World Wide Mike

Working with OpenSim recently, I didn’t want to have to worry about checking in generated files by accident, or filtering my git status output in order to determine what I changed and was generated. In this post, I’ll describe how I do this and outline some tools I use to make it easy.

The basic premise in my development style is that I build the project in a separate directory than where the checked out code lives:

# checked out code lives in ~/source/opensim
$ cd ~/source
$ svn co http://opensimulator.org/svn/opensim/trunk opensim

# the workspace is where I build and run the project
$ mkdir ~/source/workspace

Then, to build and run the code:

# first I rsync the code to the workspace, skipping .svn folders
# and other unneeded files
$ rsync -avz --exclude=\.svn [...] ~/source/opensim/ ~/source/workspace/

# then I run prebuild and compile
$ cd ~/source/workspace
$ mono bin/Prebuild.exe /target nant
$ nant

This way I never have to filter through generated files when inspecting or committing my changes, and I don’t commit generated files by mistake.

Tools

I have a set of scripts I use when developing OpenSim on Linux (I also use some of the scripts on Windows with cygwin). The scripts are available on github.

All those above commands are encapsulated in os_build.sh, a single script which takes two arguments, the first is the name of the directory in ~/source/ in which the source
lives, and the second is the name of the directory in ~/source/ in which to build:

# this one command performs the rsync, prebuild and nant steps from above
$ os_build.sh opensim workspace

Another key part is the os_clean_workspace.sh script which removes all build artifacts from the workspace directory, while keeping all configuration files in
place. I use this whenever I need to do a clean build.

My typical session looks like this:

$ cd ~/source/opensim
$ git svn rebase                   # pull the latest changes from upstream
$ vim -p file1 file2 ...           # open the files I'll be working on

... edit source ...

$ os_build.sh opensim workspace    # rsync, prebuild, build

... in another terminal, run & test ...
... make more edits ...

# sync only changed files, rebuild only what's needed
$ os_build_sh opensim workspace

... make big changes requiring clean build ...

# removes everything except config files
$ os_clean_workspace.sh workspace
$ os_build.sh opensim workspace

There are also other helper scripts for cleaning the database, running unit tests, and other tasks. Have a look!

At my job we use git for version control, and I wanted to do a few things whenever we pushed changes to the main tree. It took me a little bit of effort to figure out how it works, and below are my notes.

The post-receive hook is called when the repository receives changes. Let’s assume I have a git repository on my development machine that is a clone of a public git repository on a server. Then, when I run git push in my local repository in order to push my commits to the public repository, the post-receive hook is called on the public repository on the server.

Email Notification

On Debian-based systems there is an example email notification post-receive hook in /usr/share/doc/git-core/contrib/hooks/post-receive-email. It’s also available online from the git repo on github in the contrib/hooks directory.

In the repository that will be receiving commits (the public repository on the server, in the example above), first we need to make the post-receive hook executable:

$ cd /path/to/git/repo/.git/hooks
$ chmod +x post-receive

Then we need to call the post-receive-email script from inside this post-receive hook. Open .git/hooks/post-receive with your favorite editor and make sure this line exists:

. /path/to/post-receive-email

Notice we’re not executing the post-receive-email script, we’re sourcing it.

Next, we need to tell git where to send the email to. The hooks.mailinglist property controls this:

$ cd /path/to/git/repo
$ git config hooks.mailinglist "mailinglist@example.com"

At this stage emails will be sent each time changes are pushed to the public git repository containing a summary of the new changes.

By default, emails refer to the project as “UNNAMED PROJECT”. To change this, edit .git/description.

For further customization options, look inside post-receive-email. For example:

$ cd /path/to/git/repo
# envelopesender? see `man sendmail` for the -f switch
$ git config hooks.envelopesender "git@example.com"
$ git config hooks.emailprefix "[MY PREFIX] "  # note the trailing space

Kicking Off a Buildbot Build

You may also want to have Buildbot start a build from the post-receive hook. Like the email script, the Buildbot git script expects revision hashes on standard input. The post-receive script then needs to be modified a little to pass the hashes it receives via standard input to all the scripts it invokes. Here’s a new copy of post-receive:

while read oldrev newrev refname
do
   echo $oldrev $newrev $refname | /bin/sh /path/to/post-receive-email
   echo $oldrev $newrev $refname | /usr/bin/python /path/to/git_buildbot.py
done

This script first reads oldrev, newrev, and refname from standard input, then pipes those values into post-receive-email and git_buildbot.py. We loop until there is no more input, presumably because another push may happen while we’re executing.

