How Python Is Used To Build A Startup At Wanderu with Chris Kirkos and Matt Warren - Episode 183

The breadth of use cases that Python supports, coupled with the level of productivity that it provides through its ease of use have contributed to the incredible popularity of the language. To explore the ways that it can contribute to the success of a young and growing startup two of the lead engineers at Wanderu discuss their experiences in this episode. Matt Warren, the technical operations lead, explains the ways that he is using Python to build and scale the infrastructure that Wanderu relies on, as well as the ways that he deploys and runs the various Python applications that power the business. Chris Kirkos, the lead software architect, describes how the original Django application has grown into a suite of microservices, where they have opted to use a different language and why, and how Python is still being used for critical business needs. This is a great conversation for understanding the business impact of the Python language and ecosystem.

Building A Game In Python At PyWeek with Daniel Pope - Episode 182

Many people learn to program because of their interest in building their own video games. Once the necessary skills have been acquired, it is often the case that the original idea of creating a game is forgotten in favor of solving the problems we confront at work. Game jams are a great way to get inspired and motivated to finally write a game from scratch. This week Daniel Pope discusses the origin and format for PyWeek, his experience as a participant, and the landscape of options for building a game in Python. He also explains how you can register and compete in the next competition.

Managing Application Secrets with Brian Kelly - Episode 181

Any application that communicates with other systems or services will at some point require a credential or sensitive piece of information to operate properly. The question then becomes how best to securely store, transmit, and use that information. The world of software secrets management is vast and complicated, so in this episode Brian Kelly, engineering manager at Conjur, aims to help you make sense of it. He explains the main factors for protecting sensitive information in your software development and deployment, ways that information might be leaked, and how to get the whole team on the same page.

Django, Channels, And The Asynchronous Web with Andrew Godwin - Episode 180

Once upon a time the web was a simple place with one main protocol and a predictable sequence of request/response interactions with backend applications. This is the era when Django began, but in the intervening years there has been an explosion of complexity with new asynchronous protocols and single page Javascript applications. To help bridge the gap and bring the most popular Python web framework into the modern age Andrew Godwin created Channels. In this episode he explains how the first version of the asynchronous layer for Django applications was created, how it has changed in the jump to version 2, and where it will go in the future. Along the way he also discusses the challenges of async development, his work on designing ASGI as the spiritual successor to WSGI, and how you can start using all of this in your own projects today.

The Business Of Technical Authoring With William Vincent - Episode 179

There are many aspects of learning how to program and at least as many ways to go about it. This is multiplicative with the different problem domains and subject areas where software development is applied. In this episode William Vincent discusses his experiences learning how web development mid-career and then writing a series of books to make the learning curve for Django newcomers shallower. This includes his thoughts on the business aspects of technical writing and teaching, the challenges of keeping content up to date with the current state of software, and the ever-present lack of sufficient information for new programmers.

Keep Your Code Clean Using pre-commit with Anthony Sottile - Episode 178

Maintaining the health and well-being of your software is a never-ending responsibility. Automating away as much of it as possible makes that challenge more achievable. In this episode Anthony Sottile describes his work on the pre-commit framework to simplify the process of writing and distributing functions to make sure that you only commit code that meets your definition of clean. He explains how it supports tools and repositories written in multiple languages, enforces team standards, and how you can start using it today to ship better software.

Infection Monkey Vulnerability Scanner with Daniel Goldberg - Episode 177

How secure are your servers? The best way to be sure that your systems aren’t being compromised is to do it yourself. In this episode Daniel Goldberg explains how you can use his project Infection Monkey to run a scan of your infrastructure to find and fix the vulnerabilities that can be taken advantage of. He also discusses his reasons for building it in Python, how it compares to other security scanners, and how you can get involved to keep making it better.

Fast Stream Processing In Python Using Faust with Ask Solem - Episode 176

The need to process unbounded and continually streaming sources of data has become increasingly common. One of the popular platforms for implementing this is Kafka along with its streams API. Unfortunately, this requires all of your processing or microservice logic to be implemented in Java, so what’s a poor Python developer to do? If that developer is Ask Solem of Celery fame then the answer is, help to re-implement the streams API in Python. In this episode Ask describes how Faust got started, how it works under the covers, and how you can start using it today to process your fast moving data in easy to understand Python code. He also discusses ways in which Faust might be able to replace your Celery workers, and all of the pieces that you can replace with your own plugins.

Don't Just Stand There, Get Programming! with Ana Bell - Episode 175

Writing a book is hard work, especially when you are trying to teach such a broad concept as programming. In this episode Ana Bell discusses her recent work in writing Get Programming: Learn To Code With Python, including her views on how to separate the principles from the implementation, making the book evergreen in its appeal, and how her experience as a lecturer at MIT has helped her maintain the perspectives of beginners. She also shares her views on the values of learning about programming, even when you have no intention of doing it as a career and ways to take the next steps if that is your goal.

The Masonite Web Framework With Joe Mancuso - Episode 174

Masonite is an ambitious new web framework that draws inspiration from many other successful projects in other languages. In this episode Joe Mancuso, the primary author and maintainer, explains his goal of unseating Django from its position of prominence in the Python community. He also discusses his motivation for building it, how it is architected, and how you can start using it for your own projects.