Jeff Triplett's Micro.blog

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  • Python

    ,

    UV

    ,

    Today I Learned

    🤷 UV does everything or enough that I'm not sure what else it needs to do

    UV feels like one of those old infomercials where it solves everything, which is where we have landed in the Python world.

    I have had several discussions with friends about UV, and even when we talk about it during my weekly(ish) office hours, the list has grown to an ever-growing number of options.

    UV started as a quicker way of installing Python packages, and now it’s easier to tell people that UV does everything and to focus on what it doesn’t do.

    My favorite feature is that UV can now bootstrap a project to run on a machine that does not previously have Python installed, along with installing any packages your application might require.

    Here is my incomplete list of what UV does today:

    • uv pip install replaces pip install
    • uv venv replaces python -m venv
    • uv pip compile replaces pip-tools compile
    • uv pip sync replaces pip-tools sync
    • uv run replaces pipx
    • uv tool run replaces pipx
    • uv python replaces pyenv, asdf, mise, and several other like-minded tools
    • uv build - Build your Python package for pypi
    • uv publish - Upload your Python package to pypi
    • astral-sh/setup-uv brings UV to GitHub Actions
    • ghcr.io/astral-sh/uv:latest brings UV and Python to Docker

    I copied these four from uv --help, which feels like poetry features.

    • uv add - Add dependencies to the project
    • uv remove - Remove dependencies from the project
    • uv sync - Update the project’s environment
    • uv lock - Update the project’s lockfile

    So what doesn’t UV do?

    UV does a lot, but it still needs to do everything.

    • UV doesn’t run custom scripts defined in our pyproject.toml like npm-run-script allows. Thank you to @command_tab for jogging my memory.
    • UV doesn’t convert my non-UV-based projects to UV. Converting is more about prefixing and replacing my commands to switch over.
    • UV doesn’t manage, and bump version numbers like the BumpVer, and others do.
    • UV doesn’t manage pre-commit like hooks. This is a long shot, but I’d love to see support via pyproject.toml.
    • UV doesn’t replace Python, nor should it.
    Sunday November 3, 2024

  • Python

    ,

    Docker

    ,

    UV

    ,

    Today I Learned

    📓 My notes on publishing a Python package with UV and building a custom GitHub Action for files-to-claude-xml

    My new Python application files-to-claude-xml is now on PyPI, which means they are packaged and pip installable. My preferred way of running files-to-claude-xml is via UV’s tool run, which will install it if it still needs to be installed and then execute it.

    $ uv tool run files-to-claude-xml --version

    Publishing on PyPi with UV

    UV has both build and publish commands, so I took them for a spin today.

    uv build just worked, and a Python package was built.

    When I tried uv publish, it prompted me for some auth settings for which I had to log in to PyPI to create a token.

    I added those to my local ENV variables I manage with direnv.

    export UV_PUBLISH_PASSWORD=<your-PyPI-token-here>
export UV_PUBLISH_USERNAME=__token__

    Once both were set and registered, uv publish published my files on PyPI.

    GitHub Action

    To make files-to-claude-xml easier to run on GitHub, I created a custom action to build a _claude.xml from the GitHub repository.

    To use this action, I wrote this example workflow, which runs from files-to-claude-xml-example

    name: Convert Files to Claude XML


on:
  push


jobs:
  convert-to-xml:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - name: Convert files to Claude XML
      uses: jefftriplett/files-to-claude-xml-action@main
      with:
        files: |
          README.md
          main.py          
        output: '_claude.xml'
        verbose: 'true'
    - name: Upload XML artifact
      uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
      with:
        name: claude-xml
        path: _claude.xml

    My GitHub action is built with a Dockerfile, which installs files-to-claude-xml.

    # Dockerfile
FROM ghcr.io/astral-sh/uv:bookworm-slim


ENV UV_LINK_MODE=copy


RUN --mount=type=cache,target=/root/.cache/uv \
    --mount=type=bind,source=uv.lock,target=uv.lock \
    --mount=type=bind,source=pyproject.toml,target=pyproject.toml \
    uv sync --frozen --no-install-project


WORKDIR /app


ENTRYPOINT ["uvx", "files-to-claude-xml"]

    To turn a GitHub repository into a runnable GitHub Action, an action.yml file needs to exist in the repository. This file describes the input arguments and which Dockerfile or command to run.

    # action.yml
name: 'Files to Claude XML'
description: 'Convert files to XML format for Claude'
inputs:
  files:
    description: 'Input files to process'
    required: true
    type: list
  output:
    description: 'Output XML file path'
    required: false
    default: '_claude.xml'
  verbose:
    description: 'Enable verbose output'
    required: false
    default: 'false'
  version:
    description: 'Display the version number'
    required: false
    default: 'false'
runs:
  using: 'docker'
  image: 'Dockerfile'
  args:
    - ${{ join(inputs.files, ' ') }}
    - --output
    - ${{ inputs.output }}
    - ${{ inputs.verbose == 'true' && '--verbose' || '' }}
    - ${{ inputs.version == 'true' && '--version' || '' }}

    Overall, this works. Claude’s prompting helped me figure it out, which felt fairly satisfying given the goal of files-to-claude-xml.

    Wednesday October 16, 2024

  • Django

    ,

    Python

    ,

    LLM

    🤖 I released files-to-claude-xml and new development workflows

    After months of using and sharing this tool via a private gist, I finally carved out some time to release files-to-claude-xml.

    Despite my social media timeline declaring LLMs dead earlier today, I have used Claude Projects and Artifacts.

    My workflow is to copy a few files into a Claude Project and then create a new chat thread where Claude will help me write tests or build out a few features.

    My files-to-claude-xml script grew out of some research I did where I stumbled on their Essential tips for long context prompts which documents how to get around some file upload limits which encourages uploading one big file using Claude’s XML-like format.

    With files-to-claude-xml, I build a list of files that I want to import into a Claude Project. Then, I run it to generate a _claude.xml file, which I drag into Claude. I create a new conversation thread per feature, then copy the finished artifacts out of Claude once my feature or thread is complete.

    After the feature is complete, I delete the _claude.xml file from my project and replace it with an updated copy after I re-run files-to-claude-xml.

    Features on the go

    One bonus of using Claude Projects is that once everything is uploaded, I can use the Claude iOS app as a sort-of notes app and development tool. I can start parallel conversation threads and have it work on new ideas and features. Once I get back to my desktop, I can pull these chat conversations up, and if I like the direction of the feature, I might use them. If not, I have wasted no time or effort on them. This also serves as a nice ToDo list.

    New workflows

    I am working on side projects further using this methodology. Sometimes, I would like to work on something casually while watching Netflix, but my brain shuts off from coding during the day. Instead of feeling bad that I haven’t added share links to a website or some feature I meant to add last week, I can pair Claude to work on it with me.

    I can also get more done with my lunch hours on projects like DjangoTV than I could have otherwise. Overall, I’m happy to have an on-demand assistant to pair with and work on new features and ideas.

