Weekly posts about all things Python, and occasional other topics as well.

Django from first principles, part 4

MP 94: Modeling data, and working with a database. Note: This is the fourth post in a series about building a full Django project, starting with a single file. This series will be free to everyone, as soon as each post comes out. In the last post we used Django&

Where are my CLI args?

MP 93: Some surprising behavior from pdb. Note: I've been busy this week preparing a talk for PyCon next month, and a local presentation on the same topic. The ongoing series about building a Django project from a single file will continue next week. I was resuming work

Django from first principles, part 3

MP 92: A better home page, using templates. Note: This is the third post in a series about building a full Django project, starting with a single file. This series will be free to everyone, as soon as each post comes out. In the last post we wrote a single

Django from first principles, part 2

MP 91: A single file, serving a basic version of the project's home page. Note: This is the second post in a series about building a full Django project, starting with a single file. This series will be free to everyone, as soon as each post comes out.

Django from first principles

MP 90: Building a complete Django project from a single file. Note: This is the first post in a series about building a full Django project, starting with a single file. This series will be free to everyone, as soon as each post comes out. 1 For a long time,

Using breakpoints to explore your code

MP 89: You can hop into your program's execution at any point. When working on a project, I often find myself wondering if my code does exactly what I think it does. Sometimes I'll have an idea about how to move forward in a program, but

Have you updated your Python recently?

MP 88: It's never too late to start a good updating habit. I'll be the first to admit, I don't stay on top of updates nearly as well as I should. The libraries and tools I use most often have gotten good enough that

Calculated file paths

MP 87: What are they, and why should you use them? Note: I've been working on the styling of code blocks in technical posts. They should look better than they did previously, and be more aligned with what's discussed in the text. There's still

Amusing logical errors

MP 86: And the value of small utility functions.

Leaving Substack

MP 85: I'll be moving to Ghost next week, because it's a better fit for Mostly Python.

Testing a book's code: Overall conclusions

MP 84: Final takeaways from a detailed look at testing.

Testing a book's code, part 6: Testing a Django project

MP 83: Testing a simple but nontrivial Django project, from a reader's perspective.