Chad Dotson – Page 4 – Computer Scientist / Software Engineer

PyCharm and Version Control

By chad June 6, 2015Doing Things Better, Programming, Software Engineering, TipsNo Comments

So, you want to add your PyCharm project files to a VCS but you constantly deal with problems because each of your team members have different names/locations for their project interpreter. There is a rather simple solution to this problem. Basically, at the project level, PyCharm only cares about the…

DLSR Lightning Trigger 4

By chad May 19, 2015Hobbies, Photography, Programming, TechnologyNo Comments

Success again! This time the lightning trigger managed to capture a good bolt (though not as photogenic as I would have liked). I ran into trouble again with my camera exiting the "Quick-response remote" release mode. This caused me to miss more than a few events, but I did find…

Not Invented Here, Not Written By Me, and Reinventing The Wheel

By chad May 17, 2015Doing Things Better, Key Concepts, Programming, Software EngineeringNo Comments

Not invented here and not written by me are both driving factors in reinventing the wheel when developing software. We limit ourselves if we do not build upon the achievements of others. - Chad Dotson Not Invented Here I'm sure everyone has encountered developers that would prefer to implement everything…

C-Style Unions And Python

By chad May 8, 2015ProgrammingNo Comments

So, you're creating a C Union (used to create a variant type) and writing it to a file, socket, etc and want to read that in Python. There are two ways to deal with this. Assume the following union definition in C typedef union { int i; unsigned int u;…

DSLR Lightning Trigger 3

By chad April 26, 2015Arduino, Hobbies, Photography, Programming, Software Engineering1 Comment

Finally Some Lightning ... IT WORKS! Tonight, I was finally able to deploy the prototype of my lightning trigger. The storm wasn't particularly photogenic, but it at least helped prove the concept. Lightning was slim and no bolts were in the best area for my camera, but the camera did…

Decisions in 1 Pomodori

By chad April 17, 2015Doing Things Better, Programming, UncategorizedNo Comments

All programmers suffer from analysis paralysis at some point in their career. The trick is bringing it to a swift conclusion. Try this to move forward next time. Give yourself 1 pomorodi (25 minutes) to analyze the problem. After that make a decision and go with it. Whatever falls out…

DSLR Lightning Trigger 2

By chad April 5, 2015Arduino, Hobbies, Photography, Programming, Software Engineering, Technology5 Comments

Lightning Drought Back in September, I created a simple Arduino-based lightning trigger (original article). I've been waiting since then for the chance to test the circuit in the field. Yesterday provided the first real chance to test the circuit; unfortunately, I missed it. Improving the Program Even though I missed…

Becoming an Entrepreneur as a Software Engineer Vol 2

By chad March 29, 2015Programming, Software Engineering, WorkNo Comments

This is part two of my discussion and thoughts on seeking to become an entrepreneur as a software engineer. These are my current thoughts on the process and how to achieve my overall goals in becoming an entrepreneur. This entry centers on the belief that becoming an entrepreneur occurs in…

On Software Engineering

By chad March 23, 2015Hobbies, Key Concepts, Photography, Programming, Ramblings, Software EngineeringNo Comments

Spring Writing from the patio on a much deserved day off. What a day, sunny and 68 this 3rd day of spring. It sometimes makes it real hard to work inside in a windowless box. It's been a busy day of a different sort, but dang I could get used…

A Better AsyncTestCase for Python

By chad March 21, 2015Doing Things Better, ProgrammingNo Comments

If you need asynchronous support in python unit tests, there are a few possibilities. A simple google search points you to a few packages, one being tornado. Tornado's tornado.testing.AsyncTestCase seems straight-forward. However it does have a shortcoming: it's not thread-safe. Trying to use it with a thread will result in…