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
Today I Learned

Please publish and share more

Friends, I encourage you to publish more, indirectly meaning you should write more and then share it.

It’d be best to publish your work in some evergreen space where you control the domain and URL. Then publish on masto-sky-formerly-known-as-linked-don and any place you share and comment on.

You don’t have to change the world with every post. You might publish a quick thought or two that helps encourage someone else to try something new, listen to a new song, or binge-watch a new series.

This week, I have encouraged at least half a dozen people to blog something, and at least three of them were happily surprised to see their work re-posted by another friend or published in a newsletter.

I have nothing against masto-whatever-you-use-this-week or blue-sky-levels-of-vc-money or formerly-called-no-one-cares, but those platforms are hard to share an article on.

So, even if you re-publish to thread your post infinitely, please find a cheap or free publishing platform and own your work. GitHub Pages is a free way to publish your work via GitHub, and they will let you use your own domain name for free.

You don’t need an editor

I used to ask my friends to review my work, and I still sometimes do. Then I realized that 99% of the time, it doesn’t matter.

I pay for Grammarly because I have Dyslexia, and it helps me communicate better. But you don’t have to.

You can use a free tool like LanguageTool, which has an online version that will let you copy and paste your writing into a free, no-login-required Grammar checker. This is more than the average person will do, and it’s a quick and free gut check.

Not every gift needs a bow

Our posts are done when you say they are. You do not have to fret about sticking to landing and having a perfect conclusion. Your posts, like this post, are done after we stop writing.

PS: Write and publish before you write your own static site generator or perfect blogging platform. We have lost billions of good writers to this side quest because they spend all their time working on the platform instead of writing.

Saturday November 2, 2024
Justfiles
,
Today I Learned

TIL Justfiles can also be Just Scripts
Please note: passing an argument like --justfile It only works on MacOS and on Linux.

TIL that Justfiles can turn into Just Scripts by adding #!/usr/bin/env just --justfile to the top of the file and running chmod +x on the file.

From the docs:

By adding a shebang line to the top of a justfile and making it executable, just can be used as an interpreter for scripts: https://github.com/casey/just?tab=readme-ov-file#just-scripts

just.sh
```
#!/usr/bin/env just --justfile

@_default:
	just --justfile just.sh --list

@lint *ARGS:
    uv --quiet run --with pre-commit-uv pre-commit run {{ ARGS }} --all-files
```
After you run chmod +x just.sh, this file may be run using ./just.sh, and sub-commands everything just <subcommand> will just work.

Please note that --justfile just.sh is needed if you want your Just Script to be able to introspect or call itself.

Why?

More and more of my clients are using Justfiles, and occasionally, I want some other recipes that may belong outside the default workflows. These can also be reusable between projects for some of my other internal tooling, so it’s an excellent resource to learn about.
Wednesday October 23, 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
,
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
,
Today I Learned

🚜 On Evolving Django's `auth.User` model

I need to re-read/re-listen to Carlton’s Evolving Django’s auth.User Stack Report before I have a firm opinion, but I saw his Mastodon post and I thought it was worth sharing some initial thoughts.

On my first read, I fell into the camp that wants django-unique-user-email and full name to be the defaults on Django’s built-in User. I have wanted this forever, and my clients do, too.

Django should still allow me to create a custom user, but the documentation could be better. Django’s documentation is a topic for another day, but I’m confused by it and find it less and less helpful. I notice the developers I work with get lost in them, too. Docs may be a good DjangoCon US topic if you want to discuss it in a few weeks.

I would love the default User to have a unique email address, full name, and a short name. Optionally, a username is an email address setting. Please don’t take away the ability to have a custom User model. (Update: Carlton is not making a case for removing a custom User model, but others have made that argument. No, thank you.)

Carlton’s “Action points” conclusion seems reasonable to me.

Tuesday September 10, 2024
Today I Learned

🌡️ How a $20 Camera Outsmarted My Fancy Thermometer

My ThermoWorks Signals thermometer’s battery was dead, so I connected it to my Anker 737 Power Bank (24,000mAh for the curious) to get me by.

