23 Apr 2024
Django community aggregator: Community blog posts
Django News - [Resend of #228] PyPI Expanding Trusted Publisher Support - Apr 22nd 2024
Introduction
Hi everyone,
We apologize to anyone who didn't receive the Django News Newsletter Issue #228 last Friday and to anyone who just received a duplicate edition. Issue #229 is a re-send of what everything should have received last Friday.
Last week, our newsletter provider had a hiccup, and we estimate that less than 10% of our subscribers received their weekly Friday edition of Django News. We felt terrible that you didn't receive it and that two conference CFPs will have ended before our next newsletter goes out.
We decided our best bet was to re-send everyone an updated Monday edition of Django News and apologize again for Friday's mishap.
Please note that Wagtail Space US's CFP ends today, April 22nd (hours left), and DjangoCon US's CFP ends Wednesday, April 24th (less than two days left).
Jeff and Will
Django Newsletter
News
Don't Miss Out: Last Call for DjangoCon US 2024 Talk Proposals!
Have you submitted your talk or tutorial for DjangoCon US 2024, in beautiful Durham, North Carolina, USA?
This is your last call to submit a talk or tutorial. The CFP deadline is April 24, 2024, at 12 PM EDT.
PyPI: Expanding Trusted Publisher Support
PyPI added GitLab CI/CD, Google Cloud, and ActiveState as Trusted Publishing providers.
Django Software Foundation
DSF Board meeting minutes for April 11, 2024
Here are the DSF Board's meeting minutes for April 11, 2024.
Updates to Django
Today 'Updates to Django' is presented by Raffaella Suardini from Djangonaut Space!
Last week we had 10 pull requests merged into Django by 5 different contributors - including 1 first-time contributor! Congratulations to Aleksander Milinkevich for having their first commits merged into Django - welcome on board!
Coming in Django 5.0.5 (expected May 6th):
- Resolved a compatibility issue with Python 3.11.9+ and 3.12.3+ when validating email max line lengths with content decoded using the
surrogateescapeerror handling scheme. - Resolved a bug in Django 5.0 that makes
Model.save()crash when creating a model instance with a GeneratedField and specifying a primary key.
Django Newsletter
Wagtail CMS
Wagtail Space CFP deadline is April 22
It's the last call to speak this summer at Wagtail Space US 2024.
Wagtail Space US 2024 - Call For Proposals
Wagtail Space Virtual Talks 2024 - Call For Proposals
Sponsored Ad
Free Trial of Scout APM Today!
Need answers to your Django app questions fast? Avoid the hassle of talking with a sales rep and the long wait times of large support teams, and choose Scout APM. Get Django insights in less than 4 minutes with Scout APM.
Articles
7 simple examples using Django GeneratedField
Django 5.0 added a new feature, GeneratedField, which allows us to auto-calculate database fields. This article shows seven short examples of how to use it, so the database performs calculations exceptionally quickly.
Django from first principles, part 3
In the third installment of his series on constructing a comprehensive Django project from a single file, Eric Matthes explores enhancing your homepage with templates.
Building forms with the Django admin
A look at multiple ways, including over time, to build and style forms in the Django admin.
Styling a Django RSS Feed
A straightforward way to style your RSS feed in a Django app.
Enforcing conventions in Django projects with introspection
Some code and tips to combine Python and Django introspection APIs to enforce naming conventions in your Django models.
Tutorials
Building a Voice Notes App with Django and OpenAI
In this tutorial, you will learn how to build a voice notes app using Django and OpenAI for speech-to-text conversion. Additionally, AlpineJS will manage the state on the front end.
Videos
Django 2024: The Latest Development Trends
Scheduled for Apr 25, 2024. Tune in to our upcoming livestream, where we'll take you through the latest Django Developers Survey results based on responses from 4,000 Django developers.
Understanding Wasm: How We Got Here by Chris Dickinson @ Wasm I/O 2024
Let's put Wasm and the problems it solves into historical context: what are we trying to solve, and for whom? What has been tried before? What makes this effort more likely to succeed? We'll examine the history of virtual machines, operating systems, & hypervisors from the 1960s through the 2010s.
Podcasts
Django Chat #161: Kraken - Çağıl Uluşahin Sönmez
Çağıl is a Lead Backend Engineer at Kraken Tech, Django Software Foundation Vice President, and Django London Meetup co-organizer. We discuss her background studying computer science in Turkey, organizing DjangoGirls and Python events in Istanbul, and her current work today.
Python Test #218: Balancing test coverage with test costs
Nicole is a software engineer and writer, and recently wrote about the trade-offs we make when deciding which tests to write and how much testing is enough.
Django News Jobs
New jobs for this week!
Senior AI Engineer (f/m/d) at 1&1 🆕
Michigan Online Software Engineer at University of Michigan
Web developer at der Freitag Mediengesellschaft
Backend Software Architect, EarthRanger (Contract Opportunity) at AI2
Senior Software Engineer (backend) - IASO at Bluesquare
Remote Full-stack Python Developer at Scopic
Django Developer at The Developer Society
Django Newsletter
Projects
matthiask/django-translated-fields
Django model translation without magic-inflicted pain.
inkandswitch/tiny-essay-editor
Simple markdown editor w inline comments, on latest auto merge stack.
