New Year’s Python Meme

I love these blog memes, so I give you my version of Tarek Ziade's New Year's Python Meme.

1. What’s the coolest Python application, framework or library you have discovered in 2011?

For python libraries, that would have to be Kenneth Reitz' python-requests library. I've used it for an amazing amount of stuff and blogged about it. It took the grunge out of doing HTTP actions with Python. The API is clean and elegant, getting out of your way. It embodies the State of the art for API design, which closely matches the Zen of Python.

For applications, djangolint.com is awesome. It has helped me out so much on several projects. I would love to see something like this implemented and maintained for modern Python.

All the Python friendly PaaS efforts that have emerged are changing the landscape for those of us who want to launch projects but don't want to become full time system administrators in the process. Heroku, DjangoZoom, DotCloud, ep.io, gondor.io, and others are making it possible for developers to focus on development not server tooling. Google App Engine paved the way and it is wonderful to see the rest of the universe catch up with material that more closely follow core.

2. What new programming technique did you learn in 2011?

Event based programming! I've touched on it for years, but this year I really got a lot more more into it thanks to Aurynn Shaw kickstarting me and Audrey Roy expanding my knowledge ever since.

3. What’s the name of the open source project you contributed the most in 2011? What did you do?

I participated mostly as co-lead in the Open Comparison project, which amongst other things involved running the largest sprint at PyCon 2011. We maintained Django Packages and launched Pyramid and Plone versions of the project. We hope to launch a Python implementation in 2012.

I took a lot of notes this year at pydanny-event-notes - enough to make a book.

4. What was the Python blog or website you read the most in 2011?

Like Nick Coghlan, that would be http://planet.python.org.

5. What are the three top things you want to learn in 2012?

1. How to use whatever consistently maintained project that replaces PIL that works in Python 2.7.x and Python 3.x.
2. Really advanced Python as taught by Raymond Hettiger.
3. backbone.js

6. What are the top software, app or lib you wish someone would write in 2012?

A tool python-requests, but for shell access. Something like Unipath, but kept up-to-date and with nicely written documentation on Read the Docs.

A PIL replacement that is maintained, works for all modern Pythons, and is close enough to the PIL API to not cause too much confusion.

Something like Django Lint but for Python 2.7.x/3.x.

An open source project that tracks test coverages across PyPI and publishes reports of the results via an API.

Want to do your own list? here’s how:

• copy-paste the questions and answer to them in your blog
• tweet it with the #2012pythonmeme hashtag

Conference Talks I want to see

I'm writing this the day after Github's pycodeconf ended. That was an amazing conference, and I'll be blogging it soon (I'll also be writing about PyCon Australia, PyCon New Zealand, and DjangoCon US). With all this conference experience very current in my head, things I've seen and done at them, and the deadline for PyCon US submissions coming up, here are some talks I really want to see happen in the next six months. If not at PyCon US, then please consider these for other forthcoming events!

Note: Couldn't do my preferred 'linkify' as well as I liked thanks to bad hotel internet. I'll clean it up later.

Advanced SQL Alchemy Usage

I think the uber-powerful SQL Alchemy ORM needs the same sort of treatment me and Miguel Araujo gave on Advanced Django Forms Usage. Not a 30 tutorial or overview or 'State of', but tricks and patterns by someone who has used it frequently on more than one project. Multiple projects is important because the speaker should have had the chance to try multiple approaches. Start with something simple like a TimeStampModel all model classes might inherit from, then go into deeper and and more complex technical detail. Finish the talk with something crazy hard from SQL Alchemy that is hard to explain. If that causes you to open a bug/documentation ticket, then you'll know that you've done the talk right.

Advanced Django Models Usage

Following the same pattern as my SQL Alchemy idea above, start with something simple like a TimeStampModel (including South migration of fields), then go into complex looks with Q objects, good patterns for Managers, Aggregation, Transactions, and then finish it with the craziest, hardest thing you can find. When putting together the closing material causes you to open tickets for broken core code/documentation, then you know you've done it right.

Python Code Obfuscation Contest

This certain-to-be-controversial talk idea would be where the speaker would solicit Pythonistas to submit a single arcane Python code module that would have to display the text of "Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch." There would be a 'Expert' category which would forbid the eval/exec functions. The "Anything Goes Category" would allow use of eval/exec. The conference talk would be where the speaker announces the winners and comments on the brilliant insanity of submissions.

Django + Flask + Pyramid: A demonstration of useful things you can do with WSGI

At pycodeconf Armin Ronacher showed how with WSGI, he can run Django, Flask, Pyramid all from same server from the same domain. This surprised a lot of people, including me, and I want to see more of what Armin was talking about. I don't want any theory. I don't want anything obscure. I just want meaty bits I can implement the day after I hear the talk.

Zen of Python

Richard Jones gave his version of the talk at PyCon AU, and I want to hear other opinions about it. I'm happy to hear an expert give his view, and I would also be delighted to hear how a beginner (or relative beginner) feels about it.