Previously, I mounted a Wyze camera on a tripod and pointed it toward my thermometer because its Bluetooth connection wasn’t strong enough. WiFi worked fine for the camera, but our smoker is in our backyard and has to go through two external walls to reach any of our devices.

This worked well during the early pandemic when I was working from home. I could check the camera from my upstairs office or couch without worrying about the weather. As a bonus, I could see the front panel of my Pitbos Smoker to monitor it in case it ran out of wood pellets or the heat source went out. I could have bought the fancy ThermoWorks Signals thermometer, but a $20 Wyze Camera worked better.

Today, I have the fancy thermometer, and I still should have connected the Wyze cam because the smoker ran out of pellets, which delayed dinner by 45 minutes.

Maybe I will use this as an excuse to explore one of Ollama’s Vision libraries like LLaVA to read photos from the Wyze Camera and the smoker to let me know when something goes wrong.

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

Music
,
Today I Learned

🎻 Tiny Desk Concert Wednesday with Sierra Ferrell

🎻 Happy Tiny Desk Concert Wednesday, everyone!

If you are new to Sierra Ferrell, you are in a treat.

If you are already a fan, you’ll understand what I mean and still be in for a treat.

I dislike Google but make exceptions for NPR, Tiny Desk Concert, and Sierra Ferrell.

www.youtube.com/watch

Wednesday August 14, 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
- Djangonaut Space: All three of our Djangonauts completed their first tasks, and we are moving on to our first big group project.
- Conference Chats meetup
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
Django
,
Office Hours
,
Today I Learned

📅 I am hosting Office Hours this Friday, July 19th

I am hosting Office Hours this Friday, July 19th, 2024, from 2:00 pm to 4:15 pm Central Time.

➡️ I have to leave earlier than normal to pick up my kids, but I plan to be around until 4:15 pm to 4:30 pm Central Time or as time permits.

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.

💼 I will be working on a new Django project this week, sourcing data for it, and hopefully writing a bunch of views.

🙏 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.

Wednesday July 17, 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
Vivaldi
,
Today I Learned