Sponsorship
🌷 Spring Newsletter Sponsorships
Want to reach over 3,765+ active Django developers?
Full information is available on the sponsorship page.
This RSS feed is published on https://django-news.com/. You can also subscribe via email.
23 Apr 2024 5:58am GMT
22 Apr 2024
Planet Python
Django Weblog: An open letter regarding the DjangoCon Europe CfP
As many of you are not doubt aware there have recently been some community conversation regarding a license agreement that was published as part of the DjangoCon Europe Call for Proposals for organizers. I believe it is fair to characterize the reaction as negative, with expressions of anger, frustration, and confusion towards the DSF for placing burdensome and one sided requirements for hosting a DjangoCon Europe.
I want to state first and foremost that I added the licensing agreement to the CfP. My deepest apologies for everyone who felt betrayed by it. I hold our conference organizers in the highest regard, for the equity, effort, blood, sweat, and tears they put into creating amazing community events that bring us all together. I considered resigning from the board for the pain and confusion that I have caused. I have not because I want to be part of finding a way forward and keeping DjangoCon Europe the calendar event that so many of us eagerly await. It will be up to all of you if I can be part of that journey back.
The most difficulty accusation to face is that of a lack of transparency and surprising former and prospective organizers with the license. It is difficult for me because I honestly believed I was increasing the level of transparency to organizers. This licensing agreement is not a new document, though I now understand that it is new to, well, everyone. The license has existed in the DSF legal documents repository since at least 2016 and has been signed for at least one DjangoCon Europe. In my years on the board prior to my presidency on several occasions there were todos to have selected organizers "sign the organizer contract". In addition I know that DEFNA is party to an almost identical licensing contract with the DSF. It was my intention to provide to potential organizers with the contract prior to making a proposal so that when a proposal was selected the organizers would not be taken aback when being presented with the license.
I was mortified when I heard, first in private and then publicly, that no DjangoCon Europe organizers of current memory had ever signed the license. The group of some of our community's most dedicated volunteers felt like with the click of a keyboard had turned into an arms length transaction among lawyers. At the same time I was mortified at the potential legal jeopardy the DSF had unknowingly been in by not having license agreements in place for all DjangoCons.
I'd like to touch on several points brought up in the discussion that has come from this.
The first regards the time window of DjangoCon Europe as laid out in the CfP. The DSF has long standing agreements with the PSF, DEFNA, and EuroPython to not adversely impact each other's conferences by scheduling them too close together. The agreement specifies that no two conferences should be within a month of each other. The sentiment of the agreement is well placed, but I believe it is time to revisit it. With new conferences coming into the fold (it was rightly pointed out the DjangoCon Africa is not mentioned in the license), the ability for conferences to have meaningful remote participation, and a calendar that due to weather often has the four stated conferences vying for a 5-7 month slot the one month gap is difficult to plan around. I am publicly proposing here that the interested parties to this agreement modify it such that the one month window apply to either region or theme, but not both. That would have, for instance, DjangoCon US avoiding Pycon and DjangoCons Europe and Africa but not EuroPython and vice versa.
The second point is in regards to the requirement to not schedule against major religious and cultural holidays. While I did not write that, I embody it. My first DjangoCon was DjangoCon Europe. I was unable to attend DjangoCon US in Chicago while I was living in Chicago as it had been partly scheduled against Rosh Hashanah. So I convinced my boss to send me to France instead and fell in love with the Django community.
Finally to the comments that the DSF does not care about organizers and has no interest in helping them put on a conference. Unfortunately DSF does not have inherent knowledge of running conferences, no legal entity outside the US to bring to bear, or the finances to backstop a DjangoCon. We ask for your help every year to run DjangoCon Europe because, quite simply, we can't. There was a meeting in Edinburgh of former organizers to discuss how organizing a DjangoCon Europe coule be improved. That meeting was the start of the European Organizers Support working group. It did take time to get started. We have it now. It is the sincerest hope of all of us that it is the first step in improving the experience of European organizers, and hopefully others down the line. It is a slow process, but one I dearly hope bears fruit.
I sincerely hope that we can all together still work to make DjangoCon Europe 2025 a reality. I will do all that I can to make that happen, if you will continue to have me. I do not participate in social media, but have started a thread on the Django Forum to continue this discussion. For most of the next week I will be unavailable due to the Passover holiday but it was imperative to me that I get this message to you all as soon as I could.
Thank you for your time, and for letting me serve you, Chaim Kirby President, Django Software Foundation
22 Apr 2024 10:32pm GMT
ListenData: 4 Ways to Correct Grammar with Python
This tutorial explains various methods for checking and correcting grammar using Python. Automatic grammar correction helps students, professionals and content creators to make sure their writing follows proper grammar rules.
To read this article in full, please click here
22 Apr 2024 7:41pm GMT
Real Python: Write Unit Tests for Your Python Code With ChatGPT
Having a good battery of tests for your code may be a requirement for many Python projects. In practice, writing unit tests is hard and can take a lot of time and effort. Therefore, some developers don't like to write them. However, with large language models (LLMs) and tools like ChatGPT, you can quickly create robust and complete sets of tests for your Python code.
In Python, you can use multiple different tools for writing tests. The most commonly used tools include doctest, unittest, and pytest. ChatGPT can be of great help in writing tests with any of these tools.