    It’s also quicker to try out new ideas and projects that I would have needed to make time for.

    Alternatives

    Simon Willison wrote files-to-prompt, which I think is also worth trying. I contributed to the discussion, feedback, and document structure for the --cxml feature.

    I wrote files-to-claude-xml before Simon had cxml support and hoped to not release my version.

    However, after trying it out on several projects, my ignore/exclude list grew more significant than the files that I wanted to include in my project to send to Claude. I found it easier to generate a list of files to pass to mine instead of maintaining a long list to exclude.

    Saturday October 12, 2024

  • Django

    ,

    Python

    ,

    UV

    ⚙️ UV with GitHub Actions to run an RSS to README project

    For my personal GitHub profile, I list my activities, affiliations, and the latest updates from some of my projects.

    Historically, I have used JasonEtco/rss-to-readme GitHub Action to fetch a few RSS feeds or two and to update my README a few times a day.

    Overall, I’m happy with this setup. I used it on the Django News GitHub Organization to pull in newsletter issues, jobs, and the latest videos from our various projects. When I tried to install rss-to-readme in our repo, I was getting node12 errors. (Have I mentioned how much I loathe node/npm?).

    Instead of forking rss-to-readme and trying to figure out how to upgrade it, I used this as an excuse to “pair program” with Claude. We quickly built out a prototype using Python and the feedparser library.

    I would share the chat log, but it’s mostly me trying out a few different ways to invoke it before I settle on the finished approach. See the source code over on GitHub if you are curious: https://github.com/django-news/.github/blob/main/fetch-rss.py

    Once I had a working Python script that could fetch an RSS file and modify the README, I decided to run/deploy it using UV to see how minimal I could build out the GitHub Action.

    GitHub Action

    To run our fetch-rss.py script, we have four steps:

    1. actions/checkout Get a git checkout of our project.
    2. astral-sh/setup-uv Setup UV also installs Pythons for us. As a bonus, we enabled UV’s cache support, which will run much faster in the future unless we change something in our fetch-rss.py file.
    3. Run uv run fetch-rss.py ... to fetch our RSS feeds and write them to disk. uv run installs any dependencies and caches them before our fetch-rss.py runs.
    4. stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action If our README.md file has changed, save our changes and commit them back to git and into our README.

    Our schedule.yml GitHub Action workflow runs twice daily or whenever we push a new change to our repo. We also set workflow_dispatch, which gives us a button to run the script manually.

    # .github/workflows/schedule.yml
name: Update README

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  schedule:
    # Once a day at 12 AM
    - cron: 0 12 * * *
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  update:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    permissions:
      contents: write

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Install uv
        uses: astral-sh/setup-uv@v3
        with:
          enable-cache: true
          cache-dependency-glob: |
                        *.py

      - name: Fetch our Feeds
        run: |
          # Fetch latest Django News Newsletter entries
          uv run fetch-rss.py \
              --section=news \
              --readme-path=profile/README.md \
              https://django-news.com/issues.rss          

      - uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v5
        with:
          commit_message: ":pencil: Updates README"

    Results

    Overall, I’m pleased with this solution. If I wanted to spend more time on it or re-use this workflow, I might turn it into a GitHub Action workflow so that we can call: django-news/rss-to-readme to use in other projects. For now, this is fine.

    I’m happy with the astral-sh/setup-uv and uv run steps because they save me from having to set up Python and then install our project dependencies as separate steps.

    I normally shy away from running Python workflows like this in GitHub Actions because they involve a lot of slow steps. This entire workflow takes 16 to 20 seconds to run, which feels fast to me.

    Saturday October 5, 2024

  • Django

    ,

    Python

    🎉 Announcing DjangoTV

    Friends, I’m launching a half-finished website idea that I have been playing around with for a while. djangotv.com is focused on promoting and searching Django videos to make discovery easier.

    I wanted to launch DjangoTV before I left DjangoCon US 2024, so I’m technically announcing it from the airport. Last year, I launched Django News Jobs during the Django sprints because I was annoyed by the state of the various Django job boards.

    After a year of hearing people complain about Django and Python YouTube videos not getting enough views, I decided to address the problem by building out a website to help organize and promote them.

    DjangoTV is not competing with pyvideo.org. PyVideo is a fantastic resource for the Python community, and one of my goals is to make it easier to get Django content on PyVideo, too.

    DjangoTV is incomplete, and I have many ideas to improve it, including backfilling some of our older conferences, adding presenters, and adding some other metadata to make it a useful community resource.

    I focused on DjangoCon videos to bootstrap the project, and we’ll slowly expand our archives. I have been extracting good quotes, adding transcriptions, and adding better summaries. Please expect this to change a lot. I even launched the website with DEBUG turned on for a few days before I turned it off.

    Your feedback is crucial to us. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to share them.

    Most importantly, names change, people change, and bodies change. It’s essential to me that we respect each other and handle this with care. If you have a concern or need us to pull a video, please don’t hesitate to reach out; we will take care of it.

    Friday September 27, 2024

  • Django

    ,

    Python

    ,

    Today I Learned

    🧳 DjangoCon US, Black Python Devs Leadership Summit, and Django Girls Durham

    I’m heading to Durham, NC, for seven days of DjangoCon US this Friday. This is my 10th year volunteering and the 9th year that DEFNA, the non-profit I co-founded, has run a DjangoCon US event. Here is an overview of the week.

    Black Python Devs Leadership Summit (Saturday)

    I’m attending and speaking on a discussion panel on Saturday at the Black Python Devs Leadership Summit. Tickets are free, and they will be streaming online in the afternoon. Donations are accepted and appreciated.

    Django Girls Durham (Saturday)

    Django Girls are hosting a Django workshop and teaching beginners a crash course on building their first website using Django.

    DjangoCon US Tutorials (Sunday)

    On Sunday morning, I’ll be volunteering and helping out at the tutorials. In the afternoon, we have a tradition of stuffing swag bags, which takes a big group and is a fun way to kick off the conference. You do not need a tutorial ticket or an organizer to help out. Ask at the registration desk, and they can direct you to when and where we are doing this.

    Django Social meetup (Sunday)

    My company REVSYS is sponsoring a DjangoSocial Raleigh/Durham Pre-DjangoCon Special meetup on Sunday evening before the conference kicks off. The meetup will be great for meeting other attendees the night before the conference.

    DjangoCon US Talks (Monday through Wednesday)

    The talks are great, but the busiest three days of the conference are also the busiest. There is always a lot going on, from sun up to sun down.

    DjangoCon US Sprints (Thursday and Friday)

    The sprints are one of my favorite parts of the conference. In past years, I have been so exhausted by the sprints that it’s hard to sit down and focus. It’s one of the best times to discuss Django and the Django ecosystem. If you have a project or want to find a project to help with, the sprints are great for getting your feet wet.

