Bob Belderbos and Julian Sequeira started PyBites a few years ago. They started doing code challanges along with people around the world and writing about it. Then came the codechalleng.es platform, where you can do code challenges in the browser and have your answer checked by pytest tests. But how does it all work? Bob joins me today to go behind the scenes and share the tech stack running the PyBites Code Challenges platform. We talk about the technology, the testing, and how it went from a c...
Aug 16, 2019•24 min•Season 1Ep. 83
Anthony Sottile is a pytest core contributor, as well as a maintainer and contributor to many other projects. In this episode, Anthony shares some of the super cool features of pytest that have been added since he started using it. We also discuss Anthony's move from user to contributor, and how others can help with the pytest project. Special Guest: Anthony Sottile. Sponsored By: Azure Pipelines : Automate your builds and deployments with pipelines so you spend less time with the nuts and bolts...
Jul 31, 2019•37 min•Season 1Ep. 82
In the last episode, we talked about going from script to supported package. I worked on a project called subark and did the packaging with flit. Today's episode is a continuation where we add new features to a supported package and how to develop and test a flit based package. Covered: viewing stages of a project with git tags flit support for editable installs flit description entry in pyproject.toml to put README on pypi. development dependencies in pyproject.toml editor layout for optimal TD...
Jul 17, 2019•25 min•Season 1Ep. 81
This episode is a story about packaging, and flit, tox, pytest, and coverage. And an alternate solution to "using the src". Python makes it easy to build simple tools for all kinds of tasks. And it's great to be able to share small projects with others on your team, in your company, or with the world. When you want to take a script from "just a script" to maintainable package, there are a few steps, but none of it's hard. Also, the structure of the code layout changes to help with the growth and...
Jul 04, 2019•22 min•Season 1Ep. 80
Some information about software testing is just wrong. I'm not talking about opinions. I have lots of opinions and they differ from other peoples opinions. I'm talking about misinformation and old information that is no longer applicable. I've ran across a few lateley that I want to address. All of the following are wrong: Integrated tests can't work. I can prove it with wacky math. Tests have to be blazing fast or they won't get run. TDD is about design, not about testing. This episode discusse...
Jun 27, 2019•23 min•Season 1Ep. 79
Roadblocks to writing tests, and what to do about it. Some developers either don't write tests, or don't like writing tests. Why not? I love writing tests. In this episode we examine lots of roadblocks to testing, and start coming up with solutions for these. Sponsored By: Pantheon : Pantheon makes building, managing, and optimizing websites simpler. Get started for free at pantheon.io/testandcode. Links: "I don’t write tests because ____. " twitter question episode 75: Modern Testing Principles...
Jun 19, 2019•31 min•Season 1Ep. 78
Creating maintainable test suites for complex systems. The episode describes some complexities involved with hardware testing, then shares techniques for shifting complexity out of the test cases. quick overview of what test instruments are discussion of API and communication with instruments techniques for shifting complexity out of test cases These techniques should apply to all test suites dealing with complex systems: Creating test cases that are easy to read and debug and tell a story about...
Jun 11, 2019•23 min•Season 1Ep. 77
Test Driven Development, TDD, can be intimidating to try. Why is that? And how can we make it less scary? That's what this episode is about. Chris May is a Python developer and the co-founder of PyRVA, the Richmond Virginia Python group. In this episode, Chris shares his experience with adding testing and TDD to his work flow. I really enjoyed talking with Chris, and I think his story will help lots of people overcome testing anxiety. Special Guest: Chris May. Sponsored By: PyCharm Professional ...
May 29, 2019•36 min•Season 1Ep. 76
Software testing, if done right, is done all the time, throughout the whole life of a software project. This is different than the verification and validation of a classical model of QA teams. It's more of a collaborative model that actually tries to help get great software out the door faster and iterate quicker. One of the people at the forefront of this push is Alan Page. Alan and his podcast cohost Brent Jensen tried to boil down what modern testing looks like in the Modern Testing Principle...
May 23, 2019•40 min•Season 1Ep. 75
In this episode, I talk with Derrick Mar, CTO and co-founder of Pathrise. This is the episode you need to listen to to get ready for software interviews. We discuss four aspects of technical interviews that interviewers are looking for: communication problem solving coding verification How to practice for the interview. Techniques for synchronizing with interviewer and asking for hints. Even how to ask the recruiter or hiring manager how to prepare for the interview. If you or anyone you know ha...
