#420 90% Done in 50% of the Available Time
Topics covered in this episode:
PEP 772 – Packaging governance process
Official Django MongoDB Backend Now Available in Public Preview
Developer Philosophy
Python 3.13.2 released
Extras
Joke
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About the show
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Brian #1: PEP 772 – Packaging governance process
draft, created 21-Jan, by Barry Warsaw, Deb Nicholson, Pradyun Gedam
“As Python packaging has matured, several interrelated problems with the current way of managing the technical development, decision making and processes have become apparent.”
“This PEP proposes a Python Packaging Council with broad authority over packaging standards, tools, and implementations. Like the Python Steering Council, the Packaging Council seeks to exercise this authority as rarely as possible; instead, they use this power to establish standard processes.”
PEP discusses
PyPA, Packaging-WG, Interoperability Standards, Python Steering Council, and Expectations of an elected Packaging Council
A specification with
Composition: 5 people
Mandate, Responsibilities, Delegations, Process, Terms, etc.
Michael #2: Official Django MongoDB Backend Now Available in Public Preview
Over the last few years, Django developers have increasingly used MongoDB, presenting an opportunity for an official MongoDB-built Python package to make integrating both technologies as painless as possible.
Features
The ability to use Django models with confidence. Developers can use Django models to represent MongoDB documents, with support for Django forms, validations, and authentication.
Django admin support. The package allows users to fire up the Django admin page as they normally would, with full support for migrations and database schema history.
Native connecting from settings.py. Just as with any other database provider, developers can customize the database engine in settings.py to get MongoDB up and running.
MongoDB-specific querying optimizations. Field lookups have been replaced with aggregation calls (aggregation stages and aggregate operators), JOIN operations are represented through $lookup, and it’s possible to build indexes right from Python.
Limited advanced functionality. While still in development, the package already has support for time series, projections, and XOR operations.
Aggregation pipeline support. Raw querying allows aggregation pipeline operators. Since aggregation is a superset of what traditional MongoDB Query API methods provide, it gives developers more functionality.
Brian #3: Developer Philosophy
by qntm
Intended as “advice for junior developers about personal dev philosophy”, I think these are just great tips to keep in mind.
The items
Avoid, at all costs, arriving at a scenario where the ground-up rewrite starts to look attractive
This is less about “don’t do rewrites”, but about noticing the warning signs ahead of time.
Aim to be 90% done in 50% of the available time
Great quote: “The first 90% of the job takes 90% of the time. The last 10% of the job takes the other 90% of the time.”
Automate good practices
Think about pathological data
“Nobody cares about the golden path. Edge cases are our entire job.”
Brian’s note: But also think about the happy path. Documenting and testing what you think of as the happy path is a testing start and helps others understand your idea of how things are supposed to work.
There’s usually a simpler way to write it
Write code to be testable
It is insufficient for code to be provably correct; it should be obviously, visibly, trivially correct
Brian’s note: Even if it’s obviously, visibly, trivially correct, it will still break. So test it anyway.
Michael #4: Python 3.13.2 released
Python 3.13’s second maintenance release.
About 250 changes went into this update
Also Python 3.12.9, Python 3.12’s ninth maintenance release already. Just 180 changes for 3.12, but it’s still worth upgrading.
For us, it’s simply rebuilding our Docker base (i.e. —no-cache) with these lines:
RUN curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
RUN --mount=type=cache,target=/root/.cache uv venv --python 3.13 /venv
Extras
Brian:
Still thinking about pytest plugins a lot.
The top pytest plugin list
Has been updated for Feb
Is starting to include things without “pytest” in the name, like Hypothesis and Syrupy.
Eventually I’ll have to add “looking at trove classifiers” as part of the search, but for now, let me know if you’re favorite is missing.
Includes T&C podcast episode links if I’ve covered it on the show.
There’s 2 so far
Michael:
There's a new release of PyScript out. All the details are here: Highlight is new PyGame-CE support. Go play!
PEP 2026 – Calendar versioning for Python rejected. :(
PEP 759 – External Wheel Hosting withdrawn
Joke:
Pride Versioning