Things often don’t turn out as planned, and this includes our stay in Japan. At the end of April we’ll be moving back to Singapore.

The month of April will be a busy one filled with traveling and being a tourist. This weekend my parents and sister are coming to Tokyo for a visit. We’ll be exploring all of Tokyo and also heading to Kyoto for a couple nights. It looks like they’ll arrive just as the cherries are blossoming in Tokyo. Here’s a couple pictures taken yesterday:

The last weekend in March was also quite busy. On Saturday we checked out the 36th annual Tokyo Motorcycle Show, and happened to visit Roppongi at night where Roppongi Art Night was happening. It was a busy day. On Sunday we joined some friends from my office and their friends for hanami at a park in Asagaya. It was our first hanami, a very pleasant afternoon. Pictures are here, here, and here.

This past weekend some people from Shux’s work went on their annual ski/snowboard trip, and we tagged along. This year the destination was mount Nakazato, near the skiing mecca of Echigo-Yuzawa in Niigata prefecture.

Unlike last year, we had extremely warm weather. Too warm, perhaps; the snow was wet and sticky and heavy. Not the greatest.

It was surprisingly not busy (particularly for Japan), I think I waited in a short queue for the lift about twice the whole weekend. Maybe the weather put most people off? The ski resort also celebrated their 50th anniversary that Saturday night with a pretty fireworks display.

Both of us worked on our snowboarding over the weekend, and we’ve made some progress. I can turn most of the time, and Shux is excellent on her heel edge.

Check out some pictures in the usual place. Was a lot of fun! If all goes well, I’ll head out another time or two this spring.

We’ve been having some warm weather recently, and it looks like the cherry blossoms might be early this year. We’ve seen a few trees with pink flowers blooming already around our neighborhood:

With spring seemingly just around the corner, I’ve been doing some spring cleaning. Today I went through the pictures I took with my mobile and uploaded some to Zooomr.

I haven’t been blogging much lately, but I do post updates to Tiwtter (so I have been microblogging). Check it out!

So the wife Googled herself some time ago and came across an article that misquotes us. It’s from the Golf tournament we went to see in Sinagpore in 2006.

Let’s consider this blog post the modern equivalent of clipping the newspaper article and putting it in my scrapbook

One Saturday in October Shux and I headed out of town a little ways to an American-style shopping mall. At one of the clothing stores two songs were being played on repeat over the loudspeakers. The songs were in Japanese, so I asked what it was, thinking I’ll go look for the CD later on. They said it was Sumiko, an anime (cartoon) character.

There’s tons of anime characters in Japan, and I assumed this was yet another one. But I couldn’t find anything on Sumiko on the net (as it turns out, I was looking for スミコ while her name is スミ子). Even worse, I couldn’t find anything at the record stores either. I thought it’d be easy, given the amount of publicity the songs were getting at that clothing store.

This week I was at the Tower Records in Shinjuku and decided to get to the bottom of this matter. I asked at the information counter about this Japanese anime character named Sumiko… and after a few minutes of the lady Googling, we realized Sumiko was owned by that clothing store, and the merchandise was only available there.

Now that I know how to spell her name, though, I was able to find the music videos online. Enjoy!

So the summer has come and gone, and boy was it a hot one in Tokyo. Now winter’s upon us, and it’s still pretty warm. Quite unseasonably warm, the locals say.

Let’s have a look at what’s happened since June, shall we?

In July we checked out Kawagoe, a little town north of Tokyo. We began with a visit to an American-style diner that served great burgers. Unfortunately, these burgers made me miss two days of work. But they were delicious.