May 21, 2019•27 min•Season 1Ep. 74
This is a "Yay! It's PyCon 2019" episode. PyCon is very important to me. But it's kinda hard to put a finger on why. So I figured I'd ask more people to help explain why it's important. I ask a few simple questions to people about Python and PyCon and get some great insights into both the language popularity and the special place this conference holds to many people. Sponsored By: Patreon Supporters : Help support the show with as little as $1 per month and be the first to know when new episodes...
May 03, 2019•28 min•Season 1Ep. 73
Some typical technical interview practices can be harmful and get in the way of hiring great people. April Wensel offers advice to help fix the technical interview process. She recommends: hire for mindset and attitude look for empathy and mentorship skills allow candidates to show their strengths instead of hunting for weaknesses have the candidate leave feeling good about themselves and your company, regardless of the hiring decision Some topics discussed: interview questions to bring out stor...
Apr 29, 2019•38 min•Season 1Ep. 72
Nina Zakharenko gives some great advice about giving tech talks. We talk about a blog series that Nina wrote called "The Ultimate Guide To Memorable Tech Talks". This episode is full of great help and encouragement for your own public speaking adventures. Some of what we discuss: overcoming the fear of public speaking breathing and pausing during talks planning your talk as well as planning your time to get ready for the talk writing proposals and getting feedback on proposals Nina's talk in PyC...
Apr 05, 2019•49 min•Season 1Ep. 71
Dane and Brian discuss skills needed for people that become software developers from non-traditional paths. Dane is also writing a book to address many of these skill gaps, Code Like a Pro , that's currently in an early access phase. Use code podtest&code19 to get a discount. And, sign up as a Friend of the Show to enter for a chance to win a free copy of the eBook version. We also discuss the writing process, testing with a multi-language stack, music, art, photography, and more. Special Gu...
Mar 29, 2019•31 min•Season 1Ep. 70
Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas wrote the seminal software development book, The Pragmatic Programmer. Together they founded The Pragmatic Programmers and are well known as founders of the agile movement and authors of the Agile Manifesto. They founded the Pragmatic Bookshelf publishing business in 2003. The Pragmatic Bookshelf published it's most important book, in my opinion, in 2017 with the first pytest book available from any publisher. Topics: The Pragmatic Programmer , the book The Manifesto fo...
Mar 21, 2019•49 min•Season 1Ep. 69
With conventional TDD, you write a failing test, get it to pass, then refactor. Then run the tests again to make sure your refactoring didn't break anything. But what if it did break something? Kent Beck has been recommending to commit your code to revision control after every green test run. Oddmund Strømme suggested a symmetrical idea to go ahead and revert the code when a test fails. Kent writes that he hated the idea, but had to try it. Then wrote about it last September. And now we have TCR...
Mar 13, 2019•38 min•Season 1Ep. 68
In today's episode we talk with Kelly Paredes & Sean Tibor. They teach Python in a middle school in Florida, and talk about this experience on the podcast "Teaching Python". I love that they include physical computing right from the start, and everything else they are doing. It's a fun interview. Special Guests: Kelly Paredes and Sean Tibor. Sponsored By: PyCharm Professional : Try PyCharm Pro for an extended 4 month trial before deciding which version you need. If you value your time, you o...
Feb 28, 2019•35 min•Season 1Ep. 67
I was recently interviewed on a podcast called "IT Career Energizer Podcast". Phil Burgess is the host of the podcast, and it was a lot of fun. I think it turned out well, and I wanted to share it with you here, with Phil's permission, of course. Special Guest: Phil Burgess. Links: IT Career Energizer Podcast ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★...
Feb 26, 2019•18 min•Season 1Ep. 66
Is it ok to have more than one assert statement in a test? I've seen articles that say no, you should never have more than one assert. I've also seen some test code made almost unreadable due to trying to avoid more than one assert per test. Where did this recommendation even come from? What are the reasons? What are the downsides to both perspectives? That's what we're going to talk about today. Sponsored By: PyCharm Professional : Try PyCharm Pro for an extended 4 month trial before deciding w...
Feb 17, 2019•20 min•Season 1Ep. 65
I want you to get the most out of being a software developer, or test engineer, or whatever you do that makes this podcast relevant to your life. By "get the most" I mean: the most fun the most value more career options probably more responsibility maybe even more money, that'd be cool I want you to start (or continue) studying and practicing your skills. But not just random practice, I've got a strategy to help you focus what to study. Why am I talking about this now? Here's some background on ...
Feb 07, 2019•22 min•Season 1Ep. 64
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. -- Confucius Matt Harrison is an author and instructor of Python and Data Science. This episode focuses on his training company, MetaSnake, and corporate training. Matt's written several books on Python, mostly self published. So of course we talk about that. But the bulk of the conversation is about corporate training, with Brian playing the role of someone considering starting a corporate training role, and asking Matt, an exper...
