HN user

vram22

2,494 karma

Kismet code: 6883da

I'm Vasudev Ram, an independent software consultant, trainer, and writer, with many years of software experience in multiple technologies and business domains. Software and database design, Python, Flask, SQL and many relational databases, Unix and Linux, PDF generation and the use of many open source tools and libraries, are among my main (current) technology skills, though I've worked on many other areas earlier, such as Ruby, Rails, Java, servlets, C (a lot, on Unix, some on Windows), Visual Basic, and proprietary and higher-end Unix versions (HP-UX and others).

I also have team leadership and project management experience in companies where I worked.

I have a lot of experience on 1) software development projects (spanning different parts of the life cycle, such as requirements, design, development, and testing), and 2) some experience on software product development, in companies (and also increasingly, by my own independent product work).

I was the team leader for a successful database middleware product developed in C on Windows, which was somewhat widely used in client projects.

Programmatic PDF generation is one of my niche interests, and I created xtopdf, a PDF creation toolkit for Python; see this presentation about xtopdf for an overview:

http://slides.com/vasudevram/xtopdf

xtopdf is used by some well-known organizations (and others), including Packt Publishing (UK), the Software Freedom Law Center (USA), and ESRI (NL). I've received email from people from these organizations, telling me that they use and like xtopdf.

Follow me on Gumroad for my software product updates - I will release some products over time (software, books and courses):

https://gumroad.com/vasudevram/follow

If you follow, you will only get email from me when I release a new product or a new version of an existing product.

Web site: https://vasudevram.github.io

Blog: http://jugad2.blogspot.com - about Python, Linux, open source, startups, innovation, ... (see About page there) - running it from 2008, so a lot of posts there.

I've written a few technical articles, which have been somewhat well received, on topics such as C (about developing Linux utilities), Python (about using xtopdf), Linux (about using Knoppix) and vi (a vi quickstart tutorial), on sites like IBM developerWorks, Packt Publishing, and Linux For You. Links to the the articles are available from the About page of my blog (see above) or from my web site (see above).

Posts about Python: jugad2.blogspot.com/search/label/python

Posts about xtopdf: jugad2.blogspot.com/search/label/xtopdf

Posts about DLang: jugad2.blogspot.com/search/label/DLang

Use the same sort of URL as the above 3, to get categories of posts with other labels - just change the label at the end of the URL, i.e the word after the last slash. Or look at the right margin of my blog to find labels for topics of interest (warning - it is rather long).

My Python recipes on ActiveState Code:

code.activestate.com/recipes/users/4173351/

My Bitbucket account (with my open source projects): https://bitbucket.org/vasudevram (all or most there are my own projects, including xtopdf, PDFXMLRPC and PySiteCreator)

My Github account: https://github.com/vasudevram (mainly other people's projects, that I've forked, there, as of now (for me to study); some of my own will be added over time).

Posts200
Comments3,865
View on HN
dlang.org 10mo ago

D as a Better C (2017)

vram22
4pts0
github.com 1y ago

Frege Is a Haskell for the JVM

vram22
6pts2
en.wikipedia.org 1y ago

Gottlob Frege

vram22
3pts0
quotefancy.com 1y ago

Larry Wall Quotes

vram22
2pts1
csprimer.com 2y ago

csprimer.com

vram22
1pts1
daniel.haxx.se 2y ago

Curl and libcurl creator Daniel Stenberg's About page

vram22
3pts1
www.theguardian.com 2y ago

Voyager 1 transmitting data again after NASA remotely fixes 46-year-old probe

vram22
3pts1
www.brendangregg.com 2y ago

Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

vram22
8pts0
www.hedycode.com 2y ago

Hedy: Textual Programming for the Classroom

vram22
4pts1
p5js.org 2y ago

P5.js: Online Canvas Programming

vram22
11pts4
news.ycombinator.com 2y ago

Tell HN: The Association of Shareware Professionals

vram22
3pts2
news.ycombinator.com 3y ago

Ask HN: What are some obscure but interesting programming languages?

vram22
3pts12
www.sciencedirect.com 5y ago

Protein from Lablab Beans Blocks Infections of Influenza Viruses and SARS-CoV-2 (2020)

vram22
3pts3
investors.pluralsight.com 5y ago

Pluralsight Enters into Agreement to Be Acquired by Vista Equity for $3.5 B

vram22
1pts0
twitter.com 5y ago

William Shakespeare receives the coronavirus vaccine

vram22
1pts0
www.youtube.com 5y ago

The Roots of Your Profits – Dr Elaine Ingham, Founder of Soil Foodweb Inc

vram22
1pts2
mobile.twitter.com 6y ago

Do people use Vim as an IDE? Why? Do you like hurting yourself?