    Outro

    Tickets are still available if you live near Durham and want to attend. Both events have online and in-person options, so there is no pressure to make last-minute travel plans.

    If you live around Durham and want to meet up, please reach out. Let’s see if we can meet for coffee.

    Friday September 20, 2024

  • Django

    ,

    Python

    ,

    UV

    ,

    Today I Learned

    🤠 UV Roundup: Five good articles and a pre-commit tip

    I have written quite a bit about UV on my micro blog, and I am happy to see more and more people adopt it. I have stumbled on so many good articles recently that I wanted to share them because every article points out something new or different about why UV works well for them.

    If you are new to UV, it’s a new tool written by Astral, the creators of Ruff.

    I like UV because it replaces, combines, or complements a bunch of Python tools into one tool and user developer experience without forcing a UV way of doing it. UV effectively solves the question, “Why do I need another Python tool?” to do everyday Python tasks.

    Some reason I like UV after using it for months:

    • It’s a faster pip and is really, really fast
    • It can install and manage Python versions
    • It can run and install Python scripts
    • It can run single-file Python scripts along with their dependencies
    • It can handle project lock files

    While some people don’t care about UV being fast, it’s shaved minutes off my CI builds and container rebuilds, which means it has also saved me money and energy resources.

    Overall thoughts on UV

    Oliver Andrich’s UV — I am (somewhat) sold takes the approach of only using UV to set up a new Python environment. Oliver uses UV to install Python, aliases to call Python, and UV tool install to set up a few global utilities.

    Using UV with Django

    Anže Pečar’s UV with Django shows how to use UV to set up a new project with Django.

    Switching from pyenv to UV

    Will Guaraldi Kahn-Greene’s Switching from pyenv to uv was relatable for me because I also use pyenv, but I plan to slowly migrate to using only UV. I’m already halfway there, but I will have pyenv for my legacy projects for years because many aren’t worth porting yet.

    Using UV and managing with Ansible

    Adam Johnson’s Python: my new uv setup for development taught me to use uv cache prune to clean up unused cache entries and shows how he manages his UV setup using Ansible.

    Some notes on UV

    Simon Willison’s Notes on UV is an excellent summary of Oliver’s notes.

    A parting UV tip

    If you are a pre-commit fan hoping for a version that supports UV, the pre-commit-uv project does just that. I started updating my justfile recipes to bake just lint to the following uv run command, which speeds up running and installing pre-commit significantly.

    $ uv run --with pre-commit-uv pre-commit run --all-files
pre-commit-uv

    If you are attending DjangoCon US…

    If you are attending DjangoCon US and want to talk UV, Django, Django News, Django Packages, hit me up while you are there.

    I’ll be attending, volunteering, organizing, sponsoring, and sprinting around the venue in Durham, NC, for the next week starting this Friday.

    We still have online and in-person tickets, but not much longer!

    Thursday September 19, 2024

  • Django

    ,

    Python

    ,

    Office Hours

    📅 Office Hours Fall Update

    This Friday, I am hosting Office Hours before I travel to DjangoCon US (organizer) and the Black Python Devs Leadership Summit (speaker) in Durham, NC.

    This Friday will be my last session before a two-week break, but I will resume Office Hours again on October 4th.

    • Friday, September 13th, 2024, 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm
    • Friday, September 20th, 2024 - No office hours
    • Friday, September 27th, 2024 - No office hours
    • Friday, October 4th, 2024, 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm

    High-level details

    ℹ️ Anyone can join office hours. Many join because they work remotely, miss seeing faces, and miss the random conversations when a small group hangs out.

    ℹ️ Our office hours are a collaborative space where we can discuss our ongoing projects, catch up, and work together to wrap up our week on a productive note.

    🙏 As always, everyone is welcome to join, whether you’re a regular attendee or joining for the first time. If you are curious, reach out.

    ✅ If you need any additional details, feel free to send me a message or check out the gist from our previous sessions, where you’ll always find the most recent Zoom link ⚠️

    Thursday September 12, 2024

  • Django

    ,

    Python

    🚫 Stop scheduling security updates and deprecating major features over holidays

    I know people outside the US 🙄 at this, but please stop releasing major security updates and backward incompatible changes over major US, international, and religious holidays.

    Given that major security updates are embargoed and scheduled weeks and months in advance, it’s essential to coordinate and avoid conflicts. A simple check of the calendar before scheduling announcements can prevent such issues.

    Even if you give everyone two weeks' notice, aka what GitHub just did, wait to schedule them for release over a holiday weekend.

    Historically, the Python and Django communities have also been guilty of this, so I’m not just finger-pointing at GitHub. We can all do better here.

    Update: 100% unrelated to this: Django security releases issued: 5.1.1, 5.0.9, and 4.2.16. Thank you, Natalia (and Sarah) for scheduling this after the US is back from a major holiday.

    Tuesday September 3, 2024

  • Django

    ,

    Python

    ,

    UV

    🚜 Using Claude 3.5 Sonnet to refactor one of Brian Okken's Python projects

    Brian Okken posted and published his Top pytest Plugins script and then a follow-up post, Finding the top pytest plugins, which was pretty cool.

    I have written a few throw-away scripts, which William Vincent wrote about and updated a few times in the Top 10 Django Third-Party Packages (2024) and The 10 Most-Used Django Packages (2024).

    These efforts are powered by Hugo van Kemenade’s excellent Top PyPI Packages.

    This inspired me to fork Brian’s top-pytest-plugins project, which I updated to support passing in other package names like “django” to get a rough estimate of monthly package downloads.

    The refactored project is jefftriplett/top-python-packages.

    Please note: Looking at the package name doesn’t scale as well for projects that have their own Trove classifiers. For a project like pytest, it works well. Many of the top packages may not even have Django in their name for a project like Django. Some projects may even actively discourage a project from using their project in their package’s name for trademark reasons. So, YMMV applies here.

    Prompts

    I added uv run support, which I have written about a lot lately.

    I also copied the top_pytest.py file into a Claude 3.5 Sonnet session, and I let it handle the whole refactor. It even handled adding the PEP 723 new package dependencies without me asking it to.

    In case it’s useful to anyone, here are my prompts:

    ## Prompt:
Please update this script to use a rich table.


## Prompt:
Please update the table styles to be ascii so I can copy and paste it into a markdown doc


## Prompt:
Please remove the description column


## Prompt:
Please change all PyTest and pytest references to Django and django


## Prompt:
Please add back `if 'django' in project.lower() and 'django' != project.lower():`


## Prompt:
please remove the \*# Export to markdown section. I can just pipe the output \*


## Prompt:
Please add the typer library.


## Prompt:
Please remove days and limit


## Prompt:
Please refactor the script to allow me to pass the package name instead of django. You can default to django though.


This way I can pass pytest or flask or other projects.


## Prompt:
Please change the default Table box type to MARKDOWN

    Outro

    I don’t usually write about Claude or prompts, but the tool has been handy lately.

