I’ve cleaned out the Fireworks code – it’s fast. Not smooth though – I don’t know how to do a proper timer in Flex – anyone got any hints over how to be smoother than just running off the frame event?
Anyway, source is here, for your hacking pleasure. There’s a txt file to explain what you need inside.
Demo:http://js-fireworks.appspot.com/flex/index.html
Source:http://js-fireworks.appspot.com/flex/flex.zip

For the record, I still prefer the JavaScript version

Well, I wasn’t impressed with the speed of Flash for my fireworks. Despite using the legendary AS3, it ran like a dog. A slow dog.
So I’ve worked from the awesome FluidSolver, and rebuilt into Flex.
It’s faster, it’s prettier.
Click here for the demo.
Source needs work before distribution – currently it’s too merged with FluidSolver.

Flash ActionScript is pretty much JavaScript right?
So, I thought my Chrome Experiment, js-fireworks should be trivial to port across to AS, and take advantage of the extra speed.
It did prove pretty simple.
Instead of a canvas, I create a Sprite. The Sprite has a graphics object which is usable in much the same way as the canvas. So all I needed to do was to switch the methods around a bit and voila!
One gotcha was the difference in calling setTimeout, which does not pick up the right context. When I call FireworkDisplay.blah, it should have the context of FireworkDisplay, not global.
Second gotcha was the redefinition of loop variables. This is illegal:

for (var i=0;i<20;i++) {
}
for (var i=0;i<20;i++) {
}

I think this is a flaw in Flash. The var declares the loop counter to be local to the loop, so it should not "keep" a definition after exiting the loop. It's a pain.
Finally, the colours are a bit off. Don't know why - I pinched a simple util to convert rgb to hex, and I think it's off.
Anyway, it works. No extra speed though. Will have to look at optimization later.
Click here to see the demo.
Or click here to download the source.

Intermediate, intermediary, join tables in Django are something I’ve just ranted about on Twitter. Twitter’s great, because rants are limited to 140chars, so you don’t look so silly when you find the answer in the documentation.

Django’s documentation says that you can add ManyToMany join tables using the “through” parameter.
http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/db/models/#extra-fields-on-many-to-many-relationships

That table can hold useful extra fields. The documentation shows how to query against those fields, but not how to return them to view.

Ideally, we want to return them in a template. My example is a school with members, and a year for each.

Models:

class School(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=200)
members = models.ManyToManyField(Member, through='SchoolMember')

class Member(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=200)

class SchoolMember(models.Model):
member = models.ForeignKey(Member)
school = models.ForeignKey(School)
year = models.IntegerField(default=1900)

Template:

{% for myschool in myschoollist %}
{{ myschool.name }}
{% for myschoolmember in myschool.schoolmember_set|dictsort:"year"?%}

{{ myschoolmember.year }}
{{ myschoolmember.member.name }}
{% endfor %}
{% endfor %}

I think this works, but I’m not sure it’s optimal. Can anyone set me straight?

Updated: ?I’ve added sorting to show each year in order.