In this tutorial, you'll:
- Prompt ChatGPT to create tests using
doctest - Use ChatGPT to write
unittesttests, fixtures, and suites - Craft ChatGPT prompts to write
pytesttests and fixtures - Use alternative prompts for cases where the code isn't available
To get the most out of this tutorial, you should set up a ChatGPT account and know the basics of interacting with this tool using prompt engineering. You should also know the basics of how to test code in Python.
Get Your Code: Click here to download the free sample code you'll use to write unit tests for your Python code using ChatGPT.
Benefits of Using ChatGPT for Testing Python Code
Having good and up-to-date unit tests for your code is a must for any Python project. Poorly tested code or code without tests may end up being unreliable and weak. With automated tests, you can ensure and show that your code works correctly in different scenarios. So, having tests is important from the technical and commercial point of view.
Writing good tests is hard and can take a lot of time. That's why some developers don't like to write them at all. Using large language models (LLM) like ChatGPT can be a viable alternative for providing your projects and code with proper tests.
Note: You can use ChatGPT and other LLMs in many useful ways in the context of Python development. Check out the following resources for other use cases and useful insights:
Some of the benefits of using ChatGPT to write tests for your Python code include the following:
- Efficiency and speed: It can generate unit tests based on specifications or code snippets. This possibility significantly reduces the time that you need to spend writing tests. So you can focus on writing application logic.
- Coverage improvement: It can suggest tests for edge cases or scenarios that developers might not immediately consider. This way, you can improve your code's test coverage.
- Error reduction: It can reduce human error in writing repetitive or boilerplate test code.
- Learning and onboarding: It can serve as an educational tool for developers who are new to testing frameworks or unfamiliar with best practices in unit testing. The generated tests can help developers learn about testing patterns, assertions, and ways to effectively write tests.
With ChatGPT, you can generate unit tests for your Python code in almost no time. However, you must note that even though the generated tests can look good, you should still review and possibly refine the generated tests.
Note: For this tutorial, you'll use a free ChatGPT account that's powered by the GPT-3.5 LLM. You can use this model for free with the default web interface by OpenAI. If you use a paid account with GPT-4, then your results might be more accurate and faster.
Additionally, you'll use an individual chat thread for each major section in the tutorial. So you'll use different threads for the doctest, unittest, and pytest sections.
Using a single chat thread to run all the examples in this tutorial may cause the chat to generate significantly different responses because of the past context, which includes previous prompts and responses.
In the following sections, you'll learn the basics of using ChatGPT as an assistant for creating coherent unit tests for your Python projects using different test frameworks and libraries.
Writing doctest Tests With ChatGPT
Python's doctest module provides a lightweight testing framework that you can use for test automation. It can read the test cases from your project's documentation and your code's docstrings. This framework comes with the Python interpreter, so you'll have it at your disposal with any Python installation, which is great.
Note: To dive deeper into how to use the doctest module for testing your code, check out Python's doctest: Document and Test Your Code at Once.
With doctest, you can write code that provides examples of how your code works, simulating REPL sessions. These examples work as documentation and also as test cases or unit tests. Each doctest test needs a statement or expression and an expected result.
You can use ChatGPT to help you out with writing doctest tests. First, you need some code to test. The following function tries to tackle the FizzBuzz challenge, where you return "fizz" for numbers divisible by three, "buzz" for those divisible by five, and "fizz buzz" for those divisible by both three and five.
Go ahead and create a fizzbuzz.py file and add the following code to it:
fizzbuzz.py
def fizzbuzz(number):
if number % 3 == 0:
return "fizz"
elif number % 5 == 0:
return "buzz"
elif number % 15 == 0:
return "fizz buzz"
else:
return number
This function works okay for numbers divisible by 3 or 5. However, there is a slight issue with numbers that are divisible by both. Even though you know this, go ahead and start a new chat thread. Then, prompt ChatGPT to write doctest test for the function:
You: Write
doctesttests for the following function:PythonCopied!def fizzbuzz(number): if number % 3 == 0: return "fizz" elif number % 5 == 0: return "buzz" elif number % 15 == 0: return "fizz buzz" else: return numberChatGPT:
Certainly! The function you've provided implements a basic FizzBuzz algorithm but with a slight logical error. The check for divisibility by
15should come before checks for3and5, as every number divisible by15is also divisible by both3and5, but your current order will never reach the"fizz buzz"case. Here's a corrected version of your function with the logical order fixed, followed bydoctesttests for it:PythonCopied!def fizzbuzz(number): """ Returns 'fizz' if number is divisible by 3, 'buzz' if number is divisible by 5, 'fizz buzz' if number is divisible by 15, and the number itself otherwise. >>> fizzbuzz(3) 'fizz' >>> fizzbuzz(5) 'buzz' >>> fizzbuzz(15) 'fizz buzz' >>> fizzbuzz(4) 4 >>> fizzbuzz(30) 'fizz buzz' >>> fizzbuzz(9) 'fizz' >>> fizzbuzz(10) 'buzz' >>> fizzbuzz(2) 2 """ if number % 15 == 0: return "fizz buzz" elif number % 3 == 0: return "fizz" elif number % 5 == 0: return "buzz" else: return numberTo use these
doctesttests, you'll need to include them in the docstring of your function as shown above. Then, you can run the tests with thedoctestmodule by adding the following to your script:PythonCopied!if __name__ == "__main__": import doctest doctest.testmod()This code will automatically run the tests defined in the docstrings when you execute the Python file. Remember, the corrected order of conditions in the function ensures that numbers divisible by both
3and5return"fizz buzz", which is crucial for the FizzBuzz logic.
