Why'd it have to be snakes?

Trivia note: I've finally decided to learn Python for text-handling purposes. It was that or Perl, which is more of a slob's language (and thus better suited to me, probably), but I'm still going to try Python, courtesy in part of Text Processing in Python, available here.

The point is to automate some linguistic tasks, including translation and reverse-engineering lexicons. I usually just put together a quick, single-use program for a given purpose, but I'm thinking about producing some long, flexible, multiple-use programs, so I might as well get serious.

It's the indentation that gets me. Granted, it's more obvious than spotting a } lurking somewhere in the code, but it means that the Python Zen soundbite "Flat is better than nested" merely justifies a necessity: Python probably can't handle much nesting without the indentation getting out of hand. That may be a bad thing: Life nests a lot, which means God doesn't use Python. I sometimes think he's more the Perl type too. This would be a very different world without nesting, and in any case, no matter what the Pythons claim, the world is not flat.

But I guess that's why you job everything out to modules.

Anyway, I'll see what it's like in practice. I may try writing a concordance program (it would output where a given word occurred in a group of text files and incidentally list their complete vocabulary); that should be a good opener. Or perhaps a parser--I'll need one of those anyway.

I'll report back on how it's going. Just remember that any incoherent complaints about snakes won't be delirium tremens.

So What's an Ansric, Anyway?

The first novel I started was A World Apart, intended to be the beginning of a series. It involved some kids who wind up on an earthlike planet after an advanced experiment goes wrong. One of the people they meet--the mentor for the main character--is called Ansric sometimes. They eventually discover that it is a title. His people are (or were) very intelligent and long-lived, with above average strength and dexterity. They were also extremely xenophobic and perhaps had psychotic tendencies. (No one's perfect.)

But they also had malcontents who insisted on questioning traditions and wondering what was going on outside. These people were sent out--almost exiled--to keep an eye on the Outsiders and report on whatever they were up to. These exile-spies were ansrics. They were respected and feared--well, feared, anyway--by their countrymen and kept their return visits short, to the relief of all concerned.

Now, everyone feels alone at some level: no one feels completely known and understood. I don't claim to be unique there. But I am an ansric of sorts: I have stepped outside of my usual world--standard evangelicals--and had a look outside. Whatever you think is a standard Christian, I'm probably not it. But unlike many who leave in a huff without having a really good look at their birthplace, I haven't rejected the people and ideas I grew up with--I'm no atheist or Neo-Pagan, for example--I have just checked out the other groups living in Ecclesia. And the Church (in the large sense) is the foundation of my thinking and creativity.

So what topics are we looking at? Languages, words, writing (mostly speculative fiction), the Bible, and some practical theology. And since I'm hardly ever either entirely serious or entirely joking, we can laugh and learn about the places I've been and the things I've seen. Maybe they'll change you too.