I’ve known about Project Euler for a while now but only recently did I start trying to solve the problems. My first approach to any problem was just to try to brute force it (I’ve got a speedy modern computer that can do math well, how long can it take to solve these?) but surprisingly it doesn’t always work. I find myself having to go out and do research. Learn about techniques and algorithms for solving math problems and apply them in my own code.

It’s been a wonderfully refreshing lesson in thinking outside my own box. I’ve found that I don’t always know the best solution. There are algorithm tools out there that some incredibly smart people have deduced/devised and learning of and about them is very good for my development both professionally and personally.

I’m quite happy with the results. I’ve got a single shortcut setup (⌘⌥Y) in FastScripts and I can use it in any of the apps that I need to capture from (Mail, Safari, NetNewsWire).

Direct download link

In the interest of making things easier and more streamlined I’ve written an AppleScript that can load pages in Readability from various sources. The script is smart and “does the right thing” based on which app you’re running. I’ve only had a need for it from Safari, NetNewsWire and Yojimbo so that’s all it’s setup for but it should be easy to extend if you want.

I’ve got the script hooked up to a shortcut using FastScripts.

Direct download link

You will likely want to update the JS variable to match your own Readability styling.

I have lots of news articles flagged and I’ve had the import crash on me before for various reasons which has resulted in some duplicate web archives being created. The reason for the duplicates is usually because there was a redirect to the actual article that Yojimbo followed, so the URL in NetNewsWire doesn’t match the Yojimbo URL and checking for existing items on load doesn’t work.

This was a great opportunity for me to explore RubyOSA and continue learning Ruby so I wrote a script to detect duplicate web archives based on name and mark them with a “Duplicate” label.

[ruby]
#!/usr/local/bin/ruby

require ‘rubygems’
require ‘rbosa’

yojimbo = OSA.app(‘Yojimbo’)

seen = Hash.new(false)

# Duplicate label details
duplicateLabelName = ‘Duplicate’
# An almost painful red
duplicateLabelColor = [65535, 1536, 4628]
duplicateLabel = nil

# See if we already have a label named ‘Duplicate’ and save it
yojimbo.labels.map { |l| l.name == duplicateLabelName && duplicateLabel = l }

# Make a label if we don’t have it already
if (duplicateLabel.nil?)
duplicateLabel = yojimbo.make(OSA::Yojimbo::Label,
nil,
:color => duplicateLabelColor,
:name => duplicateLabelName)
end

yojimbo.web_archive_items.each do |f|
if (seen.include?(f.name))
puts “Found a duplicate: #{f.name}”
f.label= duplicateLabel
seen[f.name].label= duplicateLabel
else
seen[f.name] = f
end
end
[/ruby]

Here’s some ruby:
[ruby]
def addPages(urls)
return false unless urls
urls.each{ |u| @queue << PageFactory.newPage(u) }
@queue.uniq! # Get rid of dupes.
end
[/ruby]

Here's some Perl:
[perl]
my @text = ( 'here', 'are', 'some', 'words' );
my $offset = 0;
print join(' ', map { choppedCase($_) } @text );

# Convert a string to "ChOpPeD cAsE"
sub choppedCase
{
my $word = shift;
my @chars = split('', $word);
my $char_count = scalar(@chars);

for (my $i = $offset; $i < $char_count; $i+=2)
{
$chars[$i] = uc($chars[$i]);
}

# Track odd length words so we constantly alternate in a string
if ($char_count % 2)
{
$offset = $offset == 0 ? 1 : 0;
}
return join('', @chars);
}
[/perl]

Here's some PHP
[PHP]
// Pattern to match the directory path that a file is in
$dir_pattern = "@(/.*)/[^/]*$@";

// Take a path that's (possibly) relative to the directory that the script is executing in
// and convert it to an absolute path.
function absolutize($path)
{
global $dir_pattern;

// Only operate on paths that are relative
if (substr($path, 0, 1) == '.' && preg_match($dir_pattern, $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'], $matches))
$path = implode('', array($matches[1], '/', $path));

$path_bits = explode('/', $path);
$elms = array();
foreach ($path_bits as $bit)
{
if ($bit == '' || $bit == '.')
continue;
if ($bit == '..') {
array_pop($elms);
continue;
}
$elms[]= $bit;
}
// Push an empty string on top so that we get a leading / when we implode
array_unshift($elms, '');
return implode('/', $elms);
}
[/PHP]

I just realized that I've coded in all three of these languages this week - plus JavaScript (can't find a good sample to post).

Update
JavaScript
[javascript]
// Add commas to a long number to make it more readable.
// Currently only supports whole numbers.
var addCommas = function(aNumber)
{
// Convert our number to an array and reverse it so that
// we can easily work from most significant digits down
// to least significant
var bitsR = (aNumber.toString().split(”)).reverse();
for (var i = bitsR.length – 1; i>2; i–)
if (i % 3 == 0)
bitsR.splice(i, 0, ‘,’);
// Return our array with commas added back to the proper order
// for display on the screen.
return bitsR.reverse().join(”);
};
[/javascript]

it kept getting quoted and didn’t work right (as you would expect).

I solved it by creating a JavaScriptFunction class and helpers so that it’s easily usable in an RJS template. Browse the plugin or install it:

To use it, just do:

It’s my first plugin so I’m open to any feedback you have about it. Please use the Contact form to reach me.

Note – the keys

and

shouldn’t have an ‘s’ in the front for real implementation with the JS library – I did that to prevent an emoticon from appearing thanks to WordPress.

I’m going to be focusing on coding for the foreseeable future because that’s where I want to allocate my time right now. I’ve got a big unfinished project in that arena and it’s time to make some progress on it, hopefully contributing back to the community as I go.

I hope to return to more consistent writing in the future and I’m sure that I’ll have the occasional line here and there but I don’t think that there will be very many for a few months. I’ve created a Creativity feed and if you’re just visiting for the writing I encourage you to simply track that with your feed aggregator.

Rails Helper
I created a couple Rails helper functions to encapsulate the functionality so I can call it with one function in my view. View the source, with syntax highlighting.

JavaScript
I had to extend the existing Scriptaculous code to support my specific functionality. View the source, with syntax highlighting.

Implementation
Now, you just include the JS in your page and use the new helper to build the UI component.

Update
Ola Bini has developed an InPlaceEditor with Autocomplete plugin for Rails. Definitely worth a look.

Even more interesting is the fact that I get this result when searching in the Outdoor Living area of Amazon’s site, but not when searching from the “homepage”. I guess that it’s just a testament to the complexity of the site and how segragated the functionality of different stores is.