#138 Will PyOxidizer weld shut one of Python's major gaps?

Python Bytes - A podcast by Michael Kennedy and Brian Okken - Mondays

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Brian #1: flake8-comprehensions

  • submitted by Florian Dahlitz
  • I’m already using flake8, so adding this plugin is a nice idea.
  • checks your code for some generator and comprehension questionable code.
    • C400 Unnecessary generator - rewrite as a list comprehension.
    • C401 Unnecessary generator - rewrite as a set comprehension.
    • C402 Unnecessary generator - rewrite as a dict comprehension.
    • C403 Unnecessary list comprehension - rewrite as a set comprehension.
    • C404 Unnecessary list comprehension - rewrite as a dict comprehension.
    • C405 Unnecessary (list/tuple) literal - rewrite as a set literal.
    • C406 Unnecessary (list/tuple) literal - rewrite as a dict literal.
    • C407 Unnecessary list comprehension - '[HTML_REMOVED]' can take a generator.
    • C408 Unnecessary (dict/list/tuple) call - rewrite as a literal.
    • C409 Unnecessary (list/tuple) passed to tuple() - (remove the outer call to tuple()/rewrite as a tuple literal).
    • C410 Unnecessary (list/tuple) passed to list() - (remove the outer call to list()/rewrite as a list literal).
    • C411 Unnecessary list call - remove the outer call to list().
  • Example:
    • Rewrite list(f(x) for x in foo) as [f(x) for x in foo]
    • Rewrite set(f(x) for x in foo) as {f(x) for x in foo}
    • Rewrite dict((x, f(x)) for x in foo) as {x: f(x) for x in foo}

Michael #2: PyOxidizer (again)

  • Michael’s assessment - There are three large and looming threats to Python. Lack of
    • A real mobile development story
    • GUI applications on desktop operating systems
    • Sharing your application with users (this is VERY far from deployment to servers)
  • Cover PyOxidizer before but seems to have just rocketed off last couple of weeks.
  • At their PyCon 2019 keynote talk, Russel Keith-Magee identified code distribution as a potential black swan - an existential threat for longevity - for Python.
    • “Python hasn't ever had a consistent story for how I give my code to someone else, especially if that someone else isn't a developer and just wants to use my application.”
  • They announced the first release of PyOxidizer (project, documentation), an open source utility that aims to solve the Python application distribution problem!
  • PyOxidizer's marquee feature is that it can produce a single file executable containing a fully-featured Python interpreter, its extensions, standard library, and your application's modules and resources.
  • You can have a single .exe providing your application.
  • Unlike other tools in this space which tend to be operating system specific, PyOxidizer works across platforms (currently Windows, macOS, and Linux - the most popular platforms for Python today).
  • PyOxidizer loads everything from memory and there is no explicit I/O being performed. When you **import** a Python module, the bytecode for that module is being loaded from a memory address in the executable using zero-copy.
  • This makes PyOxidizer executables faster to start and import - faster than a python executable itself!

Brian #3: Using changedir to avoid the need for src

  • I’ve been experimenting with combining flit, pytest, tox, and coverage for new projects.
  • And in doing so, ran across a cool feature of tox that I didn’t know about before, changedir.
  • It’s a feature of tox to allow you to run tests in a different directory than the top level project directory.
  • I talk about this more in episode 80 of Test & Code.
    • As an example project I build yet another markdown converter using regular expressions.
    • This is funny to me, considering the recent cloudflare outage due to a single regular expression. https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-outage/
    • “Tragedy is what happens to me, comedy is what happens to you” - Mel Brooks approximate quote.

Michael #4: WebRTC and ORTC implementation for Python using asyncio

  • Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) - WebRTC is a free, open project that provides browsers and mobile applications with Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities via simple APIs.
  • Object Real-Time Communication (ORTC) - ORTC (Object Real-Time Communications) is an API allowing developers to build next generation real-time communication applications for web, mobile, or server environments.
  • The API closely follows its Javascript counterpart while using pythonic constructs:
    • promises are replaced by coroutines
    • events are emitted using pyee.EventEmitter
  • The main WebRTC and ORTC implementations are either built into web browsers, or come in the form of native code.
  • In contrast, the aiortc implementation is fairly simple and readable.
    • Good starting point for programmers wishing to understand how WebRTC works or tinker with its internals.
    • Easy to create innovative products by leveraging the extensive modules available in the Python ecosystem.
    • For instance you can build a full server handling both signaling and data channels or apply computer vision algorithms to video frames using OpenCV.

Brian #5: Apprise - Push Notifications that work with just about every platform!

  • listener suggestion
  • cool shim project to allow multiple notification services in one app
  • “Apprise allows you to send a notification to almost all of the most popular notification services available to us today such as: Telegram, Pushbullet, Slack, Twitter, etc.
    • One notification library to rule them all.
    • A common and intuitive notification syntax.
    • Supports the handling of images (to the notification services that will accept them).”
  • supports
    • notification services such as discord, gitter, ifttt, mailgun, mattermost, MS teams, twitter, …
    • SMS notification through Twilio, Nexmo, AWS, D7
    • email notifications

Michael #6: Websauna web framework

  • Websauna is a full stack Python web framework for building web services and back offices with admin interface and sign up process https://websauna.org
  • "We have web applications 80% figured out. Websauna takes it up to 95%.”
  • Built upon Python 3, Pyramid, and SQLAlchemy.
  • When to use it?
    • Websauna is focused on Internet facing sites where you have a public or private sign up process and an administrative interface. Its sweet spots include custom business portals and software-as-a-service products which are too specialized for off-the-shelf solutions.
  • Benefits
    • Focus on core business logic as Websauna provides basic website building blocks like sign up and sign in.
    • Low learning curve and friendly comprehensive documentation help novice developers
    • Emphasis is on meeting business requirements with reliable delivery times, responsiveness, consistency
    • Site operations is half the story. Websauna provides an automated deployment process and integrates with monitoring, security and other DevOps solutions.

Extras

Michael:

Brian:

  • Recent Test & Code episodes were solo because I’m in the middle of a work move and didn’t want to schedule interviews around a crazy work schedule. However, that should settle down in July and I can get back to getting great guests on the show. But I’m also having fun with solo topics, so I’ll keep that in the mix.
    • upshot: if I’ve contacted you or you me about being on the show and you haven’t heard from me lately, give me a nudge with a DM or email or something.

Jokes

  • An SQL query goes into a bar, walks up to two tables and asks, 'Can I join you?'
  • Not a joke, really, but along the lines of “comedy when it happens to you”.