So, let’s start with the simple part, what is function currying?  Well, function currying is a way of turning functions that take multiple arguments into a series of functions that only take one argument.  In functional programming, this is almost always achieved via lambda calculus and anonymous functions.  Let’s take a look at an ultra simple example.

add x y = x + y

It doesn’t get much simpler than that right? But this add function actually is taking 2 arguments, so what would it look like when curried?

add x y
add x = (\y -> x + y)
(\y -> x + y) y = x + y

Not clear? Well let’s look at it a bit more closely. Since we’re currying we have to make sure that functions only take one argument, so we’re going to evaluate add x on its own. It may seem silly, because after all, you can’t really add one number on its own. This is true, but we’re not actually hellbent on returning a value. Instead, we’re going to return an anonymous function that contains our x value and then pass in y. Still not clear? It will be momentarily.

add 1 2
add 1 = \y -> 1 + y
(\y -> 1 + y) 2 = 1 + 2

So, add 1 returned a function we called lambda y that took one argument and added 1 to it. We then passed that new function our y argument (2) into this new anonymous lambda function and ended up with our answer, 3.

Isn’t functional programming and currying fun?

I go to open Outlook again, it instantly crashes.  Now I’m suspicious.  This isn’t normal behavior.  I start Google-ing around and find a myriad different things to try.  Start Outlook in Safe Mode, crash.  Try a new profile, crash.  Try a new Windows account, crash.  Run the Office Diagnostic Tool, no problems found.  With every option I explored I was no closer to finding a working solution.  Other mail clients worked fine, it was just Outlook that had the problem.  The only clue I gleaned from this search was that if I used a profile that had no e-mail accounts it worked, if I added my accounts back in the application died.  It was something related to fetching mail.

For some people, they’d probably just write this off and say “Well, don’t use Outlook.”  That’s a completely valid option, but now I have a mystery, and one that I want to solve if for no other reason than morbid curiosity.  When I got home after work I started thinking about it more.  Out of nowhere, I had an idea.  When I was playing with Outlook profiles I had noted that with no accounts, it wouldn’t crash, but with them it would.  Since there are 2 accounts in the profile, what would happen if I just added one back?

I plug in my cunningcoder.org details in the profile, crashed.  Not looking up, but I decide to see what would happen if just my old OSL account were used…  No crash.  Something about my cunningcoder.org e-mail was crashing Outlook but no other mail client.

I hop onto the control panel for my hosting and I notice they updated Dovecot while I was asleep.  Something must have gone wrong with the migration on my account.  I remote into the box and just as an experiment, I move the Mail/ folder to Mail.bak and then try to access my cunningcoder.org e-mail via Outlook.  No crash.  I copy my messages from the back-up back into the new Mail directory, no crash and all my messages are in tact.

I did lose the folder structure I had set up, but all my messages are still there and I have Outlook working again.  Definitely a weird ride, but at least I got all the way to the end.

After searching through the registry for a while I found the key responsible for the open command used for TaroView Documents. I’ll copy paste the relevant key below. Note, this requires that you have AppLocale and the Ichitaro Viewer installed in their default locations and this key was exported on Windows 7 professional.  Modifying the registry is potentially dangerous and I take no responsibility for the results of choosing to modify your own registry.  It will still nag you telling you that this is a “temporary” solution, but you can find a patched version of AppLoc.exe if you really want to get rid of that.

Below is the exported key that solved my problems.  It  will open anything that is registered as a TaroViewDocument to open through the AppLocale’d version instead of the default one.  I hope this helps someone else who was as frustrated as I was:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TaroViewDocumentFile\Shell\Open\command]@="\"C:\\Windows\\AppPatch\\AppLoc.exe\" \"C:\\Program Files\\JustSystems\\TaroView\\TAROVIEW.EXE\" \"%1\" \"/L0411\" "

I found that if I switched the non-Unicode language setting in Windows to Japanese it would work. Yay! BUT… This is a system wide change. No any non-Unicode program I have things it should be Japanese and that also messes with the display of certain things like the command prompt (which will use a Yen sign instead of a \). I could change it back when I was done, but each time you alter this system setting it requires a reboot. There must be a better way, I thought.

It turns out there IS a better way, but it’s still not perfect. There’s a program called Microsoft AppLocale (http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/apploc.mspx). This application will let you point it to an EXE and pick the language it should run it. It even will let you make a shortcut to always run the application through AppLocale. No reboots, not side effects. The only annoyance is that it doesn’t install properly under Windows 7 (You need to tell it to use backwards compatibility) and it will prompt you even when using a shortcut to remind you that AppLocale is just a “temporary solution”. Hopefully it’s right, and Microsoft will release a more robust system level update that will allow it to handle such situations on its own, or software manufacturers will start releasing software in Unicode.

It’s going to be my first time actually using Python on a real project, so we’ll have to see how that goes.  So far we’ve been just getting used to Launchpad, evaluating technologies for incorporation, and reading up on standards to support.  There is some code in the repositories, but it’s really just a base that the real project is going to spring forth from.  I’m just happy to be doing something computer sciency again.