vram22
3pts0
culinarybackstreets.com 7y ago

La Central de Abasto, the world's largest wholesale market (2017)

vram22
3pts0
en.wikipedia.org 7y ago

Diana Kennedy

vram22
2pts1
en.wikipedia.org 7y ago

Lists of Prepared Foods

vram22
1pts1
en.wikipedia.org 7y ago

Leaf Protein Concentrate

vram22
1pts0
en.wikipedia.org 7y ago

Amaranth – nutrition

vram22
2pts1
news.ycombinator.com 7y ago

Ask HN: Are you using Mastodon? What is your experience with it?

vram22
5pts0
avc.com 7y ago

What Happened in 2018

vram22
2pts0
usesthis.com 7y ago

Joey Hess Uses This

vram22
2pts1
joeyh.name 7y ago

Moreutils Unix utilities

vram22
3pts0
realworldocaml.org 7y ago

Real World OCaml

vram22
3pts1
news.ycombinator.com 7y ago

Ask HN: Using C99 or C11? What is your impression?

vram22
3pts1
news.ycombinator.com 7y ago

Ask HN: In-depth article/book about history/rise/decline of Yahoo?

vram22
2pts0
news.ycombinator.com 7y ago

Ask HN: Are some large sites down again like recently?

vram22
1pts3

Vertx on the other hand, which it is built on and which itself builds on Netty

What does the highlighted part above mean?

I know what Netty is, but did not understand that phrase above,

I had the same doubt.

Here is my uneducated guess:

In math, after sum and product, comes exponent :)

So they may have used that third term in an analogous manner in the example.

Is OCaml somewhat suitable for desktop GUI app programming?

I saw this in the OP:

For example, creating a binding with the Tk library

and had also been thinking about this separately a few days ago, hence the question.

Learn OCaml 1 year ago

I have been checking out the online books "OCaml from the very beginning" and "Real World OCaml".

Nice one :)

I too can sling a bit of Latin. ;)

Here is one phrase, in which one word, malus, is like an off-by-one error from your manus word, so to speak :) :

nemo malus nisi probetur

https://www.google.com/search?q=nemo+malus+nisi+probetur

From the AI overview (need to at least try that out a few times after all the talk about Google enshittification like by Cory Doctorow in this year's PyCon US keynote:

Nemo malus nisi probetur" is a Latin legal maxim that translates to "No one is evil unless proven." It signifies that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. This principle is fundamental to legal systems that value fairness and due process, ensuring that accusations are substantiated before a person is considered culpable. Here's a breakdown of the phrase:

    Nemo: No one
    malus: Evil, bad, wicked
    nisi: Unless
    probetur: Is proven, is shown, is demonstrated 
The maxim essentially means that one should not be treated as inherently bad or guilty without sufficient evidence. This principle is closely related to the concept of "presumption of innocence" and is crucial for upholding justice and protecting individual rights.

Related historical novels about England, full of intrigue, passion, crime, and adultery, what else do you expect, like of any (feudal) period anywhere in the world, but a somewhat light, fun read, now and then. Gotta get those jollies out, and this is one way. Catharsis, IOW :) :

Jean Plaidy / Eleanor Alice Burford

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Alice_Burford

Georgette Heyer novels are another series in the same category. Some good writing and depictions there.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgette_Heyer

All fiction.

From the site:

What is Frege?

Winner of the JavaOne Emerging Languages Bowl 2015, 2016, 2017

Frege is a Haskell for the JVM.

Like any Haskell, it is purely functional, enjoys a strong static type system with global type inference and non-strict - also known as lazy - evaluation.

Frege compiles to Java, runs on the JVM, and uses any Java library you want. It can be used inside any Java project.

You are perfectly right.

Just like you are weak, and essentially always incorrect, when you judge others, without substantiation of your statements - as you did above. So, you are no better than the person you replied to above.

And apart from your use of the word "essentially" being essentially redundant, and hence adding nothing of value to your statement, did you know about the word "wrong"? It can easily replace your use of the word "incorrect" (which fancy-pants people tend to use, when simpler equivalent ones exist, probably to impress others), for a saving of a whole four letters - per use! Gee!

J. F. C.

... And angels (how many) can dance on the head of a pin.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_many_angels_can_dance_on...

(Something theologians debate about endlessly and absolutely uselessly. That is all they are good, er, bad, for.)

Yeah, right. Pontificating much? Pathetic.

How do you know he/she is "weak"? No argument provided. And the same for "incorrect".

And who the hell are you to judge them?

Let me apply some of your own judgement "ointment" on you:

essentially always incorrect.

Your use of the word essentially in that phrase is essentially inessential. :) The meaning is equally well conveyed without that word. IOW, it's fluff, and can be done away with, fluffy kid. (wags wings at you. hi!)

Grok what I mean?

Grr.

;)