I was working with a friend to grab comments from YouTube. We’d initially thought of using lynx or w3m, but the comments section always showed up as “Loading…”. Next, we tried using BeautifulSoup, but that didn’t work either, for similar reasons. Finally, we tried using Selenium, because it allows one to interact with the JavaScript on the page.
Tag Archives: Python
Reinforcement Learning with Monte Carlo and Tabulation Methods
I was reading another blog post about reinforcement learning using Monte Carlo and tabulation methods that provided an example of the technique using Blackjack. I decided to implement my own method using Tic-Tac-Toe as an example. The basic idea is that you generate a random state of a game, and you generate a random action based on that state. Then you play the rest of the game through until the end and record the outcome. Then you should be able to store the state, action, and outcome as a key in a dictionary that refers to a count. Each time that state-action-outcome occurs again, you update the count by one. Over time, your dictionary will encode information about the relative strengths of different actions for a given state.
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Binary Search in Python
I’m reading Data Structures and Algorithms in Python, by Goodrich, Tamassia, and Goldwasser, and I think that it is very, very good. I particularly like the explanation of why binary search over a sorted list is 
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Sorting Algorithms in Python
Tonight I’m looking at some sorting algorithms in Python. First up are Bubble Sort and Selection sort, both with 
average and worst case runtime, and 
memory. Then I’ll look at an iterative and recursive implementation of Merge Sort, Quick Sort, and Heap Sort with 
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Simple Directed Graph in Python
This is a work in progress, there’s a lot of complex questions you can ask about graphs, but I though it was neat that you could produce an actual graphy looking thing in so few lines of code. This is a directed graph, and you use the graph object to first create nodes, and then define (unweighted) edges between them or to themselves. The __repr__() method just lists the node data, whatever that is, with an ASCII arrow pointing to another node’s data.
Another Simple Tree in Python
I’ve posted before about creating a tree in Python, but I like this implementation better. It uses a nested class to represent the nodes of the tree, and an interesting construction (line 11) that is a result of that nested class. Also, I do a simple pre-order traversal. I’ll flesh this guy out in later posts.
Singly Linked List in Python
I was reading about data structures this evening and I worked out simple singly linked list. The neat thing about this implementation is that a I made it iterable, also. I’d originally wanted to provide a minimal working singly linked list, and then add features and testing with explanations, but it’s been a long day. This example assumes that you’re using Python2.7; version 3 provides a __next__ class method.
Use Vagrant to Manage an OEL6 Virtual Machine
Vagrant is a tool that you can use to set up, configure, and access a VM through the command line. This is a life changer. I love it. In this post I’ll walk through setting up an OEL6 virtual machine, installing a non-ancient version of Python, and configuring the port forwarding so that you can use it for backend web development. (The port forwarding is not obvious on RHEL/OEL.)
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Using simpleldap
Recently, I thought I needed to use simpleldap–it turned out that I instead needed to reconfigure NGINX. At any rate, this was my experience with simpleldap.
Using PyWavelets to Remove High Frequency Noise
I ran across an interesting blog post from 2012 that described how to use the PyWavelets module to remove noise from signals. I had been looking for a technique for smoothing signals without smoothing over peaks and sharp shifts, and I had completely forgotten about using wavelets.
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