Wow! That great! The chat not only wrote the doctest tests for you. It also fixed the issue, explained important concepts around doctest, and provided instructions on how to run the tests. Note that the tests cover both regular and edge cases, which is pretty convenient.
Read the full article at https://realpython.com/chatgpt-unit-tests-python/ »
[ Improve Your Python With 🐍 Python Tricks 💌 - Get a short & sweet Python Trick delivered to your inbox every couple of days. >> Click here to learn more and see examples ]
22 Apr 2024 2:00pm GMT
19 Apr 2024
Django community aggregator: Community blog posts
Django News - PyPI Expanding Trusted Publisher Support - Apr 19th 2024
News
Don't Miss Out: Last Call for DjangoCon US 2024 Talk Proposals!
Have you submitted your talk or tutorial for DjangoCon US 2024, in beautiful Durham, North Carolina, USA?
This is your last call to submit a talk or tutorial. The CFP deadline is April 24, 2024, at 12 PM EDT.
PyPI: Expanding Trusted Publisher Support
PyPI added GitLab CI/CD, Google Cloud, and ActiveState as Trusted Publishing providers.
Django Software Foundation
DSF Board meeting minutes for April 11, 2024
Here are the DSF Board's meeting minutes for April 11, 2024.
Updates to Django
Today 'Updates to Django' is presented by Raffaella Suardini from Djangonaut Space!
Last week we had 10 pull requests merged into Django by 5 different contributors - including 1 first-time contributor! Congratulations to Aleksander Milinkevich for having their first commits merged into Django - welcome on board!
Coming in Django 5.0.5 (expected May 6th):
- Resolved a compatibility issue with Python 3.11.9+ and 3.12.3+ when validating email max line lengths with content decoded using the
surrogateescapeerror handling scheme. - Resolved a bug in Django 5.0 that makes
Model.save()crash when creating a model instance with a GeneratedField and specifying a primary key.
Django Newsletter
Wagtail CMS
Wagtail Space CFP deadline is April 22
It's the last call to speak this summer at Wagtail Space US 2024.
Wagtail Space US 2024 - Call For Proposals
Wagtail Space Virtual Talks 2024 - Call For Proposals
Sponsored Ad
Free Trial of Scout APM Today!
Need answers to your Django app questions fast? Avoid the hassle of talking with a sales rep and the long wait times of large support teams, and choose Scout APM. Get Django insights in less than 4 minutes with Scout APM.
Articles
7 simple examples using Django GeneratedField
Django 5.0 added a new feature, GeneratedField, which allows us to auto-calculate database fields. This article shows seven short examples of how to use it so the database performs calculations extremely quickly.
Django from first principles, part 3
In the third installment of his series on constructing a comprehensive Django project from a single file, Eric Matthes explores enhancing your homepage with templates.
Building forms with the Django admin
A look at multiple ways, including over time, to build and style forms in the Django admin.
Styling a Django RSS Feed
A straightforward way to style your RSS feed in a Django app.
Enforcing conventions in Django projects with introspection
Some code and tips to combine Python and Django introspection APIs to enforce naming conventions in your Django models.
Tutorials
Building a Voice Notes App with Django and OpenAI
In this tutorial, you will learn how to build a voice notes app using Django and OpenAI for speech-to-text conversion. Additionally, AlpineJS will manage the state on the front end.
Videos
Django 2024: The Latest Development Trends
Scheduled for Apr 25, 2024. Tune in to our upcoming livestream, where we'll take you through the latest Django Developers Survey results based on responses from 4,000 Django developers.
Understanding Wasm: How We Got Here by Chris Dickinson @ Wasm I/O 2024
Let's put Wasm and the problems it solves into historical context: what are we trying to solve, and for whom? What has been tried before? What makes this effort more likely to succeed? We'll examine the history of virtual machines, operating systems, & hypervisors from the 1960s through the 2010s.
Podcasts
Django Chat #161: Kraken - Çağıl Uluşahin Sönmez
Çağıl is a Lead Backend Engineer at Kraken Tech, Django Software Foundation Vice President, and Django London Meetup co-organizer. We discuss her background studying computer science in Turkey, organizing DjangoGirls and Python events in Istanbul, and her current work today.
Python Test #218: Balancing test coverage with test costs
Nicole is a software engineer and writer, and recently wrote about the trade-offs we make when deciding which tests to write and how much testing is enough.
Django News Jobs
New jobs for this week!
Senior AI Engineer (f/m/d) at 1&1 🆕
Michigan Online Software Engineer at University of Michigan
Web developer at der Freitag Mediengesellschaft
Backend Software Architect, EarthRanger (Contract Opportunity) at AI2
Senior Software Engineer (backend) - IASO at Bluesquare
Remote Full-stack Python Developer at Scopic
Django Developer at The Developer Society
Django Newsletter
Projects
matthiask/django-translated-fields
Django model translation without magic-inflicted pain.
inkandswitch/tiny-essay-editor
Simple markdown editor w inline comments, on latest auto merge stack.