🔥 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 remove firefox
==> Uninstalling Cask firefox
==> Backing App 'Firefox.app' up to '/opt/homebrew/Caskroom/firefox/112.0.1/Firefox.app'
==> Removing App '/Applications/Firefox.app'
==> Unlinking Binary '/opt/homebrew/bin/firefox'
==> Purging files for version 112.0.1 of Cask firefox
~ on ☁️   took 4s
```
There was no one decision, but Firefox version 128’s Privacy-Preserving Attribution update was the final straw.

The default browser you use is a personal decision, and I have always kept Firefox around. It was my default for over a decade until I gave up and switched to Google Chrome. At that point, Firefox became bloated and buggy like the Mozilla browser before it, and I found myself at that intersection again.

Last year, I switched to Vivaldi as my default browser and only kept Chrome around for a few organizations. Eventually, I’ll delete Chrome, too, but that’s more symbolic of removing Google from my life.

What annoys me the most is that Mozilla was supposed to be the company that knows better, but their leadership keeps reminding us of who they are.

Removing Firefox pains me because I believe in alternative browsers that aren’t controlled by one company. I have friends who have worked for Mozilla in the past and present.

Had Mozilla pledged to cut the bullshit and give me a Firefox Pro option to support them, I would have been one of the first to sign up. However, I don’t trust Mozilla when they aren’t focused on being the best web browser in the industry. I’d rather avoid their antics until they give me a reason to trust them again.

PS: Maybe Servo is a better alternative from Mozilla, but for now, Vivaldi is my best Chrome-like, and it’s not run by Google until something better emerges.
Sunday July 14, 2024
Today I Learned

🚜 macOS Bartender app to Ice app
I upgraded my Macs to macOS Sonoma a few weeks ago. While everything has been uneventful, the Bartender app pinged me one too many times about upgrading to Bartender 5, which has several Sonoma-only features.

Last year, I looked forward to upgrading Bartender until their recent botched communication and messaging regarding the purchase of the app.

Oliver Andrich’s Week 23: An Almost Perfect Week was the nudge I needed to go ahead and switch over to Ice, which is an open-source menu bar manager for macOS.

The upgrade took less than a minute, and the app worked the same way Bartender did for me. I changed the menu icon to an ellipsis to match what I had the Bartender app set to, and everything worked.

Previously
- 🧊 Bartender Update
- 👤 Bartender Mac App PSA
Friday July 12, 2024
Today I Learned

🔓 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 solve a problem.

A few weeks ago, I upgraded my Macs to macOS to Sonoma, but I hadn’t yet re-enabled passwordless authentication via sudo. If this were a server in the cloud, I would approach it differently, but on my laptop, it’s a different story, and I can skip re-typing my password.

I stumbled on my TIL: Enable sudo without a password on MacOS post from 2022 when I was searching for a quick fix.

I also posted on Mastodon about this, which led to Anthony’s helpful suggestion that I could instead use Touch ID which I liked a lot.

I wish I could use Touch ID, but I often use SSH and Remote Desktop. Touch ID will only work if my finger is there. It’s still an excellent suggestion for anyone seeking a more secure way to assume sudo access.

Dan Ryan pointed me to a better solution than my existing workaround, which doesn’t get overwritten every major macOS update.

Helpful suggestions like these are why I like to think out loud and share these thoughts on Mastodon.

Tuesday July 9, 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
Office Hours
,
Today I Learned

📅 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 4:30 pm and for what I hope is the rest of the summer. See my Office Hours Summer Schedule for details.

If you are a conference or event organizer or want to be one, this month’s Conference Chats might still be running while you read this. Meeting details, including the Discord invite, are on the website.

Friday July 5, 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
Weeknotes
,
Django
,
Python
,
Today I Learned

📓 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 relatives who I only see at funerals, which is starting to feel like a habit.

Work

I was mentally blocked on a project, or at least the part I was putting off returning to. Something finally clicked over the weekend, and I worked through it. I hate working the weekends, which our company frowns upon. I didn’t expect to be out two days this week, and I’m out for the holiday most of the next week, so I tried to get caught up and ahead.

Community Work

Djangonaut Space: Week 2 kicked off, and I had to push our weekly standup back a week due to the funeral. No idea, but our Djangonauts are doing good work and working through their first issues.

Side projects

Django News Newsletter: We shipped issue #239.

Django News Jobs: I had a weird issue that forced me to downgrade Python 3.12 to 3.11 to fix something internally that broke Pydantic. I’ll switch back in a few weeks, but I’m still annoyed by it.

Overall, I just treaded water this week.

Writing

I shifted my writing schedule around this weekend so that I am a day ahead. I want to get four or five days ahead so that I have a nice publishing schedule to work with. I still plan on writing daily, but I like having more wiggle room.

2024-06-30: 🐳 Using Just and Compose for interactive Django and Python debugging sessions When I wrote REST APIs, I spent weeks and months writing tests and debugging without looking at the …

2024-06-29: 🐘 Docker Postgres Autoupgrades Upgrading Postgres in Docker environments can be daunting, but keeping your database up-to-date is …

2024-06-28: 🐘 A Just recipe to backup and restore a Postgres database I have used this casey/just recipe to help backup and restore my Postgres databases from my Docker …

2024-06-27: 📅 Office Hours for June 28th It’s been a week, but I’m hosting Office Hours this Friday at 2:30 pm. I was on the …

2024-06-25: 🐳 Managing Docker Compose Profiles with Just: Switching Between Default and Celery Configurations For a recent client project, we wanted to toggle between various Docker Compose profiles to run the …

2024-06-24: 🚜 Mastodon Bookmark exporter to Markdown/Frontmatter I wrote a Mastodon Bookmark exporter tool over the weekend and decided to polish it up and release …

Entertainment

📺 Presumed Innocent

📺 Baby Reindeer

📺 Dark Matter

📺 The Acolyte - We got caught up, and OMG, it’s good.

📺 The Flash (2023) - I couldn’t care less for the Flash, but I really enjoyed seeing Michael Keaton’s Batman again.

Next week

We are spending our holiday in Illinois to see family. It’ll be the first time my youngest has met several family members flying in for the holiday.

Monday July 1, 2024
Django
,
Python
,
Justfiles
,
Docker
,
Today I Learned

🐳 Using Just and Compose for interactive Django and Python debugging sessions
When I wrote REST APIs, I spent weeks and months writing tests and debugging without looking at the front end. It’s all JSON, after all.

For most of my projects, I will open two or three tabs. I’m running Docker Compose in tab one to see the logs as I work. I’ll use the following casey/just recipe to save some keystrokes and to standardize what running my project looks like:
```
# tab 1
$ just up 
```
In my second tab, I’ll open a shell that is inside my main web or app container so that I can interact with the environment, run migrations, and run tests.

We can nitpick the meaning of “console” here, but I tend to have another just recipe for “shell” which will open a Django shell using shell_plus or something more interactive:
```
# tab 2
$ just console
```
In my third tab, I’ll run a shell session for creating git branches, switching git branches, stashing git changes, and running my linter, which I prefer to run by hand.
```
# tab 3
$ echo "I'm boring"
```
Over the last year or two, the web has returned to doing more frontend work with Django and less with REST. Using ipdb, in my view, to figure out what’s going on has been really helpful. Trying to get ipdb to “just work” takes a few steps in my normal workflow.
```
# tab 1 (probably)

