
Ask HN: What open source project is your pride and joy? - seamusabshere
Maybe you&#x27;ve authored or contributed to 10 projects - which one is special?
======
mattl
[http://libre.fm](http://libre.fm) \-- yeah, the UI could use some work
(current work in progress:
[http://i.imgur.com/2P9ZDx6.png](http://i.imgur.com/2P9ZDx6.png)) but it has a
bunch of users (~130k, and we have approximately 85 million song listens have
passed through the site) -- all the code is here --
[https://gitorious.org/foocorp/gnu-
fm/source/b4d50d2ca4dd456d...](https://gitorious.org/foocorp/gnu-
fm/source/b4d50d2ca4dd456dff86561a3a668357580d95dc):

~~~
feralmoan
That's crazy, well done

------
ozh
[https://github.com/YOURLS/YOURLS](https://github.com/YOURLS/YOURLS) \- a self
hosted URL shortener in PHP

~~~
gesman
I want to finally find time to put it on my domain:

[http://c.gg](http://c.gg)

Q: can I made certain links password-protected?

------
seamusabshere
ok, i'll go first: i love
[https://github.com/seamusabshere/upsert](https://github.com/seamusabshere/upsert)
because it seems like a new idea and
[https://github.com/seamusabshere/fuzzy_match](https://github.com/seamusabshere/fuzzy_match)
because it feels like i've combined string similarity and array enumeration to
make something truly useful.

------
bliti
I'm currently developing one to scratch my own itch. I had a problem of
sharing data between embedded devices. My search for a solution led me to find
out that there was no simple API to simply interchange data between devices.
Less so in an Open Source variant. So I wrote a tiny Django based API that
allows embedded devices share data through HTTP calls.

What is this good for?

Say you have a RaspberryPi-based weather station with internet access. With
one API call your an share your data (raw or processed) with any other device.
Since its open source, you can run your own little closed network. Imagine
having hundreds of mini weather stations sharing data over the web like this.

It works for any device that has access to the internet. Even if its through a
host connection (If you have an Arduino connected to a laptop through serial.
It can make the HTTP calls through a client script/library I'm including,
too.)

Here is the github repo:
[https://github.com/bliti/bbedy](https://github.com/bliti/bbedy)

The program runs locally, but has not been setup for deployment. I have not
written the documentation for it. Should be up and running by December 2013.

------
kennethtilton
Cells!:
[https://github.com/kennytilton/cells/wiki](https://github.com/kennytilton/cells/wiki)
rah-rah: [http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/2008/02/cells-
manifesto.ht...](http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/2008/02/cells-
manifesto.html)

The latest buzzword is Functional Reactive Programming. Well, latest three
buzzwords.

------
erezsh
I'll bite. I wrote a a parsing library for python on top of PLY, that provides
many high-level features such as EBNF syntax and automatic AST creation, and
the trees a query-able with CSS-like syntax.

It's on github and I get immense joy for every little star it gets
([https://github.com/erezsh/plyplus](https://github.com/erezsh/plyplus))

~~~
seamusabshere
thank you for sharing!

------
japhyr
I'm writing an open curriculum for learning Python, aimed at people who have
never programmed before. The student-facing page is at
[http://introtopython.org](http://introtopython.org), and the project page is
at
[https://github.com/ehmatthes/intro_programming](https://github.com/ehmatthes/intro_programming).

I started revising the curriculum for a class I teach each fall, and then
realized I could just as easily turn it into an open resource. Now even though
the class is over, I can't stop working on it. If anyone is interested, I'd
love to have some professional eyes on some of the code samples, and I'd love
some help writing exercises and challenges.

It's still a young project, but I'm happy to hear feedback.

------
ojjzhna
"locally grown" GPL'd scripts (general utils); most bash, some perl; bash
function library

Want to share these simple, general utilities, handy tools, or convenience
wrappers - most bash, some perl. Categories: script-infrastructure libraries,
text filtering, log creation/parsing, simple network-related, regex, time,
mail, cygwin, latex, jobs, processes, pathname, file or file-archive related,
m4, make, system, and backup:

Been writing shell scripts since late 80s, still humble, and learning;
appreciate constructive code review.

[http://TRodman.com/scripts](http://TRodman.com/scripts) (~400k tarball
w/installer)

\--

Tom

Linux/devops scripting admin for HIRE; resume/skill assessment:
[http://TRodman.com](http://TRodman.com)