Websites and OO Design Concepts: A Tutorial

For beginners, I would love to see a talk on a list of OO theories, and as each list item was discussed, examples designed in the context of a web site, how to do things right, plus identified anti-patterns would be presented. The web angle would be a good way to get the incoming Python web crowd to attend and identify with raised issues.

Python and Django class/hackathon!

The Los Angeles Python community (LA Django and LA PyLadies) is meeting in Santa Monica on July 23rd to teach Django and hack on all things Python on Saturday, July 23rd. The day will start with a Django class based on the official Django tutorial, then turn into a general hackathon, and finish up with lighting talks.

Leading the event is noted Pythonista Katharine Jarmul. As Katharine is giving the talk on web scraping at DjangoCon US, I'm hoping we can get her to give a lightning talk on the subject.

Learning Django

Sandy Strong will lead the effort to  teach people the fundamentals of Django. Besides all things Django and devops, Sandy is presenting the testing talk at DjangoCon US. And if that isn't good enough for you, she won't be alone teaching - there will be a bunch of us developers experienced with Django there to to provide her with support.

Even if you already know Django, please come and hang out for the first half! You can either help out others or work on your own project.

Hacking Python and Django

The second half of the day will be about working on whatever you want. If you are new to Django and want to finish the tutorial, go right ahead. Or you can work on your own pet Django or Python project. In fact, I know that there will be work on the nascent Pyramid project intended to represent the entire Los Angeles Python community.

Lightning Talks

We'll finish with lightning talks. Several people who attended the day will get the chance to talk for 5 minutes or so about a project, tool, or cause they wanted to share. If they go too long we start applauding until they step down.

Social Hour

After another awesome day of Python in LA, everyone will cool down by hanging and chatting over drinks. If you're lucky, maybe you'll get to see me do a drunken one-handed cartwheel where I don't spill a drop of what I'm holding.

My role

I'll be there in my normal role of setting up tables and chairs, helping during the class portion, and hacking on some Packaginator stuff in preparation for the forthcoming August/September Packaginator sprints at PyCon AU, Kiwi Pycon, and DjangoCon US.

Sponsors

This is all possible thanks to the sponsorship of Mahalo, Cars.com, and the Python Software Foundation

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PyCon 2011 Sprint Report

I love sprints. I've yet to participate in a sprint where I didn't learn something that made a difference in my programming career. Off the top of my head some of the things I've learned include distributed version control, picking the right Python tool, JQuery, SQLAlchemy, Bazaar, Git, Mercurial, the true importance of unittests, and Python's built-in zip function. And the PyCon 2011 sprints were no different.

PyCon 2011 was different in that this time I was going to co-lead a project, specifically Django Packages and the hopeful launch of Python Packages.

Note: The goal of Python Packages is not to replace PyPI, but rather serve as a resource to find, evaluate, and compare packages used in the every day life of a Python. In my opinion, PyPI should be dedicated to listing and serving packages - anything else (comments, ratings, documentation, etc) just adds complexity to the project and diffuses the focus of their team.

It all started with us being the second-to-last in line at the PyCon sprint announcements. At the microphone I forgot to mention a few things so I was worried that our attendance would suck. I tried to take it in good humor, but doubt worried at my gut. My co-lead, Audrey Roy, was confident that if no one showed, then we would have fun with just the two of us hacking away.

To our delight and surprise, turnout was good with about ten (10) people showing up. And thanks to lessons learned at DjangoCon 2010 and our tricks to getting more sprinters and helping sprinters deliver code, the number of participants kept growing. In the end we had twenty-four (24) new contributors to the project, which was simply amazing.

Test coverage had been mediocre on Django Packages, but after a show stopping bug got into production (someone changed a commonly used function to a property), we did a huge amount of work to not only increase test coverage but also refactor tests to be simpler and actually test rather than just increase coverage numbers. The improved quality and quantity of test coverage gave contributors the confidence to refactor and simplify some of the 'brilliant code' that I had written during the first month of the project.

We also got a bit draconian about accepting pull requests but documented how to get pull requests accepted. That might sound mean but if stopping one person's bug allowed ten (10) other people to maintain productivity then everyone is happier. Also, it allowed us to coach some of the new Python developers coming from other languages on their work. Which was awesome because we saw people's work evolve in a day from rank beginner material to competent Pythonista submissions. To think we had some part in helping people improve is one of the best things we got out of the sprint.

And the results?

The biggest thing, which we got into place on the second evening of the sprint, is that Django Packages is now an instance of Packaginator. Packaginator is a framework for launching package comparison sites for Python based tools. After a bit more work to happen this coming Sunday (4/10/2011), we'll be able to trivially deploy Python Packages, Pyramid Packages, Plone Packages, and Flask Packages - all of them able to support patches from Packaginator without causing the maintainers of those sites to hate our guts. We should also will have the hooks to support things like Vim Packages, Ubuntu Packages, Fedora Packages and more quite shortly.

