People keep telling me that they want to validate class and instance attributes (object properties) with Cerberus. While it certainly wasn’t conceived with that goal in mind, it is actually very possible to leverage both the Python data model and Cerberus extensibility to achieve object validation. Nuts & Bolts Let’s say that we have a simple class: >>> class Person(object): ... pass We create a Person instance and add a few properties and values:...
Like all those involved with the .NET ecosystem I’ve been slowly digesting the recent news on the whole thing going open source and cross platform. I’ve been jogging down a few notes in light of a future blog post, but then Jeremy Miller came out with his own Some Thoughts on the New .NET which is almost exactly the post I wanted to write. So when he writes: I’ve started to associate ....
Eve.NET is a simple HTTP and REST client for Web Services powered by the Eve Framework. It leverages both System.Net.HttpClient and Json.NET to provide the best possible Eve experience on the .NET platform. Written and maintained by the same author of the Eve Framework itself, Eve.NET is delivered as a portable library (PCL) and runs seamlessly on .NET4, Mono, Xamarin.iOS, Xamarin.Android, Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8. We use Eve.NET internally to power our iOS, Web and Windows applications. ...
Robert C.Martin, of Clean Code fame, has something to say on the role of we programmers in today’s society. We rule the world. We don’t quite understand this yet. More importantly, the world doesn’t quite understand it yet. Our civilization doesn’t quite realize how dependent it has become on software — on us. He goes as far as suggesting a programmer’s code of conduct of sorts. Food for thought I guess, although I suspect we’re too much of a wild and scattered bunch for something like that to really stick....
This originally appeared on Quora and is well worth reading. Becoming a good programmer is incredibly difficult and it doesn’t happen quickly. We can’t expect to plant some trees and have 2000-year-old redwoods grow overnight, regardless of the demand for them. via Why Don’t More People Work As Programmers? – Forbes.
Last week I was speaking at an Open Source panel at Better Software 2014, and one of the topics that we touched was code responsibility. This is an important topic for anyone who is maintaining an open source project, especially when it comes to the process of reviewing and accepting code contributions. At some point during the debate, I argued that when a maintainer merges a pull request, he (or she) implicitly agrees on being responsible for that code. That seemed to strike some surprise into most attendees. Yes, in theory any contributor is just a ping away so in case trouble arises one can always reach him, or her. Unfortunately this is not always the case. While some contributors will fully embrace your project and keep helping after their initial contribution, truth is that a good number of them will just move on, never to be seen again. There’s nothing wrong with that. Not everyone has spare time to devote to your project, which is perfectly fine. It is natural for most people to contribute what they need to a project and then go on their way. Actually, one could argue that most projects grow and prosper precisely thanks to this kind of contributions. However this attitude can become an incumbent when big chunks of code get merged, usually as new (big) features. Good practices advice against merging huge pull requests. In fact they are rare and when they do come, it is a good idea to ask for them to be split into smaller ones. But no matter the format, a huge contribution is likely to hit a project one day or another. It might even come from more than one person: a disconnected and distributed team of contributors who have been patiently tinkering on a side branch or a fork for example. When this happens, and provided that the contribution is worth merging, the maintainer should then ask him/herself the obvious question: am I willing to deal with the consequences of this merge? ...
The operations log or OpLog is a new Eve feature that I’m currently developing on the oplog experimental branch. It’s supposed to help in addressing a subtle issue that we’ve been dealing with, but I believe it can also emerge as a very useful all-around tool. I am posting about it in the hope of gathering some feedback from Eve contributors and users, so that I can better pinpoint design and implementation before I merge it to the main development branch. What is the OpLog? The OpLog is a special resource that keeps a record of operations that modify the data stored by the API. Every POST, PATCH, PUT and DELETE operation can eventually be recorded by the oplog. At its core the oplog is simply a server log, something that’s always been on the Eve roadmap. What makes it a little bit different is its ability to be exposed as a read-only API endpoint. This would in turn allow clients to query it as they would with any other standard endpoint. ...
OrderedDict is a super handy data structure. An OrderedDict is a dict that remembers the order that keys were first inserted. If a new entry overwrites an existing entry, the original insertion position is left unchanged. Deleting an entry and reinserting it will move it to the end. Problem is, this stuff is only available in the standard library since Python 2.7 while my project also needs to support Python 2.6. Fortunately there’s a back-port available and it is only a pip install away: # make OrderedDict available on Python 2.6-2.4 $ pip install ordereddict ordereddict is based on the awesome recipe by Raymond Hettinger, works with Python 2.4-2.6 and, most importantly, is a drop-in replacement for OrderedDict. However if you want your code to run seamlessly on all Pythons there’s still some work to be done. First of all you want to make sure that the appropriate OrderedDict is imported, either the standard library version (for Python 2.7 and above) or the back-port release. ...
If your project is a Portable Class Library and you want it to run with the .NET Framework 4 well, you are in for a few surprises. Especially so if you are using InstallShield for building your deployment package. We’ve been going through this a few days ago and it’s been kind of a wild ride. I thought I could pin the whole thing down so that others might enjoy a painless journey through all this mess. Portable Class Libraries and .NET Framework 4 The first thing you should know is that while the .NET Framework 4 does support PCLs, in fact it won’t run them without a patch. For whatever reason, Microsoft decided that PCL compatibility wasn’t a worth a 4.0.4 update. That leaves us with the need to not only make sure that target machines are running the up-to-date .NET4 release (v4.0.3) but also that they’ve been updated with KB2468871. You might be wondering why this is an issue in the first place. We could simply install the .NET Framework 4.5 which is backward compatible with the .NET4 and includes the afore mentioned KB2468871. Even better, we could just target the .NET 4.5 on our PCL. Problem is that besides iOS, Android, WinPhone and Silverlight we also want our libraries to run seamlessly on as many Windows editions as possible, Windows XP included. Here is the catch: .NET4 is the last framework version to run on Windows XP. And yes, we got the memo, Microsoft officially abandoned Windows XP a while ago so why bother? Well it turns out that millions of users are still running XP, especially so in the enterprise and SMB. These PCL are targeting exactly that, precisely the accounting software segment, and believe me there’s a huge number of users happily invoicing and accounting on their old-fart-but-still-splendidly-doing-its-job-for-cheap boxes. Oh and the .NET Framework 3.5 is not an option as it doesn’t support Portable Classes at all. ...
Eve 0.4 adds cool features like Document Versioning and Coherence Mode. Cerberus 0.7 allows regex validation amongst other niceties. Make sure to check the official v0.4 announcement for all the details.