    If you have had some similar successes, let me know. I have been exploring some rabbit holes, and it’s changing the way I approach solving problems.

    Sunday August 25, 2024

  • Django

    ,

    Python

    ,

    UV

    ,

    Today I Learned

    📓 UV Run Django Notes

    I wanted to know how hard it would be to turn one of my django-startproject projects into a uv run friendly project. As it turns out, it worked, and the steps were more than reasonable.

    Before the PEP 723’ing…

    I started with a fairly vanilla manage.py that Django will give you after running python -m manage startproject.

    """Django's command-line utility for administrative tasks."""

import os
import sys


def main():
    """Run administrative tasks."""
    os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "config.settings")
    try:
        from django.core.management import execute_from_command_line
    except ImportError as exc:
        raise ImportError(
            "Couldn't import Django. Are you sure it's installed and "
            "available on your PYTHONPATH environment variable? Did you "
            "forget to activate a virtual environment?"
        ) from exc
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

    shebang

    Then we add #!/usr/bin/env -S uv run to the top of our manage.py file.

    Next, we make our manage.py executable and try to run it.

    $ chmod +x manage.py
$ ./manage.py
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'django'

    Our script ran, but Python couldn’t find Django. To tell our script to install Django, we can use uv add—- script to add it.

    $ uv add --script manage.py django
Updated `manage.py`
$ ./manage.py
...

Type 'manage.py help <subcommand>' for help on a specific subcommand.

Available subcommands:

[django]
    check
    compilemessages
    createcachetable
    dbshell
    diffsettings
    dumpdata
    flush
    inspectdb
    loaddata
    makemessages
    makemigrations
    migrate
    optimizemigration
    runserver
    sendtestemail
    shell
    showmigrations
    sqlflush
    sqlmigrate
    sqlsequencereset
    squashmigrations
    startapp
    startproject
    test
    testserver
Note that only Django core commands are listed as settings are not properly configured (error: No module named 'environs').

    Django worked as expected this time, but Python could not find a few third-party libraries I like to include in my projects.

    To add these, I passed the other four to uv add --script which will add them to the project.

    $ uv add --script manage.py django-click "environs[django]" psycopg2-binary whitenoise
Updated `manage.py`
...
$ ./manage.py
...

    Our Django app’s manage.py works when we run it.

    After the PEP 723’ing…

    After we installed our dependencies in our manage.py file, they were added to the top of the file between the /// blocks.

    #!/usr/bin/env -S uv run
# /// script
# requires-python = ">=3.10"
# dependencies = [
#     "django",
#     "django-click",
#     "environs[django]",
#     "psycopg2-binary",
#     "whitenoise",
# ]
# ///
"""Django's command-line utility for administrative tasks."""

import os
import sys


def main():
    """Run administrative tasks."""
    os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "config.settings")
    try:
        from django.core.management import execute_from_command_line
    except ImportError as exc:
        raise ImportError(
            "Couldn't import Django. Are you sure it's installed and "
            "available on your PYTHONPATH environment variable? Did you "
            "forget to activate a virtual environment?"
        ) from exc
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()
    Friday August 23, 2024

  • Python

    ,

    UV

    🐍 Python UV run with shebangs

    This UV shebang trick that Simon Willison linked up is a nice pattern, and I plan to rebuild some of my one-off scripts in my dotfiles using it.

    Here is a demo that will print “hello python” using the Python Branding colors using the Rich library while letting UV install and manage rich for you.

    #!/usr/bin/env -S uv run
# /// script
# requires-python = ">=3.10"
# dependencies = [
#     "rich",
# ]
# ///

from rich.console import Console
from rich.theme import Theme

python_theme = Theme(
    {
        "pyyellow": "#ffde57",
        "pyblue": "#4584b6",
    }
)

console = Console(theme=python_theme)

console.print("[pyyellow]hello[/pyyellow] [pyblue]python[/pyblue]", style="on #646464")

    Assuming you have UV installed, and you save and chmod +x this file as hello-python.py, then you should be able to run it via ./hello-python.py.

    I suspect I can more easily bootstrap new machines using this trick without fewer worries about polluting my global system packages.

    Thursday August 22, 2024

  • Python

    ,

    UV

    🐍 UV Updates and PEP 723: Simplifying Python Packaging and Scripting

    The uv: Unified Python packaging update brings fresh air to the Python community, with several improvements streamlining the development process. One exciting addition is an early preview of PEP 723, also known as Single-file scripts.

    The Single-file scripts feature particularly caught my attention due to its potential to simplify the distribution and execution of small Python projects. Streamlining the process is highly appealing to someone who frequently creates GitHub Gists and shares them privately and publicly.

    With this new feature, I can now instruct users to run uv run main.py without explaining what a venv or virtualenv is, plus a long list of requirements that need to be passed to pip install.

    I had the opportunity to test this feature over lunch today. While adding libraries to the script was straightforward, I encountered a few hurdles when I forgot to invoke uv run in my virtual environment (venv). This makes sense, given that it’s a new habit, but it highlights the importance of adapting to changes in our development workflow.

    Overall, the UV: Unified Python packaging update and the introduction of Single-file scripts mark a significant step in simplifying Python development. As developers become more familiar with these improvements, we expect increased adoption and smoother collaboration on small-scale projects.

    Bonus Example

    I looked through some of my recent visits, and one I recently shared with a few conference organizer friends was a one-off script I used to read several YouTube video JSON files that I’m using to bootstrap another project. It was the first time I used DuckDB to make quick work of reading data from a bunch of JSON files using SQL.

    Overall, I was happy with DuckDB and what PEP 723 might bring to the future of Python apps, even if my example only does a little.

    # To run this application, use:
#   uv run demo-duckdb.py
#
# /// script
# requires-python = ">=3.10"
# dependencies = [
#     "duckdb",
#     "rich",
#     "typer",
# ]
# ///
import duckdb
import typer

from rich import print


def main():
    result = duckdb.sql("SELECT id,snippet FROM read_json('json/*.json')").fetchall()

    for row in result:
        id, snippet = row
        print("-" * 80)
        print(f"{id=}")
        print(f"{snippet['channelTitle']=}")
        print(f"{snippet['title']=}")
        print(f"{snippet['publishedAt']=}")
        print(snippet["description"])
        print(snippet["thumbnails"].get("maxres") or snippet.get("standard"))
        print()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    typer.run(main)

    Overall, the future is bright with UV and PEP 723 may bring us. I’m excited to have more one-file Python apps that are easier to share and run with others.

    PEP 723 also opens the door to turning a one-file Python script into a runnable Docker image that doesn’t even need Python on the machine or opens the door for Beeware and Briefcase to build standalone apps.

    Wednesday August 21, 2024

  • Django

    ,

    Python

    ,

    Office Hours

    💼 Office Hours this Friday, August 9th

    I am hosting Office Hours this Friday, August 9th, 2024, from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm Central Time.

    💼 I plan to upgrade some projects to work with Django 5.1 and possibly Python 3.13 as time permits. I have a few Django Packages tasks to finish too.

