Ephes Blog

Einstein repeatedly argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer. --Fred Brooks

I had a lot of fun recording a podcast episode about DevOps. Then there was this month's Django Cologne user group meeting and I talked to a lot of nice people. Somebody has to build a RAG website for the Django documentation, please! The next day was the Python User Group Düsseldorf met, which was also really interesting.

During the week I worked a bit on django-cast, trying to cleanly separate database access from template rendering, which is still going on and more difficult than I expected. But I got some comfort from listening to a Django Chat episode about Kraken where Çağıl talked about how they use dataclasses (or some other kind of value objects) to render their templates to avoid having database operations going on during template rendering. Seems they face similar problems over there.

Articles

• On the critical path to implant backdoors and the effectiveness of potential mitigation techniques: Early learnings from XZ | Branch protection + reviews, clarifying contributor identity and a lot of handwaving. There are probably no silver bullets...
• Help us invent CSS Grid Level 3, aka “Masonry” layout | Maybe I can adopt this for my image gallery stuff? Looks quite nice.
• Vision for W3C | Brief document, but at least there is one, now 🤓.
• Build the future of AI with Meta Llama 3 | Llama3 is out 🎉

Weeknotes

• Science and Technology links (April 13 2024) | Daniel Lemire
• Week in Review 2024-04-15 | Luis
• Weeknotes for Week 16 | Oliver Andrich

Mastodon

• Are you interested in Masonry layout?? Graphic design on the web?
• I 😬 CSS Grid
• @sarajw yeah, but for me that argument doesn't count anymore for new websites. Removing default button styles used to be annoying, but today it's easy.
• Discover 14229 superb devs from across the Fediverse! | Nice site!

Software

• New release of MyST out!

"Vendor lock-in"? They wish. All these vendors are locked in here with ME. --Forrest Brazeal

Still working on optimizing fetching stuff from the database for django-cast. Did some music stuff and spent a lot of time outside.

Articles

• Web
  • Why I’m Ready to Party Like It’s 1999…Again | Yep, and since search engines are getting almost unusable these days, maybe it's time to adopt some techniques from the time before there were usable search engines like webrings etc... let's see
  • The creator economy trap: why building on someone else's platform is a dead end | DYI ftw!
  • Front-end development’s identity crisis
• Python
  • How to optimize PostgreSQL queries from Django using pgMustard | pgMustard is great
  • PEP 744 – JIT Compilation | Details about the new JIT-Compiler in Python 3.13
• LLM
  • Building files-to-prompt entirely using Claude 3 Opus
  • Code in Context: How AI Can Help Improve Our Documentation
• CSS
  • An Interactive Guide to CSS Container Queries
  • Testing HTML With Modern CSS
• Long
  • 503 days working full-time on FOSS: lessons learned | from the author of the Pydon't-book below

Weeknotes

• Three major LLM releases in 24 hours (plus weeknotes) | Simon Willison
• Weeklog for Week 15: April 08 to April 14 | Johannes

Books

• Software Design by Example | This by example idea is probably great. How do you become an expert on literature? Probably by reading a lot of it. Maybe it's the same with software...
• Pydon'ts | Skipped a bit over it, seems to be ok

Software

• PDFify Everything can become a searchable PDF

Mastodon

• Bitte, gern geschehen.
• The LMSYS Chatbot Arena Leaderboard is one of the most interesting approaches to evaluating LLMs
• Safari Added support for View Transitions | In the technology preview - this is great! 🎉
• Doing some tidying up of PISpy, an application I wrote in the early days of working on #Textual | Live coding ftw!
• I’ve been making demos of CSS Grid level 3 lately, to show off what putting masonry/waterfall-like layout support in CSS Grid can do. (I’ve got 16 demos and counting!) Here’s one with that includes View Transitions, running in Safari Technology Preview 192. | Cool, need to add something like this to django-cast galleries!

Architecture is a property of a system, not a description of its intended design --Stefan Tilkov

Had a week off, yay! Spent most of the time visiting museums, swimming pools and playgrounds. For open source, I'm still working on a performance-oriented refactoring of django-cast. This is much harder than expected. It's basically about being able to generate the html for all the performance critical pages like blog index, feed and post detail from a cachable data representation (serializable Python dict for example).

