When I started the whole "writing an LED sign control software" for my Amplus board, I ran into numerous problems with my attack vector.

PapaJ recommended early on that I look at pySerial , but I passed on it, feeling more comfortable in perl than Python.

Fast forward a few weeks, and I am still frustrated with Perl, so I decide to give Python a whirl. In the span of two days, I re-created virtually all of my previous work without any of the headaches I was experiencing in perl.

Now, don't get me wrong. It's not that perl wasn't suited for the job; there were just too damned many hoops to jump through.

But I'm back on track, and I feel confident that I should reach my "stable" release within a week or so. (Famous last words).

So, go check it out

In other, quasi-related news: I've been a big fan of Eclipse for quite some time, but lately some of the platform issues have really started to bug me. I won't rant and rave, but let's just say: It's slow and updating it is a pain.

Since I've been working on both my Macs and my work Windows machine, I had to install a lot of the ActiveState releases of various languages. On a whim, I decided to give Komodo IDE a whirl. While there is nothing about it that completely blows my doors off, it is a refreshing change from Eclipse.

It's fast, supports a ton of languages OOtB, and doesn't do any funky workspace stuff with projects. I haven't had a chance to really put it through it's paces yet (svn!), but so far I like it.

One catch: It's (arguably) expensive.
Perhaps later this week I will give OpenKomodo a whirl.