    ℹ️ Anyone can join office hours.

    ℹ️ Our office hours are a collaborative space where we can discuss our ongoing projects, catch up, and work together to wrap up our week on a productive note.

    🙏 As always, everyone is welcome to join, whether you’re a regular attendee or joining for the first time.

    ✅ If you need any additional details, feel free to send me a message or check out the gist from our previous sessions, where you’ll find the Zoom link ⚠️

    I look forward to seeing everyone.

    Thursday August 8, 2024

  • Django

    ,

    Python

    ,

    Today I Learned

    ⬆️ Which Django and Python versions should I be using today?

    Django 5.1 was released, and I was reminded of the article I wrote earlier this year about Choosing the Right Python and Django Versions for Your Projects.

    While I encouraged you to wait until the second, third, or even fourth patch release of Django and Python before upgrading, I received a bit of pushback. One interesting perspective claimed that if everyone waits to upgrade, we don’t find critical bugs until the later versions. While that may be plausible, I don’t believe that the dozens of people who read my blog will be swayed by my recommendation to wait for a few patch releases.

    I could have emphasized the potential risks of not testing early. Please start testing during the alpha and release candidate phase so that when Django 5.1 is released, your third-party applications will be ready and working on launch day, minimizing the risk of last-minute issues.

    Today, I tried to upgrade Django Packages to run on Django 5.1 to see if our test suite would run on Django 5.1, and it very quickly failed in CI due to at least one package not supporting 5.1 yet. Even if it had passed, I’m 90% sure another package would have failed because that’s the nature of running a new major Django or Python release on day one. Even if the third-party package is ready, the packaging ecosystem needs time to catch up.

    Which version of Django should I use today?

    I’m sticking with Django 5.0 until Django 5.1’s ecosystem has caught up. I plan to update the third-party packages I help maintain to have Django 5.1 support. After a few patch releases of Django 5.1 have come out and the ecosystem has time to catch up, I will try to migrate again.

    Which version of Python should I use today?

    I’m starting new projects on Python 3.12, with a few legacy projects still being done on Python 3.11. While I am adding Django 5.1 support, I plan to add Python 3.13 support in my testing matrixes to prepare everything for Python 3.13’s release this fall.

    Office hours

    I plan to spend some of my Office Hours this week working on Django 5.1 and Python 3.13 readiness for projects I maintain. Please join me if you have a project to update or would like some light-hearted banter to end your week.

    Wednesday August 7, 2024

  • Python

    ,

    Ollama

    ,

    Today I Learned

    🦙 Ollama Tool Calling Loose Notes

    I spent a few hours this week working with the Ollama project and trying to get tool calling to work with the LangChain library.

    Tool calling is a way to expose Python functions to a language model that allows them to be called. This will enable models to perform more complex actions and even call the outside world for more information.

    I haven’t used LangChain before, and I found the whole process frustrating. The docs were full of errors. I eventually figured it out, but I was limited to one tool call per prompt, which felt broken.

    Earlier today, I was telling a colleague about it, and when we got back from grabbing coffee, I thought I would check the Ollama Discord channel to see if anyone else had figured it out. To my surprise, they added and released Tool support last night, which allowed me to ditch LangChain altogether.

    The Ollama project’s tool calling example was just enough to help get me started.

    I struggled with the function calling syntax, but after digging a bit deeper, I found this example from OpenAI’s Function calling docs, which matches the format the Ollama project is following. I still don’t fully understand it, but I got more functions working and verified that I can make multiple tool calls within the same prompt.

    Meta’s Llama 3.1 model supports tool calling, and the two work quite well together. I am also impressed with Llama 3.1 and the large context window support. I’m running the 8B and 70B models on a Mac Studio, and they feel very close to the commercial APIs I have worked with, but I can run them locally.

    Embedding models

    Tonight, I tried out Ollama’s Embedding models example, and while I got it working, I still need to put practical data into it to give it a better test

    One more tip

    If you did not know Ollama can parse and return valid JSON, check out How to get JSON response from Ollama. It made my JSON parsing and responses much more reliable.

    Friday July 26, 2024

  • Python

    ,

    Ollama

    ,

    LLM

    ,

    Today I Learned

    🦙 Ollama Llama 3.1 Red Pajama

    For a few weeks, I told friends I was excited to see if the new Llama 3.1 release was as good as it was being hyped.

    Yesterday, Llama 3.1 was released, and I was impressed that the Ollama project published a release to Homebrew and had the models ready to use.

    ➜ brew install ollama

➜ ollama serve

# (optionally) I run Ollama as a background service
➜ brew services start ollama

# This takes a while (defaults to the llama3.1:8b model)
➜ ollama pull llama3.1:latest 

# (optional) This takes a longer time
➜ ollama pull llama3.1:70b

# (optional) This takes so long that I skipped it and ordered a CAT6 cable...
# ollama pull llama3.1:405b

    To use chat with the model, you use the same ollama console command:

    ➜ ollama run llama3.1:latest
>>> how much is 2+2?
The answer to 2 + 2 is:
4!```

## Accessing Ollama Llama 3.1 with Python

The Ollama project has an [`ollama-python`](https://github.com/ollama/ollama-python) library, which I use to build applications. 