Articles

• Web
  • Complexity bad: An interview with HTMX creator Carson Gross | Lots of helpful links here
  • My Accessibility Review Checklist | Very nice!
• Python
  • Syntax Error #11: Debugging Python | Nice debugging tool overview
  • Python Project-Local Virtualenv Management Redux | I'm still on virtualfish, but this looks also nice - have to try it, I guess 🧪
  • How I Provision My MacBook with Ansible | I only use ansible for servers, but this sounds nice, too
  • ASGI deployment options for Django
  • Syncing Django Waffle feature flags
• CSS
  • CSS variables | Didn't know about them - cool
  • How we’re approaching theming with modern CSS | CSS variables applied
  • How to Kill the Cascade | Cool, didn't know it was possible
  • Hide or Disable
• Long
  • Contrasting Aesthetics
  • Unexplanations: relational algebra is math
• Your AI Product Needs Evals | That's what most companies doing ML get wrong, right. I'd like to add a few paragraphs, though..

Mastodon

• AI Mathematical Olympiad - Progress Prize 1 | Really interesting competition
• Kennt ihr gute deutschsprachige Channels für 9+ Jährige Kinder? | Thread

Weeknotes

• Weeklog for Week 13: March 25 to March 31 | Johannes

Software

• Form Designer - a simple form designer for Django
• CodePen Home Flight slider - HTML+CSS | Hrhr
• mise-en-place - The front-end to your dev env | replaces pyenv for Python and installs also Node and go etc..

Podcasts

• Vanilla Web: Niedrige Kopplung & hohe Kohäsion mit Golo Roden von the native web | I think it's telling when "let's do everything in JavaScript" guys like Golo get defensive when talking about htmx. Could it be that the next step is already winning? I just got used to being ignored and expected to be laughed at first. But okay, whatever.
• Django ORM - Simon Charette (Django Chat) | Good episode

Out of Context Images

As a rule, software systems do not work well until they have been used, and have failed repeatedly, in real applications. — Dave Parnas

Last week working on SSO using django-saml2-auth. Didn't get much done besides work because the kids were sick and we were traveling a lot. Fixed a small bug in the post preview for django-cast. After I heard the latest core.py episode where Łukasz Langa asked if maybe someone could try to update python.org to a newer version of Django, I thought, ok, maybe I'll give it a try. But Jacob already submitted a PR 🚀, so I did a review instead. I also spent some time outside, the cherry trees over here are in bloom 🌸.

Articles

• My binary vector search is better than your FP32 vectors | This is a bit like using a conventional inverted index..
• Fixing a Bug in PyPy's Incremental GC | Cool article 😎
• Talker’s block | Now you know what I'm doing here 😇
• TDD: You're Probably Doing It Just Fine | Yep, no reason to get dogmatic about this
• Every dunder method in Python | nice
• The Django admin is a CMS | Yes and no
• What You Need to Know about Modern CSS (Spring 2024 Edition) | Nice overview!
• xz | Oh dear
  • Technologist vs spy: the xz backdoor debate
  • Everything I Know About the Xz Backdoor

Videos

• Speaking with the Creator of Pandas on the Future of Open Source (Wes McKinney) - KNN Ep. 184 | good interview

Mastodon

• Simon Riggs, Gründer von 2nd Quadrant und PostgreSQL maintainer, starb in einem Flugzeugunglück
• So satisfying... | we tend to assume everything is linear and normally distributed - and sometimes, it is!
• what's your favourite way to simplify your life with git? mostly interested in slightly unusual tricks to reduce the number of git features you're using, like:

Weeknotes

• Weeklog for Week 12: March 18 to March 24 | Johannes

Software

django-singlefile - This is a small library that makes it easier to write single-file Django applications

Out of Context Images

Becoming an adult feels like slowly being pushed into a managerial position you didn't really want. --MostlyHarmless

