#268: Wait, you can Google that?

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About the show

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• Check out the courses over at Talk Python
• And Brian’s book too!

Special guest: Madison @AetherUnbound

Brian #1: (draft) PEP 679 -- Allow parentheses in assert statements

• Pablo Galindo Salgado
• This is in draft, not approved, and not scheduled for any release
• But it seems like a really good idea to me.
• assert(1 == 2, "seems like it should fail") will always pass currently
• since the tuple (False,"seems like it should fail") is a non-empty tuple.

• Current Python will emit a warning

      >>> assert(1 == 2, "seems like it should fail")
      [stdin]:1: SyntaxWarning: assertion is always true, perhaps remove parentheses?
  

• But really, why not just change the language to allow assert with or without parens.

• Also would allow multi-line assert statements more easily:

      assert (
          very very long
          expression,
  
          "very very long "
          "message",
      )
  

• I hope this is a slam dunk and gets in ASAP.

Michael #2: Everything I googled as a dev

• by Sophie Koonin
• In an attempt to dispel the idea that if you have to google stuff you’re not a proper engineer, this is a list of nearly everything I googled in a week at work
• Rather than my posting a huge list, check out the day logs on her post
• Worth calling out a few:
  • Expecting a parsed GraphQL document. Perhaps you need to wrap the query string in a "gql" tag? - said React upgrade then started causing some super fun errors.
  • semantic HTML contact details - wanted to check if the [HTML_REMOVED] tag was relevant here
  • editing host file - desperate times (and it didn’t even work)

Madison #3: PyCascades 2022!

• Another year of excellent and diverse talks across an array of subjects.
• Talks from some well known folks (Thursday Bram, Jay Miller) as well as first time speakers (Joseph Riddle, Isaac Na)
  • PSF’s DE&I Panel is doing a meet & greet, and they have a survey they’d like Python community members to fill out.
• Socials Friday & Saturday night, sprints on Sunday.
• Tickets are still available!

Brian #4: Strict Python function parameters

• Seth Michael Larson
• We have keyword only parameters
  • def process_data(data, *, encoding="ascii"): ...
  • notice the *
  • encoding has to be a keyword argument, cannot be positional.
• We have position only parameters:
  • def process_data(data, /, encoding="ascii"): ...
  • notice the /
  • data has to be positional, cannot be passed in as a keyword argument
• Combine the two:
  • def process_data(data, /, *, encoding="ascii"): ...
  • Now data has to be positional, and encoding has to be a keyword, if present.
• This way a function really can only be called as intended and all uses of the function will be consistent. This is a good thing.
• There are many benefits, including empowering library authors to make changes without weird behaviors cropping up in user code.
• Commentary:
  • extra syntax may be confusing for some new users.
  • For a lot of library API entry points, I think this makes a lot of sense.

Michael #5: mureq - vendored requests

• mureq is a single-file, zero-dependency alternative to python-requests
• Intended to be vendored in-tree by Linux systems software and other lightweight applications.
• Doesn’t support connection pooling (but neither does requests.get()).
• Uses much less memory
• Avoids supply chain attack vulnerabilities
• Consider my prod branch until PRs #2 and #3 are merged.

Madison #6: Openverse

• No, not Metaverse!
• Previously “CC Search”
• Search engine for openly licensed media, for free and public use/remix of content.
• Currently images & audio, hope to include video, text, 3D models down the line.
• Start your search here

Extras

Michael:

• We now have playable times in the transcript section (example).
• Very cool tool for building regex-es I used for the above: regex101.com
• Next video is out: Do you even need loops in Python? A Python short by Michael Kennedy
• Remember, we have full-text search

Brian:

• pip-secure-install - from Brett Cannon
• Python Testing with pytest is, when I last checked, the #2 bestseller at Pragmatic
  • so cool
  • My Maui trip was also a work trip. Gave me time to completely re-read the book, make notes, and make last minute changes. Changes went in this week and tonight is my “pencils down” date. This is getting real, folks.
  • Thanks to everyone for buying beta copies and supporting the re-write.

Madison:

• spd.watch - new police accountability/information tool for the Seattle area
• Shoutout to just (mentioned in Ep 242)
• ghcr.io - free docker image hosting for open source projects, easy integration with GitHub Actions

Joke:

via Josh Thurston

• How did the hacker get away from the police? He just ransomware.
• That joke makes me WannaCry…
• Where do you find a hacker? In decrypt.