[Jsonwidget] using jsonwidget-python to create a pywikipediabot UI

[Rob Lanphier]

Hi Zai!

I think that'd be a wonderful application to try jsonwidget out on, and I'd
be happy to help get things going.  I'm also really enthusiastic about
Wikipedia stuff, so helping out on the tool front is something I'd be really
happy to do.  I could see some useful cases where semi-automation could be
aided by a little UI sprinked in.  Please feel free to ping me with whatever
questions you have getting bootstrapped.

I don't have a standard IRC channel for jsonwidget, but I could conceivably
start hanging out in one if it were helpful.  Feel free to private IM me
(robla on EFNet, Freenode, and OFTC)

Rob

On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 1:52 PM, Zai Lynch <
I_really_needed_a_new_mailbox at gmx.de> wrote:

> Hi Rob!
>
> I read your post on jsonwidget-python when you blogged it a few days ago.
> Since I'm using some terminal based software lately, it seemed to be
> interesting.
> Starting from Arpil, I'll have more leisure as I'll just be working
> part-time, so I was looking for interesting projects to do. I'm not much of
> a programmer yet, though I know some basics about it and had an urge to push
> my horizon further in that direction. Learning Python was one thing I put on
> my to do list, though I still didn't have a project in mind. It's always
> easier for me to learn something when I got a goal to achieve.
>
> Today, I thought: "Hey, why not try to take jsonwidget-python to build an
> UI for the pywikipediabot scripts".
> http://pywikipediabot.sourceforge.net/
> Well, that's why I'm writing. You know that I got a passion for MediaWikis
> and that I'm occassionally tinkering around with that bot. Adding the fact
> that both (the bot and your jsonwidget) are available in a language I'd like
> to learn, seems like an ideal precondition to start a project.
>
> And it also *seems* to be relatively simple. I would just need to
>
>    - make it read from (and write to) the few configuration files.
>    - make it translate settings into parameters to call a child script
>    with.
>
> I'm aware of the fact that such an UI wouldn't be ultimatively useful for
> anyone, since the target audience for the bot might be techie enough to be
> even more convenient with the pure shell than with any UI I could provide
> (and UI makes a project less flexible). Though I do it primarly for myself,
> to learn the ropes. When someone finds it useful in the end: hey cool. When
> not... then not.
>
> Given that I'm very noobish with that kind of stuff, I might ask lots of
> stupid questions... And RTFM might be a proper answer for many of these. I
> really do not yet understand how this kind of stuff works.
> Please let me know when you don't want to be the target for my questions,
> as I'm aware of the fact that I can be a PITA at times (you already
> experienced that).
>
> My initial questions are:
>
>    - You write that you're releasing your jasonwidget-python under a
>    "BSD-style license". The pywikipediabot is released under an MIT license. Do
>    you know if that's a conflict in any way? E.g. when I'd like to offer the
>    pywikipediabot people to add the UI to their sourceforge project?
>    - I downloaded a copy of "Dive into Python" (
>    http://diveintopython.org/ ) which was recommended on a Mashable blog
>    post once. Are there other related sources that you'd recommend for reading
>    in order to get an easy start? Remember that – like written before – my
>    background is rather limited. I only know basics about theoretical computer
>    science (this "formal grammar" stuff), some dusty and basic knowledge in
>    Pascal (Kylix) from 7 years ago and well... LSL.
>
> Don't expect any work on this to be done before April 4th as I'll be really
> swamped until then. Though afterwards, I'd really like to (borrowing from
> the book title) dive into Python. I'd appreciate any help for this.
>
> Thanks in advance!
> zai
>
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>
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