Python piano

Spent several hours to write a trivial piano emulator using Python. I do not have a book so just googled whatever did not work: apparently all newbie problems are already solved. I used PyQt bindings and Qt-designer to create UI. pyuic4 generates a bit ugly Python code: first, python 2.6 does not understand it (namely assignment some value to function, like self.some_func() = something, so I had to manually edit it (I found a post that latest Python snapshots already support it, likely it was about Python3), second, it does not know about loops and just creates a static representation of the form screen. Also I did not work hard on things like resizing (I just forbid it :) To play sounds I used PyMedia library, unfortunately it is not available in Ubuntu, and its compilation failed, so I had to edit setup scripts and put proper defines for C code :) Furtunately I quite know C a little. Probably I will switch out from PyMedia, since it does not allow to control output sound buffer size. I need to 'schedule' audio sample playing so that qt-signal handler returned and next one (like key release) could be processed. PyMedia implements async sound output, but it may be not enough - for example it blocks trying to get and play 100.000 samples. Or I will try to work with Python threads and assign press/release signals to different threads (if it is possible, I do not know Python enough yet). This is a very ugly proof of concept code to date. I will polish things and split downloaded scales into separate tones, which will be played when appropriate keys are pressed. I will also try to implement nicer classes for keys and sounds. And in a meantime my workplace screenshot (full-screen on click): I found it so simple to program using Python that it is very likely I will switch all prototyping development to Python from Lisp. Lisp is great and I do like its features, but it is way too rare when I used its cool abilities like writing complex macros, most of my macros were rather simple with-something () like with-open-file() and friends. Lambda and closures for internal states are great, but iirc Python also has them. But main feature of the Python I like is its incredible standard library as well as zillions of already written extensions. I was not able to find graphical bindings for CLISP or audio processing for example, although its quite unusual to write GUI in Lisp. I had to write HTTP GET/POST utility myself using low-level sockets; regular-expression in CLISP is rather limited, and although cl-ppcre is great, rich regexp is available in Python out of the box. Python has some multithreading support (and ugly GIL to name), while CLISP does not (at least 2.44.1 version, which comes with Ubuntu Lucid). And so, and so and on... Stay tuned, I will play more with this project, after all I want to play some simple music at work :)