All my students seemed re-energized, like they were ready to learn again.  Toward the end of last term they seemed to be losing steam and will to participate, but now they seem to be ready to go.  I only had a few teachers change on me (that I know of so far), so largely my routine hasn’t been interrupted too terribly much.  The only significant change is that my number of office days is going to plummet starting in May.  The elementary schools have stated they don’t care which ALT visits the school, so I’m going to be visiting some of my coworker’s schools, and she some of mine.  These make it so there really isn’t a day in the schedule where there isn’t a visit of some kind.

Community courses are also going to be starting at the beginning of June and run until mid July.  It’ll be once a week, on Tuesdays, running from 6:30-7:30.  The community courses are both enjoyable and annoying.  They are fun because I have free reign on my lessons and can choose to teach them however I please.  They are frustrating in that, because it’s all mine, I have to do it all, beginning to end.  This time around I’m going to do an advanced beginner’s course on business English.  Here’s to hoping it goes well!

With spring break coming, of course, there’s also the changing of the guard in the Board of Education.  I’ll be interested to see who’s staying and who’s leaving.  We have a party this Wednesday to bid farewell to those who will be departing so I imagine I’ll find out in short order.  I’ve grown to like many of my coworkers, but I’m sure even if they move on to other areas of city hall that I’ll come to appreciate their replacements just as much.

The only thing that could make this whole situation better is if we had some time off during spring break, but unfortunately the ALTs are required to be in the office doing whatever we can.  Kinda annoying, but if they want to pay me 150,000 yen to sit on my butt and do next to nothing, I won’t complain.

The next school year is looking like it could be quite busy, I have maybe 4 days the entire term without school visits, whereas I used to have at least 1 day a week which was set aside for prep.  The change has come as a result of the elementary schools requesting more and more visits from the ALTs, to the point where those schools are no longer really assigned to a specific ALT, but we both will manage them whenever we can.  This translates to me adding about 4-5 more schools to my load (I was already at 10).  I’m sure it’ll be rough in the beginning, but I’ll adapt.  In the end, I’m sure it’ll work out for the best, especially since I had so many office days where I didn’t know what to do with myself before.  I just have a small lingering fear that this is going to produce the exact opposite problem.

It’s hard to believe that this school year is almost over.  I’ve been having a lot of my “final lessons” with my third year students, and it’s always a sad thought to me.  I don’t get to visit any of my schools more than once or twice a month, but the students still are important to me in their own way.  I’m worried about how some of them will fair in high school, and others I’m confident are bound for success.  Whichever category they in, I just hope they continue to do their best.

The saddest thing I had to come to terms with this month, in regards to teaching, was that, for some of my students, this would be their last English lesson ever.  I thought that was kind of sad, because these students always seemed to be the least inhibited about putting themselves out there in English class and always seemed to be enjoying the class activities.  I’m sad to hear that they’re not going to be able to continue with those classes they loved so much, and I hope that I made their last exposure to English a positive one that they’ll remember well.

So usually I’m supposed to hear from my teachers three days before the lesson I’m going to participate in with their plan/outline of what they want to do/cover.  I didn’t get the plan for Tuesday and Today’s class until Monday afternoon.  My work schedule is from 8:45-4:30.  I got back from Monday’s lesson at 1:30 to be greeted with the lesson objects for Tuesday and Wednesday (Today).  This school, as usual, is one where I run the class and their normal teacher is just there to assist with translations of instructions when needed.  It started with a visit to the elementary school classes, which I probably should have guessed would have been the same material as always, but figured I’d give them the benefit of the doubt.  So I had 3 hours to prep the materials, games, instructions and the like for that lesson.  It was actually more like 2 and a half, because it was my cleaning day on Monday which takes up from 4-4:30.  That left me with the middle school prep for the next day after class.

This particular school is between 45 minutes to an hour away depending on weather and road conditions.  I had to be there by 9:30, so I ended up leaving as soon as I arrived to the office (around 8:30).  I do my teaching thing, eat lunch, etc.  Classes ran until 1:30, we got back around 2:40 because we had to stop for gas along the way.  I also am told I have a meeting with a separate teacher at 4:00.  So that means I have 1 hour and 20 minutes to prep for the middle school lessons.  The middle school day was a 4 class day, but I only had to prep 3 of them.  I frantically threw a plan together and had my meeting, all was well.

Then is D-day. Wednesday is also a 2nd period day at the same school.  Except this time classes didn’t get out until 2:30.  We got back to the office around 3:20.  Then at 4:20 I had to head to another school to help some students study for an English competition until 5:20.  When I got home, I made dinner and then relaxed until 8:30, when a couple friends came over to practice English until 9:30.

I’m absolutely exhausted right now and thankful as all hell that I don’t have to prep anything for tomorrow or Friday’s lesson.  It’s been a busy week so far, but that sure made the time fly by.  It unfortunately did have a rather negative impact on my mood, and I hope that anyone whom I was short with, snapped at, or bitched too doesn’t hold too much of a grudge against me.  If any of you are reading this…  I’m sorry.