In the evening we went to the BayStars/Giants game at the Tokyo dome. This was actually our first baseball game in Japan, and our first exposure to the baseball “spirit” the fans show game in, game out.

Pictures from Kawagoe and the Giants game are online.

A couple weekends later we headed to Yokohama for one of the first fireworks displays of the season. In Japan, fireworks displays are held regularly throughout the summer, and lots of people come out to watch. Everyone brings a blanket or tarp and picnic food and beer. Many are dressed in the traditional yukata. The fireworks are great too, lasting about an hour. It was probably an ad for the summertime fireworks that Shux saw in late 2007 that led us to Yokohama for New Year’s Eve fireworks.

Pictures from the fireworks display are also online.

August came and went, and in September we took some time off work and headed west to check out western Honshu. We stopped by Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Himeji, Hiroshima and Miyajima island. Along the way we ate excellent food, saw tons of cool temples, old Japan in Kyoto, and more Japanese baseball. Great time.

Pictures from the trip are — you guessed it — online.

After that we’ve just been working and otherwise spending time exploring Tokyo and area. One Sunday we headed to Yoyogi Park to hang with the rockabillies. We met up with Yuki, Shux’s friend from long ago. We also caught the last regular season game the Yakult Swallows played, after which three guys retired in a teary ceremony.

We had plans to do paragliding close to Mount Fuji. The rain looked threatening, but we still started our trip early on to make it to the paragliding place on time for our flights. On the way, we received a call that, due to the heavy rain at the site, all flights were off. Our thirst for adventure was not to be thwarted, though, as we changed our plans to drive down the Izu Peninsula to Shimoda instead. It was a long drive, and after eating some of the freshest sushi ever we didn’t get much time to visit the town, but it turned out to be a fun trip nonetheless.

We also visited Mount Takao, not too far from Tokyo. The summit became very popular in the last year or so after it was mentioned in the Michelin guide for some reason. From the summit, which is easy to get to, we were treated with a nice vew of Mount Fuji:

When Shux’s coworker was in Tokyo for a business trip, we went to Hakone for a day. It was a long weekend, and a hugely popular destination for many Tokyoites. We spent lots of time waiting in line for the bus, for the train, for the cablecar, and just barely caught our train back into the city. It was all worth it, though, for some nice sunset views:

Since then we’ve been doing shopping, getting ready for Christmas in Canada. Can’t wait!

There’s a meme running around on some blogs. I don’t usually participate in these kinds of things, but I found this one interesting enough.

Anyway, here’s what’s going on:

The Big Read posted a list of the top 100 books in the UK. I couldn’t find the source reference for this, but apparently the Big Read claims that most adults have read no more than 6 of those top 100 books.

On the list below I’ve highlighted the books I’ve read. The meme also says to indicate which books you loved and hated, but I won’t bother.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

A few notes:

I’ve read the first few books in the Harry Potter series, but I won’t finish it. I also haven’t read The Bible cover to cover, so it’s not highlighted.

When I was in elementary school, the library had these abridged versions of classic novels. I read many of them, “Great Expectations” and “A Tale of Two Cities” among them.

I’ve seen “Memoirs of a Geisha”, “Lord of the Flies” and “The Color Purple” as movies.

“Life of Pi” is sitting on the bookshelf right behind me, as is “The World According to Garp”. A certain used bookstore owner in Sunnyside told me it’s John Irving’s best work, and the others don’t quite measure up. I don’t plan to find out on my own.

Among the books listed, it’s interesting how many books (or movies) were worked through at school. I also wonder how much different this list of 100 would be for an (educated) American audience.

My home-in-law, that is. We’ll be arriving in Singapore a few minutes before midnight tonight.

Tomorrow is a friend’s wedding and we’ll be staying the rest of the week. I’m particularly looking forward to all the food that will get eaten! Often we reminisce about those delicious dishes we left behind.

I’ll also have a good opportunity to catch up with my fellow Kusu developers. Hopefully I’ll be able to wrap up some unfinished work while there.

I was looking forward to skipping a week of Tokyo’s rainy season, but the gorgeous 27 degree sunshine today and the rainy week forecast for Singapore indicates the exact opposite of that. Rats.