Sponsorship
🌷 Spring Newsletter Sponsorships
Want to reach over 3,750+ active Django developers? Full information is available on the sponsorship page.
This RSS feed is published on https://django-news.com/. You can also subscribe via email.
19 Apr 2024 3:00pm GMT
18 Apr 2024
Django community aggregator: Community blog posts
Why Django and why not Flask?
Why would someone pick Django over Flask? That's the question that I got on stream and here is my answer.
18 Apr 2024 5:00am GMT
02 Apr 2024
Planet Twisted
Hynek Schlawack: Python Project-Local Virtualenv Management Redux
One of my first TIL entries was about how you can imitate Node's node_modules semantics in Python on UNIX-like operating systems. A lot has happened since then (to the better!) and it's time for an update. direnv still rocks, though.
02 Apr 2024 12:00am GMT
30 Mar 2024
Planet Twisted
Glyph Lefkowitz: Software Needs To Be More Expensive
The Cost of Coffee
One of the ideas that James Hoffmann - probably the most influential… influencer in the coffee industry - works hard to popularize is that "coffee needs to be more expensive".
The coffee industry is famously exploitative. Despite relatively thin margins for independent café owners1, there are no shortage of horrific stories about labor exploitation and even slavery in the coffee supply chain.
To summarize a point that Mr. Hoffman has made over a quite long series of videos and interviews2, some of this can be fixed by regulatory efforts. Enforcement of supply chain policies both by manufacturers and governments can help spot and avoid this type of exploitation. Some of it can be fixed by discernment on the part of consumers. You can try to buy fair-trade coffee, avoid brands that you know have problematic supply-chain histories.
Ultimately, though, even if there is perfect, universal, zero-cost enforcement of supply chain integrity… consumers still have to be willing to, you know, pay more for the coffee. It costs more to pay wages than to have slaves.
The Price of Software
The problem with the coffee supply chain deserves your attention in its own right. I don't mean to claim that the problems of open source maintainers are as severe as those of literal child slaves. But the principle is the same.
Every tech company uses huge amounts of open source software, which they get for free.
I do not want to argue that this is straightforwardly exploitation. There is a complex bargain here for the open source maintainers: if you create open source software, you can get a job more easily. If you create open source infrastructure, you can make choices about the architecture of your projects which are more long-term sustainable from a technology perspective, but would be harder to justify on a shorter-term commercial development schedule. You can collaborate with a wider group across the industry. You can build your personal brand.
But, in light of the recent xz Utils / SSH backdoor scandal, it is clear that while the bargain may not be entirely one-sided, it is not symmetrical, and significant bad consequences may result, both for the maintainers themselves and for society.
To fix this problem, open source software needs to get more expensive.
A big part of the appeal of open source is its implicit permission structure, which derives both from its zero up-front cost and its zero marginal cost.
The zero up-front cost means that you can just get it to try it out. In many companies, individual software developers do not have the authority to write a purchase order, or even a corporate credit card for small expenses.
If you are a software engineer and you need a new development tool or a new library that you want to purchase for work, it can be a maze of bureaucratic confusion in order to get that approved. It might be possible, but you are likely to get strange looks, and someone, probably your manager, is quite likely to say "isn't there a free option for this?" At worst, it might just be impossible.
This makes sense. Dealing with purchase orders and reimbursement requests is annoying, and it only feels worth the overhead if you're dealing with a large enough block of functionality that it is worth it for an entire team, or better yet an org, to adopt. This means that most of the purchasing is done by management types or "architects", who are empowered to make decisions for larger groups.
When individual engineers need to solve a problem, they look at open source libraries and tools specifically because it's quick and easy to incorporate them in a pull request, where a proprietary solution might be tedious and expensive.
That's assuming that a proprietary solution to your problem even exists. In the infrastructure sector of the software economy, free options from your operating system provider (Apple, Microsoft, maybe Amazon if you're in the cloud) and open source developers, small commercial options have been marginalized or outright destroyed by zero-cost options, for this reason.
If the zero up-front cost is a paperwork-reduction benefit, then the zero marginal cost is almost a requirement. One of the perennial complaints of open source maintainers is that companies take our stuff, build it into a product, and then make a zillion dollars and give us nothing. It seems fair that they'd give us some kind of royalty, right? Some tiny fraction of that windfall? But once you realize that individual developers don't have the authority to put $50 on a corporate card to buy a tool, they super don't have the authority to make a technical decision that encumbers the intellectual property of their entire core product to give some fraction of the company's revenue away to a third party. Structurally, there's no way that this will ever happen.
Despite these impediments, keeping those dependencies maintained does cost money.
Some Solutions Already Exist
There are various official channels developing to help support the maintenance of critical infrastructure. If you work at a big company, you should probably have a corporate Tidelift subscription. Maybe ask your employer about that.
But, as they will readily admit there are a LOT of projects that even Tidelift cannot cover, with no official commercial support, and no practical way to offer it in the short term. Individual maintainers, like yours truly, trying to figure out how to maintain their projects, either by making a living from them or incorporating them into our jobs somehow. People with a Ko-Fi or a Patreon, or maybe just an Amazon wish-list to let you say "thanks" for occasional maintenance work.
