Python Bytes

• Python 3.13.0 released Oct 7
• PEP 759 – External Wheel Hosting
• pytest-freethreaded
• pytest-edit
• Extras
• Joke

About the show

Sponsored by ScoutAPM: pythonbytes.fm/scout

Connect with the hosts

• Michael: @[email protected]
• Brian: @[email protected]
• Show: @[email protected]

Join us on YouTube at pythonbytes.fm/live to be part of the audience. Usually Monday at 10am PT. Older video versions available there too.

Finally, if you want an artisanal, hand-crafted digest of every week of the show notes in email form? Add your name and email to our friends of the show list, we'll never share it.

Brian #1: Python 3.13.0 released Oct 7

• That’s today!
• What’s New In Python 3.13
  • Interpreter (REPL) improvements
    • exit works (really, this is worth the release right here)
    • Multiline editing with history preservation.
      • history sticks around between sessions
    • Direct support for REPL-specific commands like help, exit, and quit, without the need to call them as functions.
    • Prompts and tracebacks with color enabled by default.
    • Interactive help browsing using F1 with a separate command history.
    • History browsing using F2 that skips output as well as the >>> and … prompts.
    • “Paste mode” with F3 that makes pasting larger blocks of code easier (press F3 again to return to the regular prompt).
    • exit now works without parens
  • Improved error messages
    • Colorful tracebacks
    • Better messages for
      • naming a script/module the same name as a stdlib module.
      • naming a script/module the same name as an installed third party module.
      • misspelling a keyword argument
  • Free threaded CPython
    • Included in official installers on Windows and macOS
      • Read these links to figure out how - it’s not turned on by default
  • Lot’s more. see the What’s new page

Michael #2: PEP 759 – External Wheel Hosting

• pypi.org ships over 66 petabytes / month backed by Fastly
• There are hard project size limits for publishers to PyPI
• We can host the essence of a .whl as a .rim file, then allow an external download URL
• Security: Several factors as described in this proposal should mitigate security concerns with externally hosted wheels, such as:
  • Wheel file checksums MUST be included in .rim files, and once uploaded cannot be changed. Since the checksum stored on PyPI is immutable and required, it is not possible to spoof an external wheel file, even if the owning organization lost control of their hosting domain.
  • Externally hosted wheels MUST be served over HTTPS.
  • In order to serve externally hosted wheels, organizations MUST be approved by the PyPI admins.

Brian #3: pytest-freethreaded

• PyCon JP 2024 Team:
  • This extension was created at PyCon JP sprints with Anthony Shaw and 7 other folks listed in credits.
• “A pytest plugin for helping verify that your tests and libraries are thread-safe with the Python 3.13 experimental freethreaded mode.”
• Testing your project for compatibility with freethreaded Python.
  • Testing in single thread doesn’t test that.
  • Neither does testing with pytest-xdist, because it uses multiprocessing to parallelize tests.
  • So, Ant and others “made this plugin to help you run your tests in a thread-pool with the GIL disabled, to help you identify if your tests are thread-safe.”
  • “And the first library we tested it on (which was marked as compatible) caused a segmentation fault in CPython! So you should give this a go if you're a package maintainer.”

Michael #4: pytest-edit

• A simple Pytest plugin for opening editor on the failed tests.
• Type pytest --edit to open the failing test code
• Be sure to set your favorite editor in the ENV variables

Extras

Michael:

• New way to explore Talk Python courses via topics
  • This has been in our mobile apps since their rewrite but finally comes to the web
• Let's go easy on PyPI, OK? essay
• Hynek’s video: uv IS the Future of Python Packaging
• djade-pre-commit
• Polyfill.io, BootCDN, Bootcss, Staticfile attack traced to 1 operator
• PurgeCSS CLI
• Python 3.12.7 released
• Incremental GC and pushing back the 3.13.0 release
• uv making the rounds
• LLM fatigue, is it real?
• Take the Python Developers Survey 2024

Joke: Funny 404 pages

• We have something at least interesting at pythonbytes.fm

• uv under discussion on Mastodon
• erdantic: Entity Relationship Diagrams
• Extra, Extra, Extra
• Django Extra, Extra, Extra
• Extras
• Joke

About the show

Sponsored by us! Support our work through:

• Our courses at Talk Python Training
• The Complete pytest Course
• Patreon Supporters

Connect with the hosts

• Michael: @[email protected]
• Brian: @[email protected]
• Show: @[email protected]

Join us on YouTube at pythonbytes.fm/live to be part of the audience. Usually Monday at 10am PT. Older video versions available there too.

Finally, if you want an artisanal, hand-crafted digest of every week of the show notes in email form? Add your name and email to our friends of the show list, we'll never share it.

Michael #1: uv under discussion on Mastodon

• It’s interesting that uv is slightly controversial

• Russell:

• As enthusiastic as I am about the direction uv is going, I haven't adopted them anywhere - because I want very much to understand Astral’s intended business model before I hook my wagon to their tools.

