+
+ # Search for all links to lessons
+ pat = re.compile('<a href="(BC-[0-9]{3}-.+?)"')
+ pages = pat.findall(start_page)
+
+ # Fetch html for each lesson
+ pages_html = fetch_html(pages)
+
+ # Crawl each lesson page, pull out lesson names and youtube link code
+ youtube_codes = []
+ for html in pages_html:
+ code = parse_info(html)
+ print code
+ if code not in youtube_codes:
+ youtube_codes.append(code)
+
+To summarize, this snippet goes to justinguitar's beginner course index page, grab all links to
+each lesson, then grab the lesson title as well as the youtube video code to its video. The
+result is the list name `youtube_codes`; each element is a tuple with the format
+`(title, youtube_code)`.
+
+Then I use a command line tool called `youtube-dl` to fetch the direct link to each video. The
+tool itself can download the video too, but it doesn't support multiple connections to
+accelerate the download. This is where `aria2c` jumps in: it takes the direct link from
+`youtube-dl` then download the whole thing:
+
+ :::python
+ # Leech the hell out of them
+ for lesson in youtube_codes:
+
+ # Ignore if lesson has no video
+ if lesson[1] == None:
+ call(['touch', lesson[0]])
+ continue
+
+ # Use youtube-dl to get fresh download link and file extension
+ command = 'youtube-dl ' + lesson[1] +\
+ ' --skip-download --get-url --get-filename -f 35/34/82/44/43/100'
+
+ shell_output = str(check_output(command.split()))
+ direct_link, fname = shell_output.splitlines()
+ file_ext = fname[fname.rfind('.'):]
+ file_name = lesson[0] + file_ext
+
+ # Then aria2 for serious multi-part download acceleration
+ print 'Downloading ' + file_name + '...'
+ command = ['aria2c', "-o", file_name, '-x2',
+ "%s" % direct_link]
+ shell_output = check_output(command)
+ print shell_output
+
+That's it! I just needed to launch this script, turn off the laptop screen and go to bed. This
+morning I woke up seeing the whole course with almost 200 lessons downloaded. Imagine having to
+manually download all that by clicking each link... You don't wanna go there, do you?
+
+So that's just a very simple example of what automation helps your every day life. Of course its
+true power is unleashed when used in development; this is how one-click test and deployment
+works. Windows can do this too, but your choice of tool will be limited. And don't get me started
+on its lack of a decent package manager!
+
+To make a long story short, do yourself a favor and install a Linux distro.
+
+... or buy a Mac.
diff --git a/pelicanconf.py b/pelicanconf.py
index 9d30f5d..8d3c839 100644
--- a/pelicanconf.py
+++ b/pelicanconf.py
@@ -6,6 +6,8 @@
SITENAME = u'Nhanb'
SITEURL = ''
+THEME=u'/home/nhanb/dev/pelican-octopress-theme'
+
TIMEZONE = 'Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh'
DEFAULT_LANG = u'en'
@@ -43,7 +45,7 @@
DEFAULT_PAGINATION = 10
-THEME = "~/dev/pelican-otopress-theme/"
+#THEME = "/home/nhanb/Dropbox/dev/pelican-simplicity-theme"
GITHUB_USERNAME = "nhanb"
FACEBOOK_USERNAME = "thanhnhanb"