Most importantly, there's no path for them to transition to actually making a living from their maintenance work. For most maintainers, Tidelift pays a sub-hobbyist amount of money, and even setting it up (and GitHub Sponsors, etc) is a huge hassle. So even making the transition from "no income" to "a little bit of side-hustle income" may be prohibitively bureaucratic.
Let's take myself as an example. If you're a developer who is nominally profiting from my infrastructure work in your own career, there is a very strong chance that you are also a contributor to the open source commons, and perhaps you've even contributed more to that commons than I have, contributed more to my own career success than I have to yours. I can ask you to pay me3, but really you shouldn't be paying me, your employer should.
What To Do Now: Make It Easy To Just Pay Money
So if we just need to give open source maintainers more money, and it's really the employers who ought to be giving it, then what can we do?
Let's not make it complicated. Employers should just give maintainers money. Let's call it the "JGMM" benefit.
Specifically, every employer of software engineers should immediately institute the following benefits program: each software engineer should have a monthly discretionary budget of $50 to distribute to whatever open source dependency developers they want, in whatever way they see fit. Venmo, Patreon, PayPal, Kickstarter, GitHub Sponsors, whatever, it doesn't matter. Put it on a corp card, put the project name on the line item, and forget about it. It's only for open source maintenance, but it's a small enough amount that you don't need intense levels of approval-gating process. You can do it on the honor system.
This preserves zero up-front cost. To start using a dependency, you still just use it4. It also preserves zero marginal cost: your developers choose which dependencies to support based on perceived need and popularity. It's a fixed overhead which doesn't scale with revenue or with profit, just headcount.
Because the whole point here is to match the easy, implicit, no-process, no-controls way in which dependencies can be added in most companies. It should be easier to pay these small tips than it is to use the software in the first place.
This sub-1% overhead to your staffing costs will massively de-risk the open source projects you use. By leaving the discretion up to your engineers, you will end up supporting those projects which are really struggling and which your executives won't even hear about until they end up on the news. Some of it will go to projects that you don't use, things that your engineers find fascinating and want to use one day but don't yet depend upon, but that's fine too. Consider it an extremely cheap, efficient R&D expense.
A lot of the options for developers to support open source infrastructure are already tax-deductible, so if they contribute to something like one of the PSF's fiscal sponsorees, it's probably even more tax-advantaged than a regular business expense.
I also strongly suspect that if you're one of the first employers to do this, you can get a round of really positive PR out of the tech press, and attract engineers, so, the race is on. I don't really count as the "tech press" but nevertheless drop me a line to let me know if your company ends up doing this so I can shout you out.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my patrons who are supporting my writing on this blog. If you like what you've read here and you'd like to read more of it, or you'd like to support my various open-source endeavors, you can support my work as a sponsor! I am also available for consulting work if you think your organization could benefit from expertise on topics such as "How do I figure out which open source projects to give money to?".
-
I don't have time to get into the margins for Starbucks and friends, their relationship with labor, economies of scale, etc. ↩
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While this is a theme that pervades much of his work, the only place I can easily find where he says it in so many words is on a podcast that sometimes also promotes right-wing weirdos and pseudo-scientific quacks spreading misinformation about autism and ADHD. So, I obviously don't want to link to them; you'll have to take my word for it. ↩
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and I will, since as I just recently wrote about, I need to make sure that people are at least aware of the option ↩
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Pending whatever legal approval program you have in place to vet the license. You do have a nice streamlined legal approvals process, right? You're not just putting WTFPL software into production, are you? ↩
30 Mar 2024 11:00pm GMT
29 Mar 2024
Planet Twisted
Glyph Lefkowitz: The Hat
This year I will be going to two conferences: PyCon 2024, and North Bay Python 2024.
At PyCon, I will be promoting my open source work and my writing on this blog. As I'm not giving a talk this year, I am looking forward to organizing and participating in some open spaces about topics like software architecture, open source sustainability, framework interoperability, and event-driven programming.
At North Bay Python, though, I will either be:
- doing a lot more of that, or
- looking for new full-time employment, pausing the patreon, and winding down this experiment.
If you'd like to see me doing the former, now would be a great time to sign up to my Patreon to support the continuation of my independent open source work and writing.
The Bad News
It has been nearly a year since I first mentioned that I have a Patreon on this blog. That year has been a busy one, with consulting work and personal stuff consuming more than enough time that I have never been full time on independent coding & blogging. As such, I've focused more on small infrastructure projects and less on user-facing apps than I'd like, but I have spent the plurality of my time on it.
For that to continue, let alone increase, this work needs to-at the very least-pay for health insurance. At my current consulting rate, a conservative estimate based on some time tracking is that I am currently doing this work at something like a 98.5% discount. I do love doing it! I would be happy to continue doing it at a significant discount! But "significant" and "catastrophic" are different thresholds.
As I have said previously, this is an appeal to support my independent work; not to support me. I will be fine; what you will be voting for with your wallet is not my well-being but a choice about where I spend my time.
Hiding The Hat
When people ask me what I do these days, I sometimes struggle to explain. It is confusing. I might say I have a Patreon, I do a combination of independent work and consulting, or if I'm feeling particularly sarcastic I might say I'm an ✨influencer✨. But recently I saw the very inspiring Matt Ricardo describing the way he thinks about his own Patreon, and I realized what I am actually trying to do, which is software development busking.