My demo has a bit of flare because there are a few options, like `--stream,` that improve the quality of life while waiting for Ollama to return results. 

```python
# hello-llama.py
import typer

from enum import Enum
from ollama import Client
from rich import print


class Host(str, Enum):
    local = "http://127.0.0.1:11434"
    the_office = "http://the-office:11434"


class ModelChoices(str, Enum):
    llama31 = "llama3.1:latest"
    llama31_70b = "llama3.1:70b"


def main(
    host: Host = Host.local,
    local: bool = False,
    model: ModelChoices = ModelChoices.llama31,
    stream: bool = False,
):
    if local:
        host = Host.local

    client = Client(host=host.value)

    response = client.chat(
        model=model.value,
        messages=[
            {
                "role": "user",
                "content": \
                    "Please riff on the 'Llama Llama Red Pajama' book but using AI terms like the 'Ollama' server and the 'Llama 3.1' model."
                    "Instead of using 'Llama Llama', please use 'Ollama Llama 3.1'.",
            }
        ],
        stream=stream,
    )

    if stream:
        for chunk in response:
            print(chunk["message"]["content"], end="", flush=True)
        print()

	else:
        print(f"[yellow]{response['message']['content']}[/yellow]")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    typer.run(main)

    Some of my family’s favorite books are the late Anna Dewdney’s Llama Llama books. Please buy and support their work. I can’t read Llama 3.1 and Ollama without considering the “Llama Llama Red Pajama” book.

    To set up and run this:

    # Install a few "nice to have" libraries
➜ pip install ollama rich typer

# Run our demo
➜ python hello-llama.py --stream

Here's a riff on "Llama Llama Red Pajama" but with an AI twist:

**Ollama Llama 3.1, Ollama Llama 3.1**
Mama said to Ollama Llama 3.1,
"Dinner's done, time for some learning fun!"
But Ollama Llama 3.1 didn't wanna play
With the data sets and algorithms all day.

He wanted to go out and get some rest,
And dream of neural nets that were truly blessed.
But Mama said, "No way, young Ollama Llama 3.1,
You need to train on some more NLP."

Ollama Llama 3.1 got so mad and blue
He shouted at the cloud, "I don't wanna do this too!"
But then he remembered all the things he could see,
On the Ollama server, where his models would be.

So he plugged in his GPU and gave a happy sigh
And trained on some texts, till the morning light shone high.
He learned about embeddings and wordplay too,
And how to chat with humans, that's what he wanted to do.

**The end**

    Connecting to Ollama

    I have two Macs running Ollama and I use Tailscale to bounce between them from anywhere. When I’m at home upstairs it’s quicker to run a local instance. When I’m on my 2019 MacBook Pro it’s faster to connect to the office.

    The only stumbling block I ran into was needing to set a few ENV variables setup so that Ollama is listening on a port that I can proxy to. This was frustrating to figure out, but I hope it saves you some time.

    ➜ launchctl setenv OLLAMA_HOST 0.0.0.0:11434
➜ launchctl setenv OLLAMA_ORIGINS http://*

# Restart the Ollama server to pick up on the ENV vars
➜ brew services restart ollama

    Simon Willison’s LLM tool

    I also like using Simon Willison’s LLM tool, which supports a ton of different AI services via third-party plugins. I like the llm-ollama library, which allows us to connect to our local Ollama instance.

    When working with Ollama, I start with the Ollama run command, but I have a few bash scripts that might talk to OpenAI or Claude 3.5, and it’s nice to keep my brain in the same tooling space. LLM is useful for mixing and matching remote and local models.

    To install and use LLM + llm-ollama + Llama 3.1.

    Please note that the Ollama server should already be running as previously outlined.

    # Install llm
➜ brew install llm

# Install llm-ollama
➜ llm install llm-ollama

# List all of models from Ollama
➜ llm ollama list-models

# 
➜ llm -m llama3.1:latest "how much is 2+2?"
The answer to 2 + 2 is:

4

    Bonus: Mistral Large 2

    While I was working on this post, Mistral AI launched their Large Enough: Mistral Large 2 model today. The Ollama project released support for the model within minutes of its announcement.

    The Mistral Large 2 release is noteworthy because it outperforms Lllama 3.1’s 405B parameter model and is under 1/3 of the size. It is also the second GPT-4 class model release in the last two days.

    Check out Simon’s post for more details and another LLM plugin for another way to access it.

    Wednesday July 24, 2024

  • Weeknotes

    ,

    Django

    ,

    Python

    ,

    Today I Learned

    📓 Weeknotes for Week 28: July 8 to 14

    I’m running a week behind on this.

    This week was our first week back home without traveling in a month, and it felt good to be home. I had time to catch up on mowing the yard, and I treated the yard with an eco-safe mosquito repellent. Despite the hot weather, Sunday felt nice outside to be mosquito-free.

    I rolled my above-ground sprinkler system A few years ago, and I still need to install and run it this year. I wanted to get it this weekend, and here we are.

    Family

    I converted my daughter’s crib to a daybed over the weekend, and we have been using it for two nights and two naps without any issues. My son took to the board game Risk in Chicago, so I installed the iPad version and walked him through it. It was a pizza and tacos weekend because it was a long week.

    Work

    Occasionally, a project feels like you signed up for a race, but the distance keeps changing whenever you are within sight of the finish line. A project we have been finishing up keeps growing.

    Community Work

    Side projects

    • Django News Newsletter: We shipped issue #241.

    • Django News Jobs: This week, we picked up more jobs that weren’t from one source. I need to write a tool to help maintain this, but it’s a manageable load.

    • I bought a new domain name for a project this weekend. More on that soon.

    Side Quests

    • I dusted off my YouTube-to-Frontmatter tool and added the ability to pull playlists from a given username. I wrote the files out as JSON and used DuckDB to query them, which worked amazingly well.

    • I wrote an Amazon product image downloader for a few blog posts. When the product API did not work, I punted and had ChatGPT write a playwright scraper. It was faster and much less frustrating. I need this for several projects.

    • I cleaned up my sitemaps research tool.

    • I tried out a screenshots-to-code project and ran some 00s-era websites through it that I wish still existed. If someone wants to give me a few years of funding, I think we can make the web not suck again.

    Writing

    2024-07-14: 🔥 Why I deleted Firefox from my machines this weekend I no longer trust or believe in Mozilla, so I deleted Firefox from my machines this weekend. ➜ brew …

    2024-07-13: 🦆 DuckDB may be the tool you didn’t know you were missing 🤔 I haven’t fully figured out DuckDB yet, but it’s worth trying out if you are a Python …

    2024-07-12: 🚜 macOS Bartender app to Ice app I upgraded my Macs to macOS Sonoma a few weeks ago. While everything has been uneventful, the …

    2024-07-11: 🎮 8BitDo Golden/Silver Limited Edition controllers My favorite third-party video game hardware company, 8BitDo, announced its 11th-anniversary limited …

    2024-07-10: 📅 Office Hours for July 12th Office Hours returns this Friday, July 12th, 2024, from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm Central Time. ℹ️ Anyone …

    2024-07-09: 🔓 Sharing is Caring: How a Simple Sudo Question Led to Better Solutions One of the fun discoveries of blogging is finding your article in search results while trying to …

    2024-07-08: 📓 Weeknotes for Week 27: July 1 to 7 The last week was a blur between the holiday, travel, and cramming a lot of work. My notes this week …

    Entertainment

    📺 Vikings: Valhalla

    📺 The Marvels (2023) - This movie was better than people gave it credit for. It wasn’t my favorite, but it was fun to watch.

    📺 Defending Jacob - I skipped to the end of this series.

    📺 The Last Thing He Told Me - I skipped to the end of this series.

    📺 Presumed Innocent - I surprised myself that I’m still keeping up with this series, but there are only a few weeks left.

    📺 The Acolyte - We are ready for the last episode.

    📺 Atlas (2024) - I didn’t go into this movie with any expectations, and I immensely enjoyed it.

    Next week

    I’m solo-parenting next weekend. I’m looking forward to hanging out with my kids and another weekend of being home.

    Saturday July 20, 2024

  • Python

    ,

    Today I Learned