~~~
bliti
Hi Tom,

It would be nice if you put the programs up on github, bitbucket or
alternative. If you need help doing so, let me know. My email is in my
profile.

~~~
ojjzhna
scripts also here:

[http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/uqjau](http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/uqjau)

------
brotchie
[https://github.com/brotchie/Parcoa](https://github.com/brotchie/Parcoa)

Parser combinators for Objective-C.

I wrote this ~10-11 months ago because there were no internal-DSL based parser
combinators available for Objective-C. I'm not sure if the landscape has
changed since then!

Performance-wise the resulting parsers are SLOOOOW. I have created a branch
that uses ranges instead of immutable strings, but have yet to merge it with
master.

I originally designed it as a replacement parser for NUI
([https://github.com/tombenner/nui](https://github.com/tombenner/nui)) but the
performance wasn't up to scratch compared with NUI's tailored regular
expression based parser.

------
krapp
My most (only) popular (relatively, for me) repo - a perceptual hasher for php
[https://github.com/kennethrapp/phasher](https://github.com/kennethrapp/phasher)

The project I personally have the most fun with is
[https://github.com/kennethrapp/embedbug](https://github.com/kennethrapp/embedbug),
a page scraper and profiler that I built to run a threaded feed generator
which is still very much a work in progress
([http://precis.gopagoda.com/](http://precis.gopagoda.com/)) - the only reason
that isn't open sourced yet is it's still terrible.

Crazy fun to play with but terrible.

------
baruch
It used to be mostly the xmms-volnorm: [https://github.com/baruch/xmms-
volnorm](https://github.com/baruch/xmms-volnorm)

Nowadays I'm working on several disk related projects:
[https://github.com/baruch/diskscan](https://github.com/baruch/diskscan)

[https://github.com/baruch/disksurvey](https://github.com/baruch/disksurvey)

[https://github.com/baruch/libscsicmd](https://github.com/baruch/libscsicmd)

------
feralmoan
[https://bip.io](https://bip.io) (Billion Instructions per I/O) - its a
framework for creating ephemeral endpoints ontop of graph based message
pipelines. You can orchestrate and share these graphs (kind of like micro-
workflows) to automate tasks, serve content, run an app... that sort of thing.
I love it, even if no-one 'gets it' and has zero traction, working in this
problem space is very satisfying and always a challenge :) albeit it sometimes
overwhelmingly complex

------
valar_m
[https://github.com/LPology/Simple-Ajax-
Uploader](https://github.com/LPology/Simple-Ajax-Uploader) \- A Javascript
plugin for cross-browser ajax file uploading.

A lot of my users are still running IE7/IE8, so I've spent a great deal of
time researching and tinkering over the past two years to try to achieve a
uniform experience in older browsers, even with modern features like progress
bars and multiple uploads.

------
stevekemp
A console-based mail-client with Lua scripting. It isn't the most popular
project I've ever created, but it is damn useful to me and surprisingly
powerful:

[http://lumail.org/](http://lumail.org/)

My runner-up project would be the host automation tool, written in Perl,
Slaughter:

[http://steve.org.uk/Software/slaughter/](http://steve.org.uk/Software/slaughter/)

(That will eventually move to slaughter.io.)

------
sheetjs
Is "All of them" an acceptable answer?

In particular, [http://sheetjs.github.io/js-xls/](http://sheetjs.github.io/js-
xls/) and [http://sheetjs.github.io/js-xlsx/](http://sheetjs.github.io/js-
xlsx/) (which really should have been one; due to licensing concerns, they
started as two projects and I hope to merge them at one point)

------
chris_va
[https://github.com/chrisvana/repobuild](https://github.com/chrisvana/repobuild)

I use it to build all of my other projects.

------
gault8121
[http://quill.org](http://quill.org)

Interactive English grammar lessons. [https://github.com/empirical-
org/quill/issues?state=open](https://github.com/empirical-
org/quill/issues?state=open)

We're currently developing Quill, and we are looking to partner with other
FOSS developers. You can reach me at Peter at Quill dot Org

------
bennyg
libHN and my HackerNews client for iOS.

\- libHN:
[https://github.com/bennyguitar/libHN](https://github.com/bennyguitar/libHN)

\- News/YC: [https://github.com/bennyguitar/News-YC---
iPhone](https://github.com/bennyguitar/News-YC---iPhone)

I love contributing to this community, but the website on mobile is not great
at all. I love using Alien Blue for Reddit, so I decided to make a beautiful
app to read and contribute to the community for iPhone. I started with just
the reader - to view links and comments. However, just recently I made libHN
as a wrapper of HackerNews API calls and then the app now uses that to be a
portal to HackerNews. The app is an absolute joy to use now, if I may so
myself!

Right now, it's gotten about 3,000+ downloads from the App Store. I don't
track anything, so no idea on daily users. I just launched the pro version
with the ability to login/vote/reply/submit for $0.99 two days ago. However,
you can build from source and get it from free ;)

------
vram22
xtopdf.

I wouldn't exactly call it my pride and joy :-), but I've been working on it
for a while now, and it has been found useful by some people / organizations,
including packtpub.com, softwarefreedom.org, esri.nl . xtopdf is a Python
toolkit for PDF creation. It uses Reportlab under the hood. (Thanks to the
Reportlab team for great work.) xtopdf provides a somewhat higher-level and
simpler interface. Has some support for, as input formats: text, DBF, CSV,
TSV, XLS, MSAccess, ODBC, (via standard ODBC, pyodbc or pypyodbc), SQLAlchemy,
MongoDB, DOCX. It can be used both to create composite PDF reports (for
business or other organizations), from any combination of the supported input
formats, and to create PDF ebooks from text or XML content. It is both a
library and a set of end-user tools, including some command-line, web (Flask,
Bottle) and GUI (wxPython) ones.

xtopdf links:

A presentation about xtopdf on [http://slid.es](http://slid.es) ;

[http://slid.es/vasudevram/xtopdf](http://slid.es/vasudevram/xtopdf)

xtopdf on my Bitbucket account:

[https://bitbucket.org/vasudevram/xtopdf](https://bitbucket.org/vasudevram/xtopdf)

xtopdf on SourceForge (older version):

[http://sourceforge.net/projects/xtopdf](http://sourceforge.net/projects/xtopdf)

Article about using xtopdf, written for Packt:

[http://packtpub.com/article/Using_xtopdf](http://packtpub.com/article/Using_xtopdf)

Posts about xtopdf on my blog:

[http://jugad2.blogspot.com/search/label/xtopdf](http://jugad2.blogspot.com/search/label/xtopdf)

I'm always interested in suggestions for new features.