Packaginator handles repos much better and now supports Bitbucket, Github, and Launchpad out of the box. SourceForge may happen very soon. Google Project Hosting, when Google implements Project Hosting API (cause we refuse to screen scrape pages for MetaData) will be handled shortly thereafter. Thanks to the work of the 'repo men' adding a new repo is now much easier, and we hope people submit new ones to handle things like Trac and other repo systems.

Our documentation went from passable to incredible, and our installation story is awesome. You want people to participate in your project? Then learn you some RestructuredText and Sphinx and host your documentation on Read the Docs. Read the Docs is awesome and I need to blog about why all Python docs should move there.

There was a huge amount of template cleanup - and the grid X-Y access can be rotated. We haven't turned on that feature yet, but you'll see it shortly.

Conclusion

The sprints were awesome. I learned a lot about running projects and managed to get into some new coding tricks (zip() comes to mind) into my brain. That this project is helping the open source world made it even better. And the best thing of all is I got to make over twenty new friends - all of whom worked with us towards a single common goal.

PyCon 2011 Contributors

• Aaron Kavlie
• Adam Saegebarth
• Alex Robbins
• Andrii Kurinny
• Audrey Roy
• Brian Ball
• Bryan Weingarten
• Chris Adams
• Daniel Greenfeld
• Eric Spunagle
• Evgeny Fadeev
• Flaviu Simihaian
• Gisle Aas (Repo Man)
• Jacob Burch
• James Pacileo
• Jeff Schenck
• Jim Allman
• John M. Camara
• Jonas Obrist
• jrothenbuhler
• Nate Aune
• Nolan Brubaker
• Preston Holmes
• Stuart Powers
• Szilveszter Farkas (Repo Man)
• Tom Brander
• Vasja Volin

Announcing Garbaginator!

While working on Packaginator at the PyCon 2011 sprints we discovered some serious issues in the way that Django handles garbage collection. After a huge amount of work, we managed to isolate and fix the problem. This 'fix', as it were, was only possible by doing a very sophisticated 'hack' of critical internal components of the Django Web Application framework. We also discovered that similar issues occurred in other existing Python application frameworks such as Pyramid, Flask, Web.py, Web2Py, Grok, Twisted, Tornado, Google App Engine, and Rails.

Since then the Packaginator community has been fiercely debating what we should do with our newly created set of hacks. After a lot of arguments going both ways we've decided to come up with our own application framework and release it to the world under the GPL license.

This brand new application framework ignores the lessons learned from all the other Python frameworks and embraces the cutting edge concept of Not-Invented-Here. It focuses less on features and enhancements over existing systems and much, much more on the critical concept of formal Garbage handling.

Some of the critical modules include:

• RubberGloves (for handling dirty objects)
• Django-Garbaginator
• Flask-Recycling
• Pyramid-Garbaginator
• Web.2.py Garbaginator Bridgerator ('cause people always get Web2Py and web.py confused with each other so we bridged them together)
• BlueBream

Check out the home page at: http://garbaginator.cartwheelweb.com

Fork Garbaginator on GitHub: https://github.com/cartwheelweb/garbaginator

Note: This was an April Fool's Day Joke

Why you should go to Pycon

Because you are new to Python
If you want to get better at Python then Pycon is one of the better avenues to learn. Think of it as a nine day data dump of Pythonic knowledge straight to your brain!

When it comes to the fundamentals of Python, the tutorials are a great way to hit the ground running. How do you think I learned? Also, there are dozens of beginner talks designed to introduce you what highly qualified people think you should be doing. Finally, the sprints are a great way to work with real experts for days - because even the most advanced projects needs people to knock out the invariable score of simple bugs, do documentation and write additional tests.

Also, Zed Shaw is going to teach his Learning Python the Hard Way tutorial throughout the conference. (follow that link!) To summarize, besides going over his lessons and some basic conference coaching, he's going to take his class to conference talks and then bring them back to apply what was learned. He won't be doing it alone either - a number of other python folk are going to volunteer their time to help, and I'm going to be one of them.

Because you are old to Python
A good chunk of the tutorials are designed specifically for experienced Pythonistas wishing to expand their knowledge (OMG Raymond Hettinger). And then as we all know the conference itself has scores of advanced talks designed to challenge you. Finally, what better place to work on your favorite project or get people to work on your project then the massive Pycon sprints ?

Want to do Python related technology full-time? What better place to look then where amazing companies and organizations hang out with the intention of hiring people? And invariably some of those hiring groups will be hosting parties too...

Because you are recruiting
Looking for good staff to do Python, Django, Plone, Pyramid, wxPython, NoSQL, Linux admin, Unix admin, BSD admin, Windows admin, Science, or Engineering work? Pycon will be where 1500 of the best and brightest people on the planet will hang out for over a week and some of them will be interested in new opportunities. Sponsorship is a great way to get yourself noticed by hundreds of Pythonistas.

Because it is cheap
Until January 25th Pycon registration is at its early bird prices. Even when it goes up it is still a pretty good deal. Admittedly the biggest expense is the hotel ($159/night) but there are decent and much cheaper hotels ($80/night last I checked) within a few blocks of the conference.