    🗳️ My thoughts on the PSF Election results

    A few weeks ago, I wrote about this year’s PSF Election, three proposed bylaws changes, and how I intended to vote. I’m happy that the membership overwhelmingly approved all three proposed bylaw changes. Here is this year’s results.

    Merging Contributing and Managing member classes

    This change is a good step toward consolidating two membership classes and a commitment to acknowledging that all community contributions are important, not just code contributions.

    Simplifying the voter affirmation process by treating past voting activity as intent to continue voting

    If you voted in last year’s election, there are fewer barriers to voting in the next election. With a 76% turnout this year, I suspect next year will still yield over a 50% voter turnout, and I suspect turnout will continue to be high.

    Allow for removal of Fellows by a Board vote in response to Code of Conduct violations, removing the need for a vote of the membership

    This one means the most to me. When I joined the board, our Code of Conduct was barely two paragraphs long and said little. We rewrote it and formed the PSF Code of Conduct workgroup. From today forward, we can appreciate that the Python Code of Conduct applies to everyone.

    Overall

    We also gained three new directors, including two returning directors. This election may be the first time we have had an election in which no one running from North America made it on the board. (Possibly Europe, too, but I didn’t dive as deep to verify that.) Either way, this is a noteworthy milestone.

    I’m proud of the Python community for embracing our Code of Conduct and membership changes. A few of these were overdue, but updating the voter affirmation process is an excellent proactive step and a shift for the board.

    I also want to thank Débora Azevedo, the PSF’s vice chair-elect and our outbound director. I was impressed with Débora when we served on the board together, and I thought she brought valuable insights. When she put her name forward to run for vice chair, I was impressed because it’s an intimidating group to put yourself out there, and I thought Débora managed it well.

    Resources

    Tuesday July 16, 2024

  • Django

    ,

    Python

    🐘 Django Migration Operations aka how to rename Models

    Renaming a table in Django seems more complex than it is. Last week, a client asked me how much pain it might be to rename a Django model from Party to Customer. We already used the model’s verbose_name, so it has been referencing the new name for months.

    Renaming the model should be as easy as renaming the model while updating any foreign key and many-to-many field references in other models and then running Django’s make migrations sub-command to see where we are at.

    The main issue with this approach is that Django will attempt to create a new table first, update model references, and then drop the old table.

    Unfortunately, Django will either fail mid-way through this migration and roll the changes back or even worse, it may complete the migration only for you to discover that your new table is empty.

    Deleting data is not what we want to happen.

    As it turns out, Django supports a RenameModel migration option, but it did not prompt me to ask if we wanted to rename Party to Customer.

    I am also more example-driven, and the Django docs don’t have an example of how to use RenameModel. Thankfully, this migration operation is about as straightforward as one can imagine: class RenameModel(old_model_name, new_model_name)

    I re-used the existing migration file that Django created for me. I dropped the CreateModel and DeleteModel operations, added a RenameField operation, and kept the RenameField operations which resulted in the following migration:

    from django.db import migrations


class Migration(migrations.Migration):

    dependencies = [
        ('resources', '0002_alter_party_in_the_usa'),
    ]

    operations = [
        migrations.RenameModel('Party', 'Customer'),
        migrations.RenameField('Customer', 'party_number', 'customer_number'),
        migrations.RenameField('AnotherModel', 'party', 'customer'),
    ]

    The story’s moral is that you should always check and verify that your Django migrations will perform as you expect before running them in production. Thankfully, we did, even though glossing over them is easy.

    I also encourage you to dive deep into the areas of the Django docs where there aren’t examples. Many areas of the docs may need examples or even more expanded docs, and they are easy to gloss over or get intimidated by.

    You don’t have to be afraid to create and update your migrations by hand. After all, Django migrations are Python code designed to give you a jumpstart. You can and should modify the code to meet your needs. Migration Operations have a clean API once you dig below the surface and understand what options you have to work with.

    Monday July 15, 2024

  • Python

    🦆 DuckDB may be the tool you didn't know you were missing

    🤔 I haven’t fully figured out DuckDB yet, but it’s worth trying out if you are a Python dev who likes to work on data projects or gets frequently tasked with data import projects.

    DuckDB is a fast database engine that lets you read CSV, Parquet, and JSON files and query them using SQL. Instead of importing data into your database, DuckDB enables you to write SQL and run it against these file types.

    I have a YouTube to frontmatter project that can read a YouTube playlist and write out each video to a markdown file. I modified the export script to save the raw JSON output to disk.

    I used DuckDB to read a bunch of JSON files using the following script:

    import duckdb

def main():
    result = duckdb.sql("SELECT id,snippet FROM read_json('data/*.json')").fetchall()

    for row in result:
        id, snippet = row
        print(f"{id=}")
        print(snippet["channelTitle"])
        print(snippet["title"])
        print(snippet["publishedAt"])
        print(snippet["description"])
        print()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

    This script accomplishes several things:

    • It reads over 650 JSON files in about one second.
    • It uses SQL to query the JSON data directly.
    • It extracts specific fields (id and snippet) from each JSON file.

    Performance and Ease of Use

    The speed at which DuckDB processes these files is remarkable. In traditional setups, reading and parsing this many JSON files could take significantly longer and require more complex code.

    When to Use DuckDB

    DuckDB shines in scenarios where you need to:

    • Quickly analyze data in files without a formal import process.
    • Perform SQL queries on semi-structured data (like JSON)
    • Process large datasets efficiently on a single machine.

    Conclusion

    DuckDB is worth trying out in your data projects. If you have a lot of data and you need help with what to do with it, being able to write SQL against hundreds of files is powerful and flexible.

    Saturday July 13, 2024

  • Weeknotes

    ,

    Django

    ,

    Python

    ,

    Today I Learned

    📓 Weeknotes for Week 27: July 1 to 7

    The last week was a blur between the holiday, travel, and cramming a lot of work. My notes this week are more glossed over than most

    Family

    We drove to Illinois (near Chicago) to see family this week. We had family from both coasts who we don’t see very often, and it was the first time much of the family met my youngest, Nora. It takes us 8 to 8.5 hours to drive there, and people are always amazed at how good my kids are at traveling these distances. They both love the extra screen time and are easy to travel with. We can hand each one an iPad, and they are set for hours, given enough snacks and a rest stop every few hours.

    Work

    It was a short two-day week, but I got a bonus third day of work between fitting a few hours in the car and half a day on Friday. This was nice because we are wrapping up an existing client project while ramping up on another project.

    This has also made me realize that Django has many shopping cart projects, but they all seem to be outdated. We struggled to find a project we could use, which made me realize that the Django community is sorely missing a good shopping cart and checkout experience that works.

    Community Work

    Djangonaut Space: All three Djangonaut Space Team Neptune members have made meaningful contributions early in the process, and now I’m feeling the pressure to detail and share some more advanced projects so they can have tasks for the duration of the project.

    Django Code of Conduct WG: We have prioritized keeping up as we get new members used to contributing. This week, was a busy week.