Previously, when I've been thinking about making this "okay, it's been a year of Patreon, let's get serious now" post, I've been thinking about adding more reward products to my Patreon, trying to give people better value for their money before asking for anything more, trying to finish more projects to make a better sales pitch, maybe making merch available for sale, and so on. So aside from irregular weekly posts on Friday and acknowledgments sections at the bottom of blog posts, I've avoided mentioning this while I think about adding more private rewards.
But busking is a public performance, and if you want to support my work then it is that public aspect that you presumably want to support. And thus, an important part of the busking process is to actually pass the hat at the end. The people who don't chip in still get to see the performance, but everyone else need to know that they can contribute if they liked it.1
I'm going to try to stop hiding the metaphorical hat. I still don't want to overdo it, but I will trust that you'll tell me if these reminders get annoying. For my part today, in addition to this post, I'm opening up a new $10 tier on Patreon for people who want to provide a higher level of support, and officially acknowledging the rewards that I already provide.
What's The Deal?
So, what would you be supporting?
What You Give (The Public Part)
- I have tended to focus on my software, and there has been a lot of it! You'd be supporting me writing libraries and applications and build infrastructure to help others do the same with Python, as well as maintaining existing libraries (like the Twisted ecosystem libraries) sometimes. If I can get enough support together to more than bare support for myself, I'd really like to be able to do things like pay people to others to help with aspects of applications that I would struggle to complete myself, like accessibility or security audits.
- I also do quite a bit of writing though, about software and about other things. To make it easier to see what sort of writing I'm talking about, I've collected just the stuff that I've written during the period where I have had some patrons, under the supported tag.
- Per my earlier sarcastic comment about being an "influencer", I also do quite a bit of posting on Mastodon about software and the tech industry.
What You Get (Just For Patrons)
As I said above, I will be keeping member benefits somewhat minimal.
- I will add you to SponCom so that your name will be embedded in commit messages like this one on a cadence appropriate to your support level.
- You will get access to my private Patreon posts where I discuss what I've been working on. As one of my existing patrons put it:
I figure I'm getting pretty good return on it, getting not only targeted project tracking, but also a peek inside your head when it comes to Sores Business Development. Maybe some of that stuff will rub off on me :)
- This is a somewhat vague and noncommittal benefit, but it might be the best one: if you are interested in the various different projects that I am doing, you can help me prioritize! I have a lot of things going on. What would you prefer that I focus on? You can make suggestions in the comments of Patreon posts, which I pay a lot more attention to than other feedback channels.
- In the near future2 I am also planning to start doing some "office hours" type live-streaming, where I will take audience questions and discuss software design topics, or maybe do some live development to showcase my process and the tools I use. When I figure out the mechanics of this, I plan to add some rewards to the existing tiers to select topics or problems for me to work on there.
If that sounds like a good deal to you, please sign up now. If you're already supporting me, sharing this and giving a brief testimonial of something good I've done would be really helpful. Github is not an algorithmic platform like YouTube, despite my occasional jokey "remember to like and subscribe", nobody is getting recommended DBXS, or Fritter, or Twisted, or Automat, or this blog unless someone goes out and shares it.
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A year into this, after what feels like endlessly repeating this sales pitch to the point of obnoxiousness, I still routinely interact with people who do not realize that I have a Patreon at all. ↩
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Not quite comfortable putting this on the official patreon itemized inventory of rewards yet, but I do plan to add it once I've managed to stream for a couple of weeks in a row. ↩
29 Mar 2024 11:56pm GMT
07 Feb 2024
Planet Plone - Where Developers And Integrators Write
PloneExpanse: Image scales wrongly regenerating
I had a problem with my Frankenstein stack of Plone 4 with various bits (core libraries) upgraded on it. Here's a description of my bug: When I upload an image and try to use it in a Volto block that referenced its image scales download url (such as @@images/<random-uuid4>.jpg) the image URL didn't work, it resulted in 404 error. When I reindexed the image in the catalog, then it worked. Now, the funky part is that I could reproduce the problem not only on my "doomed" Plone 4 stack, but also in the modern Plone 6 stack that we use for our main customer.
07 Feb 2024 6:06am GMT
29 Jan 2024
Planet Plone - Where Developers And Integrators Write
PloneExpanse: Cleanup zc async
For my own reference, as I had to do a cleanup of zc.async tasks. The interface was too slow. bin/zeo_client debug queue = app._p_jar.root()['zc.async'][''] for i in range(len(queue)): queue.pull(0)
29 Jan 2024 1:11pm GMT
18 Oct 2023
Planet Plone - Where Developers And Integrators Write
kitconcept GmbH: Plone Conference 2023 - Eibar
The 2023 editon of the anual Plone conference happend from October 2nd to 8th in Eibar, Basque Country
The kitconcept team was present with 8 developers. Our team members gave plenty talks, keynotes and trainings.
kitconcept and friends having team dinner
Trainings
Two days filled with trainings. Free for all conference attendees. This offer is unique in the Plone community and kitconcept team members were the backbone of the trainings about how to use Plone 6. From deployment to development to deep insides into how Volto and Plone 6 works.
