PyCon 2012 Digest for WillowTree Apps

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PyCon 2012 Digest

from DevOps team {rduplain,mattd,teebes}, to mobile developers at WillowTree Apps

Pronunciation

• Linode => "linn-ode" as in "Linux node"
• gunicorn => "gee-unicorn"
• PyPI => "pie P.I." not PyPy

Talks you Should See

Regardless of your Python enthusiasm:

• "The Art of Subclassing" by Raymond Hettinger
  • rethink subclassing: not specialization but delegation of work
  • http://pyvideo.org/video/879/the-art-of-subclassing
• "Let's Talk About (something diabolical) - PyPy" by David Beazley
  • PyPy is a new, fast Python implementation. More interestingly, it introduces highly advanced computer science concepts, and how to tinker with them.
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_HBRhcgeuQ
  • http://tratt.net/laurie/tech_articles/articles/fast_enough_vms_in_fast_enough_time
• "Flexing SQLAlchemy's Relational Power" by Brandon Rhodes
  • learn to optimize by understanding the basics of relational databases, including JOINs
  • build queries which ask for everything at once, then optimize that query
  • gives a high level of overview of what an ORM really is, and why it doesn't mean that it should abstract SQL out or be in any way a "shortcut"
  • http://pyvideo.org/video/664/flexing-sqlalchemys-relational-power
• "Hand Coded Applications with SQLAlchemy" by Michael Bayer
  • hand coded: developer makes explicit design decisions; tools do not hide information
  • advanced patterns for mastering your object-relation mapper
  • http://pyvideo.org/video/665/hand-coded-applications-with-sqlalchemy
• "Building A Python-Based Search Engine" by Daniel Lindsley
  • high level overview of what is a search engine: building blocks, how does it break down what you ask into searchable components, how documents actually get searched
  • http://pyvideo.org/video/715/building-a-python-based-search-engine
• "Certainty in an Uncertain World: Gaining Confidence through Security Testing" by Geremy Condra
  • This shows typical security flaws in applications exposed to the user, and gives nice pointers to where to look if you want to find out more about how to handle them (spoiler: check out http://cwe.mitre.org/top25/).
  • http://pyvideo.org/video/653/certainty-in-an-uncertain-world-gaining-confiden
• "Stop Mocking, Start Testing" by Augie Fackler & Nathaniel Manista
  • story of Google Code's testing evolution
  • build "fakes" of underlying service, in-memory dummy implementations
  • http://pyvideo.org/video/629/stop-mocking-start-testing
• "Throwing Together Distributed Services With Gevent" by Jeff Lindsay
  • excellent walkthrough of building distributed services
  • http://pyvideo.org/speaker/350/jeff-lindsay
• "Trolls" keynote by Guido Van Rossum
  • Common misguided questions on Python, with detailed responses.
  • http://pyvideo.org/video/956/keynote-guido-van-rossum

Tango

• forever "tango"
• pushed core publicly: http://github.com/willowtreeapps/tango-core
• gave talk on tango at Python web summit
• to be relevant to Python community: make using tango trivial to add to existing web projects

Web Deployment

• Python web summit had a lot of open-ended discussion on building a better deployment story.
• platforms: Heroku, ep.io, dotCloud, self-hosted using configuration management
• Will we see decoupled application<=>platform deployment? Describe application not only by what it needs to be installed, but what it needs to run (database services, scheduled tasks, email provider, ...).

Salt

• saltstack.org - remote execution & configuration management
• first impressions
  • developer is very accessible, Thomas S. Hatch
  • clean separation of plumbing & porcelain
  • Python instead of a DSL
  • well-suited for hundreds of hosts running same OS
  • master-slave model (tree: masters can be slaves)

Python 3

"Give it 5 more years..." ...and everyone will appreciate today's porting efforts. It's a long transition, but it's moving.

Flask

• community is growing, 2240 watchers at https://github.com/mitsuhiko/flask
• "Opening the Flask" by Armin Ronacher (2011) - http://pyvideo.org/video/440/pycon-2011--opening-the-flask
• "Code Generation in Python: Dismantling Jinja" by Armin Ronacher - http://pyvideo.org/video/641/code-generation-in-python-dismantling-jinja

Integrating at WSGI level

I started a collaboration with Pyramid developers to build in-process cross-application communication for Python's standard web interface, WSGI.

http://pypi.python.org/pypi/wsgi_party