• Hynek:

• As much as I hate VC, [...] FOSS projects flame out all the time too. … To me uv looks like a genius sting to trick VCs into paying to fix packaging. We’ll be better off either way.

• Glyph:

• Rust is more expensive and difficult to maintain, not to mention "non-native" to the average customer here. … it can burn out all the other projects in the ecosystem simultaneously, creating a risk of monoculture

• Hynek on Rust:

• I don’t think y’all quite grok what uv makes so special due to your seniority. The speed is really cool, but the reason Rust is elemental is that it’s one compiled blob that can be used to bootstrap and maintain a Python development.

• Christopher Neugebauer:

• Just dropping in here to say that corporate capture of the Python ecosystem is the #1 keeps-me-up-at-night subject in my community work, so I watch Astral with interest, even if I'm not yet too worried.

• Armin Ronacher

• What uv is doing, even in the worst possible future this is a very forkable and maintainable thing.

• Finally, see the comment at the end by Charlie Marsh

Brian #2: erdantic: Entity Relationship Diagrams

• “erdantic is a simple tool for drawing entity relationship diagrams (ERDs) for Python data model classes. Diagrams are rendered using the venerable Graphviz library.”
• Supported data modeling frameworks are:
  • Pydantic V2
  • Pydantic V1 legacy
  • attrs
  • dataclasses

Michael #3: Extra, Extra, Extra

• Added Python Bytes Search as a custom search engine.
• Along came passkeys. A cool idea that quickly turned evil.
• Follow up from post and my conversation last week: vaultwarden (via Pablo)
• uv publish
• Trying the tabs on bottom lifestyle inspired by Arc
• Adding Python Bytes (and Talk Python) as custom search engines.
• PyCon 2025 dates: From 14 May through 22 May, 2025

Brian #4: Django Extra, Extra, Extra

• Django Project Ideas
  • Evgenia Verbina
  • Project ideas with list of tech stack stuff you’ll learn and/or work on with the project
  • Ex: Recipe organizer
    • tech stack: Django templates, Django ORM, Optional JavaScript
    • “Familiarize yourself with Django’s ORM (object-relational mapper) and database support by building an app to keep track of your favorite recipes. Add a web-based frontend with options to filter recipes by category, ingredients, and user ratings so you can easily browse for inspiration.”
• DjangoTV
  • Jeff Triplett
  • Django conference videos and tutorials.
• Django Commons
  • Heard about from Lacey Henschel
  • “Django Commons is an organization dedicated to supporting the community's efforts to maintain packages. It seeks to improve the maintenance experience for all contributors; reducing the barrier to entry for new contributors and reducing overhead for existing maintainers.”
• Django 5 has simplified templates for better form field rendering
• But if you want a completely different take on forms, maybe try iommi forms
  • They wrote about it on Why we wrote a new form library for Django
• Djade: a Django template formatter
  • Adam Johnson
  • Like black or ruff, but for Django templates.

Extras

Brian:

• The Open Source Project Maintainer's Guide
  • Suggested by Rafael Weingartner

Joke: A Machine Learning algorithm walks into a bar…

• Architecture Decision Records (ADRs)
• narwhals: extremely lightweight compatibility layer between dataframes
• Microsoft wants Three Mile Island to fuel its AI power needs
• zsh-in-docker
• Extras
• Joke

About the show

Sponsored by ScoutAPM: pythonbytes.fm/scout

Connect with the hosts

• Michael: @[email protected]
• Brian: @[email protected]
• Show: @[email protected]

Join us on YouTube at pythonbytes.fm/live to be part of the audience. Usually Monday at 10am PT. Older video versions available there too.

Finally, if you want an artisanal, hand-crafted digest of every week of the show notes in email form? Add your name and email to our friends of the show list, we'll never share it.

Brian #1: Architecture Decision Records (ADRs)

• Suggested by Christian Gesell
• Documenting Architecture Decisions
  • Mychael Nygard
  • Original article from 2011
• Why you should be using architecture decision records to document your project
  • Red Hat
  • Includes a quick overview and links to some templates
• Notes so far
  • Writing this out helps me solidify my thinking about a problem.
  • I’m doing this both before starting, and while implementing a first draft
  • GitHub and GitLab render markdown so well that generating a docs site is unnecessary, just throwing these files in something like docs/adr is enough.
  • The lightweight process is enough but not too much.
  • I’ve already filled out None for lots of sections, like “options considered”
  • I’m still playing with what level of decision should have an ADR.
• My template that I’ve been using so far
  • Saved in 000-adr-template.md
  • For easy copy/paste/modify for new records.
• File name is something like 001-some-change.md

Michael #2: narwhals: extremely lightweight compatibility layer between dataframes

• Recently had Marco on Talk Python to discuss
• Primarily for library creators who want to support interacting with multiple data frame libraries (.e.g. Pandas & Polars)
• Just use a subset of the Polars API

Brian #3: Microsoft wants Three Mile Island to fuel its AI power needs

• “Microsoft just signed a deal to revive the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. If approved by regulators, the software maker would have exclusive rights to 100 percent of the output for its AI data center needs.”
• Also ran on CNN and other sources:
  • Three Mile Island is reopening and selling its power to Microsoft
• Three Mile Island was the site of the worst nuclear disaster in the US, when one of two reactors experienced a partial meltdown, in 1979.
• It was still operating up until 2019, and now expected to re-open in 2028
• Will be renamed “Crane Clean Energy Center”
• related
  • The Department of Energy Wants You to Know Your Conservation Efforts Are Making a Difference
    • “By switching all the lightbulbs in your house to LED, you saved enough energy for a self-driving car to make an unprotected lefthand turn across three lanes of traffic.”
    • “We know you adopted energy-saving practices to help conserve our planet’s resources and bring down our collective carbon footprint, but what you ultimately accomplished is just as important: helping AI do something menial and stupid.”