    Side projects

    Django News Newsletter: We shipped issue #240.

    Django News Jobs: We have had code to aggregate some other Django job boards, and this week, we started allowing those to come through.

    Writing

    This week, I was back on track, and I wrote and published something every day. It was my first day of giving myself a buffer so that I am always writing tomorrow’s post, which took the edge and pressure off. I am still writing every day, but with the holiday, it was nice knowing I didn’t have to fit it in on our last day in Chicago, which ended up being a really long, full day with family.

    2024-07-07: 🧰 More fun with Django Extensions using shell_plus and graph_models Yesterday, I wrote about Django Extensions show_urls management command because it’s useful. I …

    2024-07-06: Django Extensions is useful even if you only use show_urls Yes, Django Extensions package is worth installing, especially for its show_urls command, which can …

    2024-07-05: 📅 No Office Hours on July 5th, but… No Office Hours this week (July 5th), but we will return next Friday, July 12th, 2024, 2:30 pm to …

    2024-07-04: 🎆 🤖 Happy AIndependence Day To everyone in the United States, Happy Independence Day and Happy AIndependence Day to everyone …

    2024-07-03: 🗳️ PSF Elections how I am voting This was written while driving to Chicago (technically from the passenger seat). Still, a few people …

    2024-07-02: 💬 On the PSF Bylaw changes The Python Software Foundation has three bylaw changes up for a vote in this year’s election. …

    2024-07-01: 📓 Weeknotes for Week 26: June 24 to 30 Family I took two days off for a funeral and some other family stuff. I saw cousins and other …

    Entertainment

    📺 Sweet Tooth - I really liked this series.

    📺 Presumed Innocent - I watched the first five episodes, and it’s okay.

    📺 The Last Thing He Told Me - I just started this series on Sunday night and am unsure if I’ll finish it.

    Next week

    It’s my first whole week back in a while. I’m looking forward to catching up and mowing my yard while listening to podcasts. I need to catch up on house stuff, including running my homemade above-ground sprinkler system. (Chill; we live near the Kansas River.)

    Monday July 8, 2024

  • Django

    ,

    Python

    Django Extensions is useful even if you only use show_urls

    Yes, Django Extensions package is worth installing, especially for its show_urls command, which can be very useful for debugging and understanding your project’s URL configurations.

    Here’s a short example of how to use it because I sometimes want to include a link to the Django Admin in a menu for staff users, and I am trying to remember what name I need to reference to link to it.

    First, you will need to install it via:

    pip install django-extensions

# or if you prefer using uv like me:
uv pip install django-extensions

    Next, you’ll want to add django_extensions to your INSTALLED_APPS in your settings.py file:

    INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    "django_extensions",
]

    Finally, to urn the show_urls management command you may do some by running your manage.py script and passing it the following option:

    $ python -m manage show_urls

    Which will give this output:

    $ python -m manage show_urls | grep admin
...
/admin/	django.contrib.admin.sites.index	admin:index
/admin/<app_label>/	django.contrib.admin.sites.app_index	admin:app_list
/admin/<url>	django.contrib.admin.sites.catch_all_view
# and a whole lot more...

    In this case, I was looking for admin:index which I can now add to my HTML document this menu link/snippet:

    ... 
<a href="{% url 'admin:index' %}">Django Admin</a>
...

    What I like about this approach is that I can now hide or rotate the url pattern I’m using to get to my admin website, and yet Django will always link to the correct one.

    Saturday July 6, 2024

  • Python

    ,

    Today I Learned

    🗳️ PSF Elections how I am voting

    This was written while driving to Chicago (technically from the passenger seat). Still, a few people contacted me and asked me how I vote for PSF directors, so I wanted to share.

    If you can vote in the PSF election, please do so before Tuesday, July 16th, 2024, 2:00 p.m. UTC. For more details, check out their blog post, The 2024 PSF Board Election is Open! (The blog post lists the date incorrectly as ending on a Friday.)

    I served on the PSF board for five years, from 2018 to 2023, and here is what I am looking for when I research who to vote for this year.

    It’s a harder-than-normal slate of candidates because only three open seats are available, compared to four in the last few years. More candidates are new to me this year than most years.

    We also have some solid candidates running, which makes it even harder.

    Existing directors

    For existing directors, I look at:

    • How long have they served on the board?
    • What positions/roles did they serve while on the board?
    • What has the PSF accomplished during its term?
    • What was their meeting attendance like?
    • I read their previous candidate statements to see if the PSF accomplished what they said they wanted.
    • How did they treat the PSF’s staff in meetings, at events, and behind the scenes?

    All candidates

    For everyone, including existing directors, I read their candidate statements, and then I look at:

    • What do they value?
    • What their company and community affiliations are.
    • Understands and is committed to our Code of Conduct to promote a healthy community.
    • What workgroups did they participate in?
    • What are they committed to working on and changing in their next term?

    What I’m prioritizing

    I prioritize diverse candidates and representation. This includes geographical representation.

    I prioritize candidates who do not work for Big Tech / FAANG companies. These companies often give raises and promotions to employees who make it on open-source boards. It’s a KPI goal for some Dev Rels and I’m not here to help any Big Tech companies. Thankfully, I have served with many selfless directors, despite them working for Big Tech companies. Still, you have a right to know when you vote for someone if their position will check off one of their KPIs.

    I prioritize the Python community’s needs over individual needs.

    I prioritize candidates with a track record of getting things done over only showing up to be seen. (Yes, this is a thing.)

    I prioritize practical communication skills. If you write over the heads of the community, then you could be more effective at communicating.

    I’m looking for reform.

    Overall, I am looking for reform. A few public mishaps by the board have damaged the community’s trust in the organization.

    I want to see reform across those impacted workgroups, and I will prioritize candidates who show awareness of this. I considered listing them here, but “what I’m prioritizing” when I vote is not up for public debate. I might write more on this later.

    If you are running

    If you are running for the board, thank you for putting yourself out there.

    Wednesday July 3, 2024

  • Python

    ,

    Today I Learned

    💬 On the PSF Bylaw changes

    The Python Software Foundation has three bylaw changes up for a vote in this year’s election. I support all there.

    Here is their post, For your consideration: Proposed bylaws changes to improve our membership experience and a follow-up post FAQ for Proposed Changes to PSF Bylaws that addresses questions that came up.

    Change 1: Merging Contributing and Managing member classes

    The existing two classes need to be clarified and updated. We want contributors, and code is only one of many ways to contribute to a healthy community.

    ✅ I’m all for this. I support this change.

    Change 2: Simplifying the voter affirmation process by treating past voting activity as intent to continue voting

    Before the voting affirmation process was enforced, meeting the 30% quorum mark was an issue.

    Last year, over 70% of our members voted, and I suspect we can land somewhere in the middle, letting people continue to vote if they did the previous year and still staying above 50% of our active membership voting.

    ✅ I support this change.

    Change 3: Allow for removal of Fellows by a Board vote in response to Code of Conduct violations, removing the need for a vote of the membership

    No one in the Python community is above Python’s Code of Conduct.

    While I disagree that the board cannot already remove a Fellow, it’s better to bring it to the community for a vote.

    ✅ As a Python Fellow, past board member, and Code of Conduct WG member, I support this change.

    Tuesday July 2, 2024