Feb 01, 2019•34 min•Season 1Ep. 63
There are a lot of learning styles and a lot of ways to learn Python. If you started Python through a class at work, or through an online course, or maybe an email series, it's possibly you may have learned from Reuven Lerner. If your first encounter with pytest was reading an article in Linux Journal recently, that would be the writing of Reuven. Reuven Lerner teaches Python. This interview definitely falls into the category of talking with interesting people doing interesting things with Pytho...
Jan 13, 2019•28 min•Season 1Ep. 62
A look back on 3 years of podcasting, and a bit of a look forward to what to expect in 2019. Top 5 episodes: 2: Pytest vs Unittest vs Nose 33: Katharine Jarmul - Testing in Data Science 18: Testing in Startups and Hiring Software Engineers with Joe Stump 45: David Heinemeier Hansson - Software Development and Testing, TDD, and exploratory QA 27: Mahmoud Hashemi : unit, integration, and system testing Honorable mention: 32: David Hussman - Agile vs Agility, Dude's Law, and more This episode also ...
Dec 31, 2018•31 min•Season 1Ep. 61
Julian Sequeira is Co-Founder of PyBit.es (a blog/platform created to teach and learn Python) and a Python Trainer at Talk Python Training. He's also a survivor of the 100DaysOfCode in Python Challenge. We talk about the 100 days challenge, about learning Python, and about how cool it is to learn within a community. Special Guest: Julian Sequeira. Sponsored By: DigitalOcean : Get started with a free $100 credit Links: PyBites Blog PyBites Code Challenges Platform TalkPython + PyBites 100 Days of...
Dec 28, 2018•35 min•Season 1Ep. 60
Thea Flowers is a Pythonista and open source advocate. She helps empower developers of all backgrounds and experience levels using Python and open source software and hardware. Thea is the creator of Nox, the co-chair of PyCascades 2019, the lead maintainer of urllib3, and a member of the Python Packaging Authority and Packaging Working Group. Thea works on Google Cloud Platform's wonderful Developer Relations team where she works on API client libraries and community outreach. All of that is de...
Dec 21, 2018•31 min•Season 1Ep. 59
Let's say you've got a web application you need to test. It has a REST API that you want to use for testing. Can you use Python for this testing even if the application is written in some other language? Of course. Can you use pytest? duh. yes. what else? What if you want to spin up docker instances, get your app running in that, and run your tests against that environment? How would you use pytest to do that? Well, there, I'm not exactly sure. But I know someone who does. Dima Spivak is the Dir...
Dec 14, 2018•28 min•Season 1Ep. 58
Data science, data engineering, data analysis, and machine learning are part of the recent massive growth of Python. But really what is data science? Vicki Boykis helps me understand questions like: No really, what is data science? What does a data pipeline look like? What is it like to do data science, data analysis, data engineering? Can you do analysis on a laptop? How big does data have to be to be considered big? What are the challenges in data science? Does it make sense for software engin...
Dec 11, 2018•31 min•Season 1Ep. 57
Michael Kennedy of Talk Python and Python Bytes fame joins Brian to talk about being a great guest and what to expect. Even if you have never wanted to be on a podcast, you might learn some great tips. A few of the things we talk about will be helpful for other endeavors, like public speaking, guest blog posts, look for unsolicited job opportunities. Some people have never been on a podcast before, and are possibly freaked out about some of the unknowns of being on a podcast. That's why we did t...
Dec 07, 2018•37 min•Season 1Ep. 56
What happens when 100% test code coverage just isn't enough. In this episode, we talk with Mahmoud Hashemi about glom, a very cool project in itself, but a project that needs more coverage than 100%. This problem affects lots of projects that use higher level programming constructs, like domain specific languages (DSLs), sub languages mini languages, compilers, and db query languages. Also covered: awesome Python applications versioning: 0-ver vs calver vs semver Special Guest: Mahmoud Hashemi. ...
Dec 03, 2018•34 min•Season 1Ep. 55
Paul talks about the beginning years of Python. Talking about Python's beginnings is also talking about the Python community beginnings. Yes, it's reminiscing, but it's fun. Special Guest: Paul Everitt. Sponsored By: DigitalOcean : Get started with a free $100 credit Links: Python 1994 Panel Discussion PyCon 2017 "Python 1994", PyBay2017 Spam, Spam, Spam, ... ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★...
Nov 25, 2018•29 min•Season 1Ep. 54