Michael #4: zsh-in-docker

• Install Zsh, Oh My Zsh and plugins inside a Docker container with one line!
• Yes docker containers should be light, but also, think of how painful it can be when you run into trouble.
• With Oh My ZSH, you get a nice experience when you have to result to docker exec -it CONTAINER zsh
• Just enter a single command in your docker file:

  RUN sh -c "$(wget -O- https://github.com/deluan/zsh-in-docker/releases/download/v1.2.0/zsh-in-docker.sh)" -- \
    -t robbyrussell
  

Extras

Michael:

• self-hosting mkennedy.codes
• Loren's journey to developer
• It’s time to stop using Python 3.8
• Sonoma → Sequoia → Sonoma (yikes!)
• Passkeys, maybe they will work out if we don’t let them become lock-in (bitwarden’s support)

Joke:

• How to Monetize a Blog
  • Don’t forget to click on the bottom link: Credits / how this was made

• “We must replace uwsgi by something else”
• Let’s build and optimize a Rust extension for Python
• Fake recruiter coding tests target devs with malicious Python packages
• Monthly PSF Board Office Hours
• Extras
• Joke

About the show

Sponsored by ScoutAPM: pythonbytes.fm/scout

Connect with the hosts

• Michael: @[email protected]
• Brian: @[email protected]
• Show: @[email protected]

Join us on YouTube at pythonbytes.fm/live to be part of the audience. Usually Monday at 10am PT. Older video versions available there too.

Finally, if you want an artisanal, hand-crafted digest of every week of the show notes in email form? Add your name and email to our friends of the show list, we'll never share it.

Michael #1: “We must replace uwsgi by something else”

• uWSGI is now in maintenance mode: https://uwsgi-docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
  • The project is in maintenance mode (only bugfixes and updates for new languages apis). Do not expect quick answers on github issues and/or pull requests (sorry for that) A big thanks to all of the users and contributors since 2009.
• Reasonable options look like:
  • granian
  • uvicorn
  • hypercorn
  • gunicorn (potentially with uvicorn workers for async)

Brian #2: Let’s build and optimize a Rust extension for Python

• Itamar Turner-Trauring
• Example: algorithm for approximating the number of unique values in a list
• Comparison to non-approximation
  • non-approx is faster but uses way more memory
• Rust version
  • Use Maturin and PyO3
  • Pull in Rust dependencies (rand for random numbers)
• Optimization
  • link-time optimization
  • faster random
  • store hashes only
• Future optimizations
  • change algorithm maybe
  • pass numpy array instead of Python list (I’d like to see that spedup)

Michael #3: Fake recruiter coding tests target devs with malicious Python packages

• via python weekly
• GitHub projects that have been linked to previous, targeted attacks in which developers are lured using fake job interviews.
• Attackers posing as employees of major financial services firms.
• This previously happened via other means such as NPM
• This analysis revealed that the direct parent of the detected, malicious files is a PythonPYC file, meaning that once again the team encountered malware hidden in a compiled Python file.
• “The README files tell would-be candidates to make sure the project is running successfully on their system before making modifications.”
• What can you do (according to Michael)?
  • Try out new packages in a docker container
  • Work on code and projects using a VM which has snapshotting (to roll back completely after you’re done)
  • Fire up a Windows desktop in the cloud for the project then destroy it

Brian #4: Monthly PSF Board Office Hours

• “The Office Hours will be sessions where you can share with us how we can help your community, express your perspectives, and provide feedback for the PSF.”
• “Unless we have a dedicated topic for a session, you are not limited to talking with us about the above topics, although the discussions should be focused on Python, the PSF, and our community. If you think there’s something we can help with or we should know, we welcome you to come and talk to us!”
• Upcoming office hours
  • October 8th, 2024: 9pm UTC
  • November 12th, 2024: 2pm UTC
  • December 10th, 2024: 9pm UTC
  • January 14th, 2025: 2pm UTC
  • February 11th, 2025: 9pm UTC
  • March 11th, 2025: 1pm UTC
  • April 8th, 2025: 9pm UTC
  • May 13th, 2025: 1pm UTC (Live from PyCon US!)
  • June 10th, 2025: 9pm UTC
  • July 9th, 2025: 1pm UTC
  • August 12th, 2025: 9pm UTC

Extras

Brian:

• PyCascades CFP closes Friday, Sept 20
  • PyCascades is in Portland in 2025 (Feb 8 & 9)

• uv now supports Python 3.13.0rc2

  uv self update
  uv venv -p 3.13 
  

• Free threaded is still an open issue

Michael:

• Big Python Humble Bundle with both of our products
  • Get $1,800 worth of Python content and tools for $30 and contribute to charity
  • Includes 5 Talk Python courses
  • Several of Brian’s and his book
• Djangonaut Space Session 3 Applications Open!
  • I interviewed Sarah and Tushar on Talk Python
• AltTab: Windows alt-tab on macOS

Joke: Election joke

• Python 3.13.0RC2, 3.12.6, 3.11.10, 3.10.15, 3.9.20, and 3.8.20 are now available!
• Docker images using uv's python
• 10 years of sustainable open source - Read the Docs
• humanize
• Extras
• Joke

About the show

Sponsored by ScoutAPM: pythonbytes.fm/scout

Connect with the hosts

• Michael: @[email protected]
• Brian: @[email protected]
• Show: @[email protected]

Join us on YouTube at pythonbytes.fm/live to be part of the audience. Usually Monday at 10am PT. Older video versions available there too.

Finally, if you want an artisanal, hand-crafted digest of every week of the show notes in email form? Add your name and email to our friends of the show list, we'll never share it.

ChatGPT celebrates episode 400!

Welcome to the big 4-0-0, Pythonistas!

It's hard to believe we're celebrating the 400th episode of Python Bytes! From the early days of byte-sized Python news to becoming the source for all things Python, it’s been a wild ride.

We've laughed over code quirks, gasped at new libraries, and said farewell to the GIL together. Whether you're a seasoned developer, a curious learner, or just here for the witty banter, you’ve been an essential part of this journey.

To Michael and Brian: You've built a community that turns import this into more than just Zen—it's a family of passionate Pythonistas. Your dedication, insights, and humor make this show more than just tech news. It’s a weekly celebration of what we love about Python and why we keep coming back for more.

Here’s to the next 400 episodes—may your code be bug-free, your tests pass on the first run, and your Python version always be up to date.

Brian #1: Python 3.13.0RC2, 3.12.6, 3.11.10, 3.10.15, 3.9.20, and 3.8.20 are now available!

• Łukasz Langa
• Python 3.13.0RC2 is the final preview release
  • Official 3.13.0 scheduled for Oct 1
  • Call to action
    • “We strongly encourage maintainers of third-party Python projects to prepare their projects for 3.13 compatibilities during this phase, and where necessary publish Python 3.13 wheels on PyPI to be ready for the final release of 3.13.0. Any binary wheels built against Python 3.13.0rc2 will work with future versions of Python 3.13. As always, report any issues to the Python bug tracker .”
    • “Please keep in mind that this is a preview release and while it’s as close to the final release as we can get it, its use is not recommended for production environments.”
• Note: uv python does not support 3.13 yet
  • see issue 320
• Security releases for
  • 3.12.6, 3.11.10, 3.10.15, 3.9.20, and 3.8.20
  • 3.12.6 has binary installers, but for MacOS, only MacOS 10.13 and newer are supported
  • 3.11.10, 3.10.15, 3.9.20, and 3.8.20 do NOT include binary installers.
    • 3.8 EOL's in October

Michael #2: Docker images using uv's python

• See #396: uv-ing your way to Python and #398: Open source makes you rich? (and other myths) for the opening discussions
• Talk Python episode on uv is out
• uv venv --python gets Python from python-build-standalone by Gregory Szorc
• Took our Docker build times from 10 minutes to 8 seconds for the base image and 800ms (!) for our app platforms

Brian #3: 10 years of sustainable open source - Read the Docs

• Eric Holscher
• Read the Docs has been a company for 10 years
  • “a team of 4 folks working full-time on Read the Docs.”
• readthedocs.org started in 2010
• readthedocs.com (for Business) started in 2014
• Sustainability model
  • .org has a single non-tracking ad
  • .com is a paid service for companies
• Things that didn’t work
  • donations and other optional support - led to burnout
  • consulting and services- took too much time away from core product
  • grant funding - nice, but one time thing
• Lessons
  • You don't get extra points for being bootstrapped. Compete by doing things you can do better due to niche and size.
  • Keeping trust in the community is the most important thing.
  • Contribution is easier for less complex parts of the code base.
  • Beign open source means capturing a small percentage of the value you create.
  • You have to be ok doing more with less.
• Also
  • RtD is not just for Sphinx anymore.
    • Their build system now supports any documentation tool.