Alok Kumar, Jakob Kahl: Volto and React
Alok Kumar and Jakob Kahl did a two day training to help developers get started with Volto and React:
https://2023.ploneconf.org/schedule/training/volto-and-react
Check out their trainings online if you want to catch up:
Érico Andrei : Installing Plone
Our colleague Érico Andrei gave a training about installing Plone on Day 2, the 3rd of October
https://2023.ploneconf.org/schedule/training/installing-plone
Víctor Fernandez de Alba, Tiberiu Ichim: Effective Volto
Víctor Fernandez de Alba is kitconcept CTO and the Volto Release Manager. Tiberiu Ichim is a Volto team member and one of the key contributors to Volto. They gave key insights into how to work effectively with Volto. If you have experience with Volto and you want to become a real pro, this is the training you should go to.
https://2023.ploneconf.org/schedule/training/effective-volto
https://training.plone.org/effective-volto/index.html
Day One
On day one, kitconcept team members presented two talks, including the main keynote of the day.
Keynote State of Plone
Team members Érico Andrei, Víctor Fernández de Alba and Timo Stollenwerk together with Maurits van Rees of Zest Software and Eric Steele of Salesforce presented the very first Keynote of the Conference titled "State of Plone".
Breaking boundaries: Plone as headless CMS by Víctor Fernández de Alba
Our colleague Víctor Fernández de Alba gave a presentation about the challenges faced by the Plone content management system in keeping up with modern frontend developments and the growing popularity of headless CMSs.
Breaking boundaries: Plone as headless CMS
https://2023.ploneconf.org/schedule/breaking-boundaries-plone-as-headless-cms
Day Two
Day Two was a informative Day, packed with interesting Talks, Panels and Presentations.
Volto Team Meeting
Panel: The Future of Search in Plone, 2023 Edition
Timo Stollenwerk, Sally Kleinfeldt, Tiberiu Ichim,, Eric Steele, Eric Bréhault, Rikupekka Oksanen, Érico Andrei and Guido Stevens hosted a very interesting Panel about the Future of Search Algorithms in Plone.
This panel provided a brief history and modern examples of Plone search, followed by a discussion of what improvements are needed - both from a marketing and technical perspective. This topic was first discussed at the 2011 conference and it was interesting to see how opinions had changed.
Alok Kumar : Is your Volto addon developer friendly ?
Meanwhile, kitconcept frontend developer Alok Kumar held a Presentation about what makes a developer friendly Volto Addon, and how we as a developer ourselfes can improve on the way we develop addons for Volto.
https://2023.ploneconf.org/schedule/is-your-volto-addon-developer-friendly
Rob Gietema : How to build a site using Nick
Later in the afternoon kitconcept developer Rob Gietema held an intriguing Talk about Nick, a headless CMS written in Node.js and how easy it is to build a website with it.
https://2023.ploneconf.org/schedule/how-to-build-a-site-using-nick
David Glick : Tales from a production Plone Cluster
Following Rob, kitconcept Employee David Glick shared some Details and Stories on hosting large Plone sites in a Docker Swarm Cluster.
https://2023.ploneconf.org/schedule/tales-from-a-production-plone-cluster
Érico Andrei : Unlocking the Power of plone.distribution : A Hands-On Guide
In this talk, Érico Andrei guided us through the feature-rich world of Plone Distributions.
https://2023.ploneconf.org/schedule/unlocking-the-power-of-plone-distribution-a-hands-on-guide
Local sport showcase and party
In the evening CodeSyntax organized a showcase of different local sports, including stone lifting, wood chopping and wood sawing. Timo represented kitconcept in this together with Phillip Bauer of Starzel. After that we concluded the day with cold drinks and Pinxos at the conference party.
Day 3
Day 3 was filled with quite technical presentations, providing Information on the Cutting Edge Technology Plone has to offer.
Fred van Dijk : How the Plone Foundation Ai.team manages its websites with CI/CD
On the third Day of the Plone Conference, kitconcept Employee Fred van Dijk shared the News on automating a plone Release and how to host and operate a small Docker Swarm cluster using Plone.
https://2023.ploneconf.org/schedule/how-the-plone-foundation-ai-team-manages-its-websites-with-ci-cd
Víctor Fernández de Alba : volto-light-theme: Volto Theming, Reimagined
After a quick coffee break Víctor Fernández de Alba shared the progress on the Volto-Light-Theme and its inner workings.
https://2023.ploneconf.org/schedule/volto-light-theme-volto-theming-in-2023
Timo Stollenwerk : How we built the Website for the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in less than six months
CEO Timo Stollenwerk indulged us in the Story of the Challenges of migrating large, goverment-owned websites into a Plone project.
Érico Andrei : Testing your Plone codebase with Pytest
A little later in the afternoon, Érico Andrei presented us with a better, improved way to test Plone codebases.
https://2023.ploneconf.org/schedule/testing-your-plone-codebase-with-pytest
Rohit Kumar : Workflow Manager with Volto
In his presentation Rohit Kumar shared the progress regarding implementing a visual workflow Manager in Volto.
https://2023.ploneconf.org/schedule/workflow-manager-in-volto
Summary
The kitconcept team continues to drive innovation in the Plone community. Volto is the default frontend for Plone 6 and dominated the topics during the conference. We are happy to be part of such an amazing community.
18 Oct 2023 3:00pm GMT