A Mind For Numbers by Barbara Oakley

I've finished a book "A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra)"
Good book with good advices and techniques of how to effectively learn, some of them I have used many times :)
I wish I have read this book earlier. Highly recommend this book to students and pupils.

Buzzword poem generator algorithm

Conditions of the problem
Given: a list of buzzwords.
Problem: generate poem from these buzzwords.

We also need to know:
1) Result poem lines number.
2) Rhyme scheme.
3) Syllables in each line.
4) Minimum number of words in each line.
also:
5) Somehow know the number of syllables in each buzzword.
6) Somehow get the list of rhyming buzzwords.

Algorithm
1) Knowing the total number of syllables in each line — generate all combinations of sums (compositions) from all available number of syllables.
E.g. we have buzzwords with the number of syllables 1, 2 and 3, and the total number of syllables in line (i.e. sum of syllables) equal 3. Compositions of 3 are:
1 + 1 + 1
1 + 2
2 + 1
3
If we assume that we don't have buzzwords with number of syllables 2 then only two possible combinations can be: 1 + 1 + 1 and 3.
NB: Each positive integer n has 2 ** (n - 1) distinct compositions.

2) Knowing the number of syllables in each line, generate the base (I call it so) for future poem. The base is generated from random compositions for each number of syllables.
E.g. for two line poem with 3 and 4 syllables, the possible base can be the next:
[2, 1]
[1, 2, 1]
or
[2, 1]
[2, 2] 
The poem base can be also limited to the minimum number of words per line. 
For the example above with the minimum number of words equal 3, possible base can be the next:
[1, 1, 1]
[1, 1, 2]
or (notice that the first line has only one possible option):
[1, 1, 1]
[1, 1, 1, 1]

3) Knowing the rhyme scheme it is possible to get the last number of syllables for each line from poem base and group these numbers by rhyme scheme letters, thereby simplify the search of rhyme buzzwords.
The last number of syllables for each line are taken because only the last words form a rhyme.
For example the rhyme scheme is ABA, and the poem base is:
[1, 2, 1]
[1, 1, 2]
[3, 2]
Last numbers of syllables for each line are 1, 2 and 2.
1 A
2 B
2 A
Group them by rhyme scheme letters:
A: [1, 2], B: [2]

It is required to find all buzzwords that are rhyme, and have 1 and 2 syllables, then randomly select one from the list of found variants for A letter.
And find only one random buzzword with 2 syllables for B letter.
It is important that after using a buzzword, it must be removed from the list of buzzwords to avoid duplication.
If the rhymes was not found it is required to indicate that, for example by returning empty result.

4) To this step we already have poem base, and rhyme scheme letters mapped to the found buzzwords. In case of empty mapping of rhyme scheme letters to buzzwords — go to step 2 and try again.
If the mapping of rhyme scheme letters to buzzwords isn't empty, start filling the poem base with buzzwords according to the number of syllables. The filling of each poem base line must be performed until the penultimate number of syllables, because the last ones were already found in previous step and saved in the mapping of rhyme scheme letters to buzzwords.
As in the previous step, it is important that after using a buzzword, it must be removed from the list of buzzwords to avoid duplication.
If the filling of the poem was not succeed — go to step 2 and try again.
If the number of attempts is too big, stop trying and display the error message.

Enhancements
Support the poem metrical feet, to generate more smooth poems.

This algorithm was used in my project: https://github.com/delimitry/buzzword_poem_generator

Buzzword poem generator

Last week I've created a new project on my github — a tool for the generation of poems from the buzzwords. I called it Buzzword poem generator. As usual, the tool is written in pure Python and supports 2.7 and, of course, Python 3.x.

The project was inspired by recent tweet from Lena Hall (@lenadroid on twitter): https://twitter.com/lenadroid/status/957054198872293378

My tool generates poems based on the list of buzzwords. It is possible to pass the parameters of the rhyme scheme and number of syllables in each line. For example for the rhyme scheme ABAB, and 7 syllables per each line, the next poem was generated:

$ python buzzword_poem_generator.py -r ABAB -s 7 7 7 7
Memcached Vault Impala Spark
Redshift Chef Celery Swarm
Haskell Rust Zookeeper Splunk
Python Flink Kinesis Storm

Use it with pleasure :)

CPython github repository bots

I've watched a Monty Python and the Holy Grail movie recently. Despite the fact that it was filmed in 1975, the quality of the video and the jokes are great. Recommend to everyone this British classic comedy.

Fun facts: the bots in CPython repository on github, are called after characters from this movie.
For example the next bots:
https://github.com/the-knights-who-say-ni
https://github.com/bedevere-bot
and
https://github.com/miss-islington

Have fun!