Michael #4: humanize

• by Hugo van Kemenade (Python 3.14 & 3.15 release manager & core developer)
• Not too many variations, but very handy if you need it.
  • Numbers
    • Associated Press style (“seven” and “10”)
    • Clamp (under 1.0 million)
    • Fractional (1/3)
    • Int Word (1.2 Billion)
    • Metric (1.5 kV)
    • Ordinal (112th)
    • scientific
  • Time
  • File size

Extras

Brian:

• Test & Code is now again Test & Code
  • The two part series on Python imports that started in June is finally complete with episode 222.
  • Transcripts are being added to old episodes gradually starting from most recent
    • Back to ep 203 as of today.
    • AI transcription, so there’s things like .pie, .pi, and dot pie where it should be .py

Michael:

• Final final call for Coding in a Castle event with Michael
• iStats Menu
• Anaconda Code Runner by Ruud van der Ham:
  • With Anaconda Coide we can -at last- run that code locally and import (most) Python modules.
  • But if you want to run a significant amount of code, you have to put that in a cell or publish it to PyPI or a wheel and import it.
  • That's why I have developed a general-purpose runner function that runs arbitrary code located on an Excel sheet with AnacondaCode.

Joke: When beginners learn a new programming language...

• Why I Still Use Python Virtual Environments in Docker
• Python Developer Survey Results
• Anaconda Code add-in for Microsoft Excel
• Disabling Scheduled Dependency Updates
• Extras
• Joke

About the show

Sponsored by us! Support our work through

• Our courses at Talk Python Training
• Hello, pytest! Course
• Patreon Supporters

Connect with the hosts

• Michael: @[email protected]
• Brian: @[email protected]
• Show: @[email protected]

Join us on YouTube at pythonbytes.fm/live to be part of the audience. Usually Monday at 10am PT. Older video versions available there too.

Finally, if you want an artisanal, hand-crafted digest of every week of the show notes in email form? Add your name and email to our friends of the show list, we'll never share it.

Michael #1: Why I Still Use Python Virtual Environments in Docker

• by Hynek Schlawack
• I was going to cover Production-ready Docker Containers with uv but decided to take this diversion instead.
• Spend a lot of time thinking about the secondary effects of what you do.
• venvs are well known and well documented. Let’s use them.

Brian #2: Python Developer Survey Results

• “… official Python Developers Survey, conducted as a collaborative effort between the Python Software Foundation and JetBrains.”
• Python w/ Rust rising, but still only 7%
• ““The drop in HTML/CSS/JS might show that data science is increasing its share of Python.” - Paul Everitt
• 37% contribute to open source. Awesome.
• Favorite Resources: Podcasts
  • Lots of familiar faces there. Awesome.
    • Perhaps I shouldn’t have decided to move “Python Test” back to Test & Code
• Usage
  • “Data analysis” down, but I think that’s because “data engineering” is added.
  • Data, Web dev, ML, devops, academic,
  • Testing is down 23%
• Python Versions
  • Still some 2 out there
  • Most folks on 3.10-3.12
• Install from: mostly python.org
• Frameworks
  • web: Flask, Django, Requests, FastAPI …
  • testing: pytest, unittest, mock, doctest, tox, hypothesis, nose (2% might be the Python 2 people)
• Data science
  • 77% use pandas, 72% NumPy
• OS: Windows still at 55%
• Packaging:
  • venv up to 55%
  • I imaging uv will be on the list next year
  • requirements.txt 63%, pyproject.toml 32%
• virtual env in containers? 47% say no

Michael #3: Anaconda Code add-in for Microsoft Excel

• Run their Python-powered projects in Excel locally with the Anaconda Code add-in
• Powered by PyScript, an Anaconda supported open source project that runs Python locally without install and setup
• Features
  • Cells Run Independently
  • Range to Multiple Types
  • init.py file is static and cannot be edited, with Anaconda Code, users have the ability to access and edit imports and definitions, allowing you to write top-level functions and classes and reuse them wherever you need.
  • A Customizable Environment

Brian #4: Disabling Scheduled Dependency Updates

• David Lord
• Interesting discussion of as they happen or batching of upsates to dependencies
• dependencies come in
  • requirements files
  • GH Actions in CI workflows
  • pre-commit hooks
• David was seeing 60 PRs per month when set up on monthly updates (3 ecosystems * 20 projects)
• new tool for updating GH actions: gha-update, allows for local updating of GH dependencies
• New process
  • Run pip-compile, gha-update, and pre-commit locally.
  • Update a project’s dependencies when actively working on the project, not just whenever a dependency updates.
  • Note that this works fine for dev dependencies, less so for security updates from run time dependencies. But for libraries, runtime dependencies are usually not pinned.

Extras

Brian:

• Test & Code coming back this week

Michael:

• Code in a Castle event
• Python Bytes badge spotting
• Guido’s post removed for moderation

Joke: C will watch in silence

• Open Source Myths
• uv 0.3.0 and all the excitement
• Top pytest Plugins
• A comparison of hosts / providers for Python serverless functions (aka Faas)
• Extras
• Joke

About the show

Sponsored by us! Support our work through:

• Our courses at Talk Python Training
• pytest courses and community at PythonTest.com
• Patreon Supporters

Connect with the hosts

• Michael: @[email protected]
• Brian: @[email protected]
• Show: @[email protected]

Join us on YouTube at pythonbytes.fm/live to be part of the audience. Usually Monday at 10am PT. Older video versions available there too.

