#433 Dev in the Arena

Python Bytes

Topics covered in this episode:

• git-flight-rules
• Uravelling t-strings
• neohtop
• Introducing Pyrefly: A new type checker and IDE experience for Python
• Extras
• Joke

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Michael #1: git-flight-rules

• What are "flight rules"?
  • A guide for astronauts (now, programmers using Git) about what to do when things go wrong.
  • Flight Rules are the hard-earned body of knowledge recorded in manuals that list, step-by-step, what to do if X occurs, and why. Essentially, they are extremely detailed, scenario-specific standard operating procedures. [...]
  • NASA has been capturing our missteps, disasters and solutions since the early 1960s, when Mercury-era ground teams first started gathering "lessons learned" into a compendium that now lists thousands of problematic situations, from engine failure to busted hatch handles to computer glitches, and their solutions.
• Steps for common operations and actions
  • I want to start a local repository
  • What did I just commit?
  • I want to discard specific unstaged changes
  • Restore a deleted file

Brian #2: Uravelling t-strings

• Brett Cannon
• Article walks through
  • Evaluating the Python expression
  • Applying specified conversions
  • Applying format specs
  • Using an Interpolation class to hold details of replacement fields
  • Using Template class to hold parsed data
• Plus, you don’t have to have Python 3.14.0b1 to try this out.
• The end result is very close to an example used in PEP 750, which you do need 3.14.0b1 to try out.
• See also:
  • I’ve written a pytest version, Unravelling t-strings with pytest, if you want to run all the examples with one file.

Michael #3: neohtop

• Blazing-fast system monitoring for your desktop
• Features
  • Real-time process monitoring
  • CPU and Memory usage tracking
  • Beautiful, modern UI with dark/light themes
  • Advanced process search and filtering
  • Pin important processes
  • Process management (kill processes)
  • Sort by any column
  • Auto-refresh system stats

Brian #4: Introducing Pyrefly: A new type checker and IDE experience for Python

• From Facebook / Meta
• Another Python type checker written in Rust
• Built with IDE integration in mind from the beginning
• Principles
  • Performance
  • IDE first
  • Inference (inferring types in untyped code)
  • Open source
• I mistakenly tried this on the project I support with the most horrible abuses of the dynamic nature of Python, pytest-check. It didn’t go well. But perhaps the project is ready for some refactoring. I’d like to try it soon on a more well behaved project.

Extras

Brian:

• Python: The Documentary Official Trailer
• Tim Hopper added Setting up testing with ptyest and uv to his “Python Developer Tooling Handbook”
• For a more thorough intro on pytest, check out courses.pythontest.com
• pocket is closing, I’m switching to Raindrop
  • I got one question about code formatting. It’s not highlighted, but otherwise not bad.

Michael:

• New course! Polars for Power Users: Transform Your Data Analysis Game
• Apache Airflow 3.0 Released
• Paste 5

Joke: Theodore Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena, but for programming