#207: FastAPI as a web platform (not just APIs)

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Michael #1: fastapi-chameleon (and fastapi-jinja)

• Chameleon via Michael, Jinja via Marc Brooks
• Convert a FastAPI API app to a proper web app

• Then just decorate the FastAPI view methods (works on sync and async methods):

      @router.post('/')
      @fastapi_chameleon.template('home/index.pt')
      async def home_post(request: Request):
          form = await request.form()
          vm = PersonViewModel(**form) 
  
          return vm.dict() # {'first':'Michael', 'last':'Kennedy', ...}
  

• The view method should return a dict to be passed as variables/values to the template.

• If a fastapi.Response is returned, the template is skipped and the response along with status_code and other values is directly passed through. This is common for redirects and error responses not meant for this page template.

Brian #2: Django REST API in a single file, without using DRF

• Adam Johnson
  • He’s been on Test & Code a couple times, 128 & 135
• Not sure if you should do this, but it is possible.
• Example Django app that is a REST API that gives you information about characters from Rick & Morty. Specifically, just Rick and Morty.
  • / - redirects to /characters/
  • /characters/ - returns a JSON list
  • /characters - redirects to /characters/
  • /characters/1 - returns JSON info about Rick
  • /characters/2 - same, but for Morty
• Shows off how with Django off the shelf, can do redirects and JSON output.
• Shows data using dataclasses. Hardcoded here, but easy to see how you could get this data from a database or other part of your system.

Michael #3: 2020 StackOverflow survey results

• Most Popular Technologies
• Languages: JavaScript (68%), Python (44%), Java(40%)
• Web frameworks: Just broken, jQuery? Seriously!?!
• Databases: MySQL (56%), PostgreSQL (36%), Microsoft SQL Server (33%), MongoDB (26%)
• Platforms: Windows (46%), macOS (28%), Linux(27%)
• Most loved languages: Rust, TypeScript, Python
• Most wanted languages: Python, JavaScript, Go
• Most dreaded language: VBA & ObjectiveC
• Most loved DBs: Redis (67%), PostgreSQL (64%), Elasticsearch (59%), MongoDB (56%)
• Most wanted DBs: MongoDB (19%), PostgreSQL (16%)
• Most dreaded DB: DB2

Brian #4: A Visual Guide to Regular Expression

• Amit Chaudhary
• Gentle introduction to regex by building up correct mental models using visual highlighting.
• Goes through different patterns:
  • specific character
  • white space (any whitespace \s, tab \t, newline \n)
  • single-digit number \d
  • word characters \w : lowercase, uppercase, digits, underscore
    • this sometimes throws me, since w seems like it might somehow be related to whitespace. It’s not.
  • dot . : anything except newline
  • pattern negations:
  • \d is digits, \D is anything that is not a digit
  • \s whitespace, \S not whitespace
  • \w word characters, \W everything else
  • character sets with square brackets [], and optionally dash - for range
  • anchors
  • ^ beginning of line
  • $ end of line
  • escaping patterns with </li>
  • repetition with {}, *, +, ?
• Using Python re module
  • findall
  • match and match.group
  • search

Michael #5: Taking credit

• by Tim Nolet
• Oh @awscloud I really do love you! But next time you fork my OS project https://github.com/checkly/headless-recorder and present it as your new service, give the maintainers a short "nice job, kids" or something.
• Not necessary as per the APLv2 license, but still, ya know?
• Amazon CloudWatch Synthetics launches Recorder to generate user flow scripts for canaries
• A Chrome browser extension, to help you create canaries more easily.

Brian #6: Raspberry Pi 400

• “complete personal computer, built into a compact keyboard”
• by itself, or as a kit with mouse and power adapter and cables and such, for $100
• 4 core, 64-bit processor, 4 GB RAM, wifi & LAN, can drive 2 displays, 4K video
• 40-pin GPIO header, so you can still play with hardware and such.
• There’s an adafruit video with Limor Fried where she describes this as something as close as we get today to an Apple IIe from my youth.
• For me, IIe was at school, at home I had a TRS80 plugged into an old TV and using my sisters tape deck for disk storage.
• This seems great for education use, but also as a second computer in your house, or a kids computer.
• Comes with a Beginner’s Guide that includes getting started with Python

Extras:

Brian:

• vim-adventures.com - with a dash. Practice vim key bindings while playing an adventure game. Super cool.

Michael:

• TIOBE Index for November 2020 via Tyler Pedersen

Joke:

You built it, you run it.