X Why Zip

Sat 24 June 2017 by Moshe Zadka

PEP 441 resulted in the creation of the zipapp module. The PEP says "Python has had the ability to execute directories or ZIP-format archives as scripts since version 2.6 [...] This feature is not as popular as it should be mainly because it was not promoted as part of Python …

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Nitpicks are for Robots

Fri 09 June 2017 by Moshe Zadka

Many projects and organizations have a coding standard. For Python, much of the time, the standard is a variant of PEP 8. During code reviews, often the reviewer will point out where the code disagrees with the standard, and ask for it to be fixed. Sometimes, if the reviewer is …

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My Little Subclass: Inheritance is Magic

Sat 29 April 2017 by Moshe Zadka

Learning about Python Method Resolution Order with Twilight Sparkle and her friends.

(Thanks to Ashwini Oruganti for her helpful suggestions.)

The show "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" is the latest reimagination of the "My Little Pony" brand as a TV show. The show takes place, mostly, in Ponyville and …

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PYTHONPATH Considered Harmful

Tue 11 April 2017 by Moshe Zadka

(Thanks to Tim D. Smith and Augie Fackler for reviewing a draft. Any mistakes that remain are mine.)

The environment variable PYTHONPATH seems harmless enough. The official documentation refers to its function as "Augment the default search path for module files." However, in practice, setting this variable in a shell …

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Shipping Python Applications in Docker

Fri 17 March 2017 by Moshe Zadka

Introduction

When looking in open source examples, or tutorials, one will often see Dockerfiles that look like this:

FROM python:3.6
COPY setup.py /mypackage
COPY src /mypackage/src
COPY requirements.txt /
RUN pip install -r /requirements.txt
RUN pip install /mypackage
ENTRYPOINT ["/usr/bin/mypackage-console-script", "some", "arguments"]

This …

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Pelican -- an Experiment

Tue 07 March 2017 by Moshe Zadka

An experimental blog

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