I use Python everyday, it has become my first tool to use when I need to do anything. In Arabic (in Shami Arabic specifically) I’d say that Python has become my hand and leg 
Yesterday I was writing a small Python script to read the YACC file and generate a list of all the specified rules inside it, so I don’t have to scroll through the long file to find out what rules are inside it 
I use Notepad++ as my default text editor on Windows, and I was writing the script using it – Notepad++. I wanted to test if the script is working, so I ran an instance of Command Line Prompt, and as I was going to change the directory to the directory of the script I thought; “Why doesn’t Notepad++ have a Run In Python command in it?”. So as usual I got pissed off and decided to create my own plugin to have that command in Notepad++ 
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What is brainfuck?
Brainfuck is a programming language
This is the definition from Wikipedia:
The brainfuck programming language is an esoteric programming language noted for its extreme minimalism. It is a Turing tarpit, designed to challenge and amuse programmers, and is not suitable for practical use. Its name has been variously bowdlerized. The name of the language is generally not capitalized, although it is a proper noun.
This programming language is very easy to learn, very hard to do work with. As the Wikipedia article describes it; the language is an esoteric language, which means it was created for fun 
I discovered the language while I was reading an article about writing the perfect settings file for Django. The author used DPaste website to link to pieces of code. DPaste website says that it uses Pygments for syntax highlighting. Pygments say that their syntax highlighter even supports brainfuck. And that’s how I got to brainfuck 
After I read articles about the language I wanted to test some code of it, I found some online interpreters, but I wanted to test some code on my machine. I found a compiler for it, but I’m using Windows 7 on my machine and the compiler is not compatible with it. I got pissed off and I decided I have to write my own interpreter 
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In my faculty – Informatics Engineering, Damascus University -, in the 4th year of Software Engineering Department, we have to build a compiler 
.
I like using NetBeans for developing applications, it supports lots of languages and tools; like C, C++, Java, Python, Ruby and more. The compiler would be implemented in C++.
The first two phases of implementing a compiler are: building a lexer (tokenizer) and building a parser. The lexer is implemented using GNU Flex while the parser is implemented using GNU Bison.
The Problem
The first problem I faced when starting the project was to tell NetBeans how to handle the lex file:
The lex file must be passed to the flex tool to generate a C++ code file.
The second problem was that when the code file is generated it contains errors:
#ifdef __cplusplus
#include <stdlib.h>
class istream;
#include <unistd.h>
When using building the file you’ll find that it contains errors regarding the usage of istream. (You might not face this problem, then you’re a lucky programmer).
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I was upgrading my Django Bookmarks site, and I wanted to list the online users. I searched the internet and I found a simple method, but it doesn’t work properly. So I developed my own method.
Why the simple method didn’t work?
The problem with it is that it depends on the last login date in the user model. This field is updated on every login for the user.
Imagine the following scenario:
* The user X logs in @ 1:00 pm.
* The user X posts a new post @ 1:30 pm.
* The user X comments on a previous post @ 1:35 pm.
* The user X leaves the website @ 1:40 pm.
* The user X comes back to the website @ 3:00 pm.
* The user X is logged in since the session cookie has not expired yet.
* The user X posts a new post @ 3:15 pm.
* A guest enters the website, and looks at the online users corner.
The guest won’t see X’s name in the list of online users, simply because X’s last login date is @ 1 pm, even though user X is now online and he has just posted a new post.
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