# start everything
$ just start

# stop our web container
$ just stop web

# start our web container with "--service-ports" 
# just start-web-with-debug
```
The only real magic here is using Docker’s --service-ports, which opens ports so we may connect to the open ipdb session when we open one in our view code.

My main justfile for all of these recipes/workflows looks very similar to this:
```
# justfile
set dotenv-load := false

@build *ARGS:
    docker compose build {{ ARGS }}

# opens a console
@console:
    docker compose run --rm --no-deps utility/bin/bash

@down:
    docker compose down

@start *ARGS:
    just up --detach {{ ARGS }}

@start-web-with-debug:
    docker compose run --service-ports --rm web python -m manage runserver 0.0.0.0:8000

@stop *ARGS:
    docker compose down {{ ARGS }}

@up *ARGS:
    docker compose up {{ ARGS }}
```
If you work on multiple projects, I encourage you to find patterns you can scale across them. Using Just, Make, shell scripts or even Python lightens the cognitive load when switching between them.
Sunday June 30, 2024

Python

UV

Today I Learned

So what doesn’t UV do?

Today I Learned

You don’t need an editor

Not every gift needs a bow

Justfiles

Today I Learned

just.sh

Why?

Python

Docker

UV

Today I Learned

Publishing on PyPi with UV

GitHub Action

Django

Python

Today I Learned

Black Python Devs Leadership Summit (Saturday)

Django Girls Durham (Saturday)

DjangoCon US Tutorials (Sunday)

Django Social meetup (Sunday)

DjangoCon US Talks (Monday through Wednesday)

DjangoCon US Sprints (Thursday and Friday)

Outro

Django

Python

UV

Today I Learned

Overall thoughts on UV

Using UV with Django

Switching from pyenv to UV

Using UV and managing with Ansible

Some notes on UV

A parting UV tip

If you are attending DjangoCon US…

Django

Today I Learned

Today I Learned

Django

Python

UV

Today I Learned

Before the PEP 723’ing…

shebang

After the PEP 723’ing…

Music

Today I Learned

Django

Python

Today I Learned

Which version of Django should I use today?

Which version of Python should I use today?

Office hours

Python

Ollama

Today I Learned

Embedding models

One more tip

Python

Ollama

LLM

Today I Learned

Connecting to Ollama

Simon Willison’s LLM tool

Bonus: Mistral Large 2

Weeknotes

Django

Python

Today I Learned

Family

Work

Community Work

Side projects

Side Quests

Writing

Entertainment

Next week

`just.sh`