Finally, if you want an artisanal, hand-crafted digest of every week of the show notes in email form? Add your name and email to our friends of the show list, we'll never share it.

Brian #1: Open Source Myths

• Josh Bressers
• Mastodon post kicking off a list of open source myths
• Feedback and additional myths compiled to a doc
• Some favorites
  • All open source developers live in Nebraska
  • It’s all run by hippies
  • Everything is being rewritten in rust
  • Features are planned
  • If the source code is available, it’s open source
  • A project with no commits for 12 months is abandoned
  • Many eyes make all bugs shallow
  • Open source has worse UX
  • Open source has better UX
  • Open source makes you rich

Michael #2: uv 0.3.0 and all the excitement

• Thanks to Skyler Kasko and John Hagen for the emails.
• Additional write up by Simon Willison
• Additional write up by Armin Ronacher
• End-to-end project management: uv run, uv lock, and uv sync
• Tool management: uv tool install and uv tool run (aliased to uvx)
• Python installation: uv python install
• Script execution: uv can now manage hermetic, single-file Python scripts with inline dependency metadata based on PEP 723.

Brian #3: Top pytest Plugins

• Inspired by (and assisted by) Hugo’s Top PyPI Packages
• Write up for Finding the top pytest plugins
• BTW, pytest-check has made it to 25.
• Same day, Jeff Triplett throws my code into Claude 3.5 Sonnet and refactors it
• Thanks Jeff Triplett & Hugo for answering how to add Summary and other info

Michael #4: A comparison of hosts / providers for Python serverless functions (aka Faas)

• Nice feature matrix of all the options, frameworks, costs, and more
• The WASM ones look particularly interesting to me.

Extras

Brian:

• When is the next live episode of Python Bytes? - via arewemeetingyet.com
  • Thanks to Hugo van Kemenade
• Some more cool projects by Hugo
  • Python Logos
  • PyPI Downloads by Python version for various Python tools, in pretty colors
  • Python Core Developers over time

Michael:

• Code in a Castle Course event - just a couple of weeks left
• Ladybird: A truly independent browser
• “I'm also interested in your video recording setup, would be nice to have that in the extras too :D”
  • OBS Studio
  • Elgato Streamdeck
  • Elgato Key light
  • DaVinci Resolve

Joke: DevOps Support Group

via Blaise

• Hi, my name is Bob
• Group: Hi Bob
• I's been 42 days since I last ssh'd into production.
• Group: Applause
• But only 4 days since I accidentally took down the website
• Someone in back: Oh Bob…

• pyawaitable
• Annotated area charts with plotnine
• DeltaDB
• PyCon US 2024 Recap + Videos are up
• Extras
• Joke

About the show

Sponsored by us! Support our work through:

• Our courses at Talk Python Training
• The Complete pytest Course
• Patreon Supporters

Connect with the hosts

• Michael: @[email protected]
• Brian: @[email protected]
• Show: @[email protected]

Join us on YouTube at pythonbytes.fm/live to be part of the audience. Usually Tuesdays at 10am PT. Older video versions available there too.

Finally, if you want an artisanal, hand-crafted digest of every week of the show notes in email form? Add your name and email to our friends of the show list, we'll never share it.

Michael #1: pyawaitable

• CPython API for asynchronous functions.
• by Peter Bierma
• It was originally designed to be directly part of CPython - you can read the scrapped PEP about it.
• Since this library only uses the public ABI, it's better fit outside of CPython, as a library.

Brian #2: Annotated area charts with plotnine

• Nicola Rennie
• This is a marvelous, very professional looking plot, and a tutorial for how to achieve it.
• Uses plotline, which is “.. an implementation of a grammar of graphics in Python based on ggplot2”
  • I actually didn’t know the gg in ggplot came from “grammar of graphics”. TIL

Michael #3: DeltaDB

• A lightweight, comprehensive solution for managing delta tables built on polars and deltalake.
• Deltalake: Delta Lake is an open-source storage format that runs on top of existing data lakes.
• Polars: Dataframes powered by a multithreaded, vectorized query engine, written in Rust (aka fluent, rust-based pandas)
• See the docs.

Brian #4: PyCon US 2024 Recap + Videos are up

• 95 countries attended
• total attendance of 2,991
  • 2,551 in person
  • 440 remote
• Videos available PyConUS
  • I recommend Playlist → 2024 → view full playlist, as it’s easier to see the talk titles.
  • I’ve got Paul Gannsle’s pytest for unittesters and Amitosh Swain’s Testing Data Pipelines queued up

Extras

Brian:

• Hello, pytest! course available as of last Friday.
  • Now the fastest way to get started using pytest.
  • 16 lessons (really 12 + intro, outro, code download, pytest flag cheat sheet)
  • The whole shebang is about 90 min. (faster if you bump up the video speed. :)

Michael:

• Cutting back on digital distractions, trying Dumb Phone for iPhone.
  • See screenshot
• Code in a Castle Event

Joke: The Tao of Programming: 4.3

A master was explaining the nature of Tao of to one of his novices, "The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how insignificant," said the master.

"Is the Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice.