Had some fun with unicode .̵̨̞̹̞̳̼̱͉̻̱̤̯̳͈̹̔̓̔̋̄͐̽̽̓́̐̈̈́͘.̸̹̮͇̞͆̽͒̋̎̆͌̋͝.̷̤̘̇͂̓̾͒̀͒̌̓̚͝͝.̶̰͉̔͒͗͘͝͠.̶̩͈̼͉̱͎̤̱̝̏̀̎.̴̡̢̛̯̳̘͖̄̃̃͝ͅ.̷̧̫̬͖̯̣͈̟̑̎̔̐̈́̆͆͋̓͑̂͘͝.̷͈̤̭͉̞͇̲̥̏̌̀̂́͛.̵͈̗͔̠̼̮̟͉̖̖̣̘͋͑̽͛̑̑͛͗͝.̴͕̦̙̀̒̈͆͊͂̓̌͌̕͜.̶̡̨̳̝͓͚̲͇͖̥͓̄͂͆̀̏̑̒̃̄̽̿̍͘͝.̷̢̪͂͑̈̀̾̅̀̐̀̈́͛͂̍̕͝͠.̵̧̭̩̠͇̱̙͔̤̱̻̖̙͈̟̬͊̽̓̆̚.̵̦͎͚͍̍̈͂͑͂̓̌͘.̸̛̣̲͎͒̂̏͋͂͆͗̆̀̀̂͛.̶̢̡̗̥̳̪̖̯̪̥̯̤͇̜̻̟͊̔̀.̷̧̡̱͉̙̜̜̰̱͇͑͛͘͜.̸͙̰̮̦͇̬̞͓̰̗͋͑̀̎̍̍͆̌.̶̗͈̩̼͒.̴̨̦͙̝̜̻̹͙͙̻̓̈̽̉͑̆͆̚͘ͅ.̴̢̥̰̪̪̖͕̺̪̜͐̈́̋̐̒.̴̛̦̺̤͖͙̳̗̣̠̥̪̊̾͒̒̚.̵̢̯̞͔̗̗͖̞͎̉͊̾͆́̈́̾̌͝.̵̻͕̗͔͍̜͈͎͓͋̾́̍͑̀̈͠.̸̡͆̓̄͑̉̋.̷̛̫͙́͆̈́͗̈́̃̾͐͗͂̀̚͝.̷̪͖͚̹͈̝̦̫͇͇̞̈͆̄̃̏̈́̍̌͜͠ for work last week. For open source, I

created a new django-cast release mainly fixing some bugs:

• Fixed a bug that caused the detail page link to be rendered twice on an episode detail page
• Fixed a caching bug in the feed generation that caused the wrong feed to be served
• Fixed broken galleries missing an id
• Fixed rendering of relative episode detail links for podcast feeds that were not clickable in podcast clients

Spent some time outside - this week had the first really warm days this year 🌤️.

Articles

• Low maintenance software | Ack
• TIL: pip-tools Supports pyproject.toml | Oh, didn't know about this!
• Styled | webcomic
• Minecraft in der Familie mit jüngeren Kindern spielen - Wege zum Ziel | Habe keine Zeit zu Spielen!
• Are LLMs useful?
  • Claude and ChatGPT for ad-hoc sidequests
  • Building and testing C extensions for SQLite with ChatGPT Code Interpreter
• Make your terminal nice | Yep, starship is really nice
• Welcome our new Fellow - Sarah Boyce | Congrats Sara! 🥳
• Django: Write-up on optimizing the system check framework | Just used it last week 😁

Videos

• Accessibility testing training | Djangonaut Space 2024, session 1 | Edge, really? Really good video!
• A closer look at the blocks field | I'm interested in how this might be different compared to Wagtail..
• General Ben Hodges (Ret.): The West Needs Strategic Clarity | Jake Broe Podcast (E023)

Software

• Robox is a simple library with a clean interface for exploring/scraping the web or testing a website you’re developing | Really nice API
• Kid Pix | Drawing app for kids from 1989 for Macintosh reimplemented in Javascript
• PyKidos - Python playground in Javascript
• django-simple-deploy - Initial Django deployments made easy | Need to have a closer look at this
• DiskCache: Disk Backed Cache | Might come in handy if redis has to be avoided
• Watchman - A file watching service | Got a new release after 6 years, yay!
• Mastodon
• We sent out the “Intent to Ship” for `view-transition-class`!

Weeknotes

• Weeklog for Week 11: March 11 to March 17 | Johannes

Podcasts

• uv - The Next Evolution in Python Packages? (Talk Python To Me) | Ok, I think I should at least try it
• 21st Century Databases with Gwen Shapira (Happy Path Programming) | Kafka gets a new database based on postgres? Ok, I think I'll try to stay out of kafkas blast radius for a bit longer 😄
• Django’s Evolution - Jacob Kaplan-Moss (Django Chat) | Good episode. I agree on this whole "Django didn't have a frontend story for a long time. But with htmx it now has." point. That's why I'm now interested in CSS and web design. It's now possible to build complete products using just Python / Django. Additional shownotes.