Fragment to peek into the contents of memcache in the Appengine SDK:

from google.appengine.api.apiproxy_stub_map import apiproxy

print apiproxy.GetStub('memcache')._the_cache

This is only going to work on the dev server, not on Google's.

Web development is so depressing. Everything is hacks and chickens sacrificed for backwards compatibility, and nothing but plain text ever seems to work right.

Todays case in point: jQuery's website. If there were ever a place where you could find tasteful, useful and usable javascript, this would be it, right?

Three problems:

• If you highlight one of their 'feature checkboxes', a tooltip fades in. This tooltip is too large, so to see the tooltip for the next item, you have to move the cursor away, wait for it to fade, and then highlight the next item.
• The 'onclick()' function for the 'Run Code' example button doesn't set very quickly- there is a ten second gap between it rendering and me being able to click it.
• Whatever they're doing for the download radio button is similarly slow and awkward- there is an almost two second lag between clicking the radio button, and getting a response. It's 2009. This is a radio button. It shouldn't be slow./li>

I know this isn't all their fault. But when a website run by some of the best web developers alive is slow and broken, it's hard for me to be cheerful about my own prospects.

Reinteract has seen a bunch of work lately that have really improved its usability. Worth taking a look at.

Things that I need to do over the next week:

• DavisText 2.0, to mitigate some procedural bottlenecks we have, and let us do better themes and more customization. This essentially involves rewriting Associate-o-matic, though I don't need quite as many user-interface features.
• As a stopgap, fix our deployment problems with associate-o-matic by putting its configuration files under revision control.
• Play more with LÖVE, make something I'm proud enough of to distribute.
• Get outside and see some friends. I'm turning into a blub.

Winter 2009 postmortem notes:

• Working and studying with other people is the only way I'm productive
• On a related note: even though it's easier, trying to work alone at home is a recipe for failure. I need to make a much more concerted effort aimed at leaving the house.
• Exercising when you haven't slept in over 24 hours is a bad, bad idea, and will always lead to injury.
• I'm much happier when I interact with more people than just my roommates.
• Rasikh was right, Arrested Development is quality.
• Cats are wonderful animals

As finals wind down, I'm making more and more of the usual lies to myself- "I'll exercise every day and never procrastinate again!" but I think I really have a chance this time. The two all nighters a week thing I've been doing has been nothing but pain for me, and I'm getting better at sitting down and powering through things. Next quarter might very well be better.

Plans for the break coming tomorrow.