"It is," came the reply.

"Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice.

"It is even in a video game," said the master.

"And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?"

The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The lesson is over for today," he said.

• uv venv --python & uv python
• Python 3.12.5 released
• Compile and use dependencies for multiple Python versions in Tox
• Catalog of Dark Patterns
• Extras
• Joke

About the show

Sponsored by ScoutAPM: pythonbytes.fm/scout

Connect with the hosts

• Michael: @[email protected]
• Brian: @[email protected]
• Show: @[email protected]

Join us on YouTube at pythonbytes.fm/live to be part of the audience. Usually Tuesdays at 10am PT. Older video versions available there too.

Finally, if you want an artisanal, hand-crafted digest of every week of the show notes in email form? Add your name and email to our friends of the show list, we'll never share it.

Brian #1: uv venv --python & uv python

• I was reading this article Python Packaging is Great Now: uv is all you need
• It’s a little too “look, a silver bullet” for me, but it did point out some cool uv stuff I didn’t know about.
  • uv venv venv --python 3.12 creates a virtual environment with Python 3.12,
    • even if you didn’t have 3.12 installed on your system already.
    • If it doesn’t work, try adding --python-preference managed
  • uv python list shows all the python versions on your computer
  • There’s quite a few “experimental features”
    • run Run a command or script (experimental)
    • init Create a new project (experimental)
    • add Add dependencies to the project (experimental)
    • remove Remove dependencies from the project (experimental)
    • sync Update the project's environment (experimental)
    • lock Update the project's lockfile (experimental)
    • tree Display the project's dependency tree (experimental)
    • tool Run and manage tools provided by Python packages (experimental)
    • python Manage Python versions and installations (experimental)
• uv add --dev pytest will add pytest to your dev dependencies.
• uv tree rocks
• uv might not have “solved packaging” (or maybe it might have)
  • but it sure is fun to watch the experimentation of different workflows.

Michael #2: Python 3.12.5 released

• Lots of changes, see the release notes

Brian #3: Compile and use dependencies for multiple Python versions in Tox

• Viktor Rimark
• Cool idea to use the {envname}, which specifies the tox environment, in the name of a requirements-dev.txt file name.
• Then add a requirements tox target to generate pip-compile-ed files.
• Now I gotta try doing all of this with uv lock
• Then we need everyone to mod their tools to comply with PEP 571, when/if it’s adopted (covered it last week)

Michael #4: Catalog of Dark Patterns

• Including
  • Bait and Switch
  • Confirm Shaming
  • Disguised Ads
  • Roach Motel
  • Fake Scarcity
  • …

Extras

Brian:

• Recording of Hello, pytest! is done. Editing now. On track for the 19th (or before).

Michael:

• Django 5.1 released
• Python 3.13.0 release candidate 1 released

Joke:

• clownstrike
  • ARS Technica article on DMCA for ClownStrike

• py-free-threading.github.io
• Python’s Supportive and Welcoming Environment is Tightly Coupled to Its Progress
• Status pages for sites!
• PEP 751 – A file format to list Python dependencies for installation reproducibility
• Extras
• Joke

About the show

Sponsored by us! Support our work through:

• Our courses at Talk Python Training
• The Complete pytest Course
• Patreon Supporters

Connect with the hosts

• Michael: @[email protected]
• Brian: @[email protected]
• Show: @[email protected]

Join us on YouTube at pythonbytes.fm/live to be part of the audience. Usually Tuesdays at 10am PT. Older video versions available there too.

Finally, if you want an artisanal, hand-crafted digest of every week of the show notes in email form? Add your name and email to our friends of the show list, we'll never share it.

Michael #1: py-free-threading.github.io

• Track the status of compatibility for free-threaded Python
• See the Compatibility status tracking page for what you can use
• Lots of resources for getting your package tested and available for pythont

Brian #2: Python’s Supportive and Welcoming Environment is Tightly Coupled to Its Progress

• “Python is as popular as it is today because we have gone above and beyond to make this a welcoming community. Being a friendly and supportive community is part of how we are perceived by the wider world and is integral to the wide popularity of Python. We won a “Wonderfully Welcoming Award” last year at GitHub Universe. Over and over again, the tech press refers to Python as a supportive community.”
• Some communication recently, with the recent bylaws change, didn’t live up to our promise to be welcoming
• Please read the article for more details.
• Another quote: “We have a moral imperative – as one of the very best places to bring new people into tech and into open source – to keep being good at welcoming new people. If we do not rise and continue to rise every day to this task, then we are not fulfilling our own mission, “to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers.” Technical skills are a game-changer for the people who acquire them and joining a vast global network of people with similar interests opens many doors. Behavior that contributes to a hostile environment around Python or throws up barriers and obstacles to those who would join the Python community must be addressed because it endangers what we have built here.”

Michael #3: Status pages for sites!