~~~
vram22
Forgot to mention: xtopdf is cross-platform ( _), works on Linux, Windows (and
Mac OS X, at least if mac.softpedia.com is right). Haven 't tested it on Macs,
but have on Windows and Linux, for many versions of Python 2.x, from 2.2
through 2.7.

(_) Except for a few platform-specific features such as ODBC.

------
C0d3r
This project helped me learn python, and ultimately ended up getting a job
with python, I think that this project and the people who motivated me to
build this, made me the python developer I am today :).

[https://github.com/LuRsT/Pendium](https://github.com/LuRsT/Pendium)

------
bmaeser
[http://bmaeser.github.io/iptables-
boilerplate/](http://bmaeser.github.io/iptables-boilerplate/)

iptables-boilerplate is a set of predefined firewall rules that are typically
used on "webhosts".

------
davyjones
My own tool that I built to scratch my own itch. PGXplorer (pgxplorer.com). I
threw in features that I couldn't find in PGAdmin3 (grouping, easy filter,
windowing, pivoting). I use both these tool in tandem.

------
nerdklers
That would be my project Git Pretty Stats [https://github.com/modess/git-
pretty-stats](https://github.com/modess/git-pretty-stats), self hosted git
statistics.

------
horofx
[https://github.com/carrierwaveuploader/carrierwave](https://github.com/carrierwaveuploader/carrierwave)
<3

Best solution for web file uploads in ruby

------
gesman
[http://www.bitcoinway.com/](http://www.bitcoinway.com/)

------
eliben
pycparser
([https://github.com/eliben/pycparser](https://github.com/eliben/pycparser)) -
a complete front-end for C99 in pure Python. Used in production by tools like
cffi.

------
seamusabshere
don't be shy

