#232: PyPI in a box and a revolutionary keyboard

Published Wed, May 5, 2021, recorded Wed, May 5, 2021

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Brian #1: Sphinx Themes Gallery update

Michael #2: Mongita - Like SQLite but for MongoDB

Mongita is a lightweight embedded document database that implements a commonly-used subset of the MongoDB/PyMongo interface.
Instead of being a server, Mongita is a self-contained Python library
Mongita can be configured to store its documents either on disk or in memory.
This is a great project to contribute to as a new open source person, details.
Uses:
- Embedded database: Mongita is a good alternative to SQLite for embedded applications when a document database makes more sense than a relational one.
- Unit testing: Mocking PyMongo/MongoDB is a pain. Worse, mocking can hide real bugs. By monkey-patching PyMongo with Mongita, unit tests can be more faithful while remaining isolated.
Limited dependencies: Mongita runs anywhere that Python runs. Currently the only dependencies are pymongo (for bson) and sortedcontainers (for faster indexes).

Annette #3: World Plone Day 2021 - Over 50 Videos from 16 Countries

World Plone Day was 24-hour online streaming event held on April 28th 2021.
- Plone open-source Content Management system, written in Python and built on top of the Zope web framework
Plone community produced 56 videos totaling 22 hours of content.
More than 50 speakers from 16 countries, 11 languages.
All available on Youtube - World Plone Day 2021 playlist
Variety of content categories:
- General Interest
- Technical Talks
- Case Studies
- Plone 6
  - Plone 6 introduction
  - How does Plone 6 work under the hood?
  - Getting Started with Volto Customization

Brian #4: The social contract of open source : view every commit as a gift

Brett Cannon
Interesting thoughts on what “contract” and what relationship exists between maintainer and user.
Great analogy of a stack of USB drives with source code on front lawn with a “FREE” sign.
- Come by and pick up the latest release whenever you want
- No guarantee at all
- Each new version is a gift that you can accept or not
- Receiver of gift should NOT:
- knock on front door and yell at developer
- Leave an angry letter in the mailbox
- Stand in middle of street in town yelling about how much they hate the software or how much of an idiot the developer is
Quote from Immanuel Kant: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.”
Brett: “… when you treat a maintainer as a fellow human being who may be able to do you a favor of their own volition, then you end up in an appropriate relationship where you are not trying to use the maintainer for something specific.
Summary: “Every commit of open source code should be viewed as an independent gift from the maintainer that they happened to leave on their front yard for others to enjoy if they so desire; treating them as a means to and for their open source code is unethical.”

Michael #5: PyPI in a box

via Jared Chung
Connectivity is still a challenge in many countries, especially Africa
Vuyisile Ndlovu created PyPI in a Box. Post PyCon Africa, in the conference slack group, attendees shared the most common problems across the continent, and the state of internet connectivity was the overwhelming response.
Vuyisile also references putting “StackOverflow in a box” but the article doesn’t lay out how to do it.

Annette #6: Film simulations from scratch using Python