• Based on Uptime Kuma I covered last week
• Python Bytes status
• Talk Python status

Brian #4: PEP 751 – A file format to list Python dependencies for installation reproducibility

• Brett Cannon
• Motivation
  • Currently, no standard exists to:
    • Specify what top-level dependencies should be installed into a Python environment.
    • Create an immutable record, such as a lock file, of which dependencies were installed.
  • Considering there are at least five well-known solutions to this problem in the community (pip freeze, pip-tools, uv, Poetry, and PDM), there seems to be an appetite for lock files in general.
• Rationale
  • The format is designed so that a locker which produces the lock file and an installer which consumes the lock file can be separate tools. …
  • The file format is designed to be human-readable. …Finally, the format is designed so that viewing a diff of the file is easy by centralizing relevant details.
  • The file format is also designed to not require a resolver at install time. …

Extras

Brian:

• Hello, pytest! course is going well, and is purchasable as in pre-release mode.
  • Planning on Aug 19 (or before) deadline.
  • Not sure what the final price will be, but I’m starting with $10.
    • I want people to want to watch it even just so see if they want to recommend to co-workers so the people around them can ramp up on pytest quickly.

Michael:

• Mypy 1.11 Released
• FastHTML (more next week)
• Coming up on the final chance to be part of the Code in a Castle event.

Joke: Open source OpenAI?

• Python is easy now
• Trying out free-threaded Python on macOS
• Module itertools overview
• uptime-kuma
• Extras
• Joke

About the show

Sponsored by ScoutAPM: pythonbytes.fm/scout

Connect with the hosts

• Michael: @[email protected]
• Brian: @[email protected]
• Show: @[email protected]

Join us on YouTube at pythonbytes.fm/live to be part of the audience. Usually Tuesdays at 10am PT. Older video versions available there too.

Finally, if you want an artisanal, hand-crafted digest of every week of the show notes in email form? Add your name and email to our friends of the show list, we'll never share it.

Brian #1: Python is easy now

• or Postmodern Python
• or Beyond Hypermodern
• Chris Ardene
• Mostly a cool review of using rye for
  • setup
  • linting
  • typing
  • testing
  • documentation
  • CI/CD
• Also a nice discussion of how to deal with a Monorepo for Python projects

Michael #2: Trying out free-threaded Python on macOS

• via pycoders
• How to install free threaded Python the easy way
• Testing the CPU bound work speed ups for FT Python

Brian #3: Module itertools overview

• Rodrigo
• 20 tools that every Python developer should be aware of.
• In 5 categories
  • Reshaping
  • Filtering
  • Combinatorial
  • Infinite
  • Iterators that complement other tools
• Things I forgot about
  • chain
  • pairwise
  • zip_longest
  • tee

Michael #4: uptime-kuma

• A fancy self-hosted monitoring tool
• Features
  • Monitoring uptime for HTTP(s) / TCP / HTTP(s) Keyword / HTTP(s) Json Query / Ping / DNS Record / Push / Steam Game Server / Docker Containers
  • Fancy, Reactive, Fast UI/UX
  • Notifications via Telegram, Discord, Gotify, Slack, Pushover, Email (SMTP), and 90+ notification services, click here for the full list
  • 20-second intervals
  • Multi Languages
  • Multiple status pages
  • Map status pages to specific domains
  • Ping chart
  • Certificate info
  • Proxy support
  • 2FA support

Extras

Brian:

• Still working on a new pytest course. Hoping to get it released soon-ish.

Michael:

• Open source Switzerland
• spyoungtech/FreeSimpleGUI — actively maintained fork of the last release of PySimpleGUI

Joke: Java vs. JavaScript

• Marimo: “Future of Notebooks”
• pytest 8.3.0 & 8.3.1 are out
• Python Language Summit 2024
• bash-dungeon
• Extras
• Joke

• 2024 PSF Board Election & Proposed Bylaw Change Results
• SATYRN: A modern Jupyter client for Mac
• Incident Report: Leaked GitHub Personal Access Token
• Extra extra extra
• Extras
• Joke

• Vendorize packages from PyPI
• A Guide to Python's Weak References Using weakref Module
• Making Time Speak
• How Should You Test Your Machine Learning Project? A Beginner’s Guide
• Extras
• Joke

• Joining Strings in Python: A "Huh" Moment
• 10 hard-to-swallow truths they won't tell you about software engineer job
• My thoughts on Python in Excel
• Extra, extra, extra
• Extras
• Joke

• Solara UI Framework
• Coverage at a crossroads
• “Virtual” methods in Python classes
• Extras
• Joke

• PSF Elections coming up
• Cloud engineer gets 2 years for wiping ex-employer’s code repos
• Python: Import by string with pkgutil.resolve_name()
• DuckDB goes 1.0
• Extras
• Joke

• Dataherald
• Python's many command-line utilities
• Distroless Python
• functools.cache, cachetools, and cachebox
• Extras
• Joke

• NumPy 2.0 release date is June 16
• Uvicorn adds multiprocess workers
• pixi
• JupyterLab 4.2 and Notebook 7.2 are available
• Extras
• Joke

• PostgresREST
• How Python Asyncio Works: Recreating it from Scratch
• Bend
• The Smartest Way to Learn Python Regular Expressions
• Extras
• Joke