Category: Programming

DjangoCon 2011 – The story and tech of Read the Docs

With the morning tracks over and a delicious lunch finished we’ll be diving into the afternoon talks with ‘The story and tech of Read the Docs’ by Eric Holscher.

Hosting open source documentation was a mess. The best-of-class solution for the Python world as uploading a tarball of html to packages.python.org or doing similar to upload to github pages.. We set out to solve this problem using the current best of class tools that Django has to offer.

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DjangoCon 2011 – Confessions of Joe Developer

Next up is Daniel Greenfeld talking about his experiences with Django.

Over the course of 6 years of Python development at NASA, Revsys, and Eldarion; Daniel Greenfeld has picked up a lot of easy tricks stolen from the best and brightest in the Python community that make him look good in front of his peers and clients. And now, at great risk to his career and reputation, he is going to show you how he does it.

Final Thoughts: Great talk by Daniel Greenfeld with a number of good points. My code definitely needs to be documented better and ladies deserve more respect in open source communities.

You can find the slides over at slideshare.
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DjangoCon 2011 – Testing with Lettuce and Splinter

After a small scheduling change Adam Nelson will be replacing Alex Gaynor for a talk on Lettuce and Splinter.

Lettuce, adapted from Ruby’s Cucumber, is a behavior driven development (BDD) testing suite that sits on top of Splinter – a web driver for simulating real-world usage of your site. Learn the ins and outs of BDD using Lettuce and Splinter for rapid deployment.

Overall I found the talk lacking a little bit (but he was asked this morning). I think the language is promising but too verbose for actual use.

Lessons I took away: I need to start testing.
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Why I Love Working for a Small Company, Django and Open Source Software

Yesterday was my former boss’ last day at the job after working here for 11 years. Instead of getting him a large comical card that everyone in the office signs (we have multiple offices around the globe) we decided to create a web page where employees could sign a virtual wall, as well as view embarrassing photos of our boss. I turned to my trusty framework Django and Twitters Bootstrap to get the job done quickly and easily. Continue reading Why I Love Working for a Small Company, Django and Open Source Software

Your First C Program

So, you want to be able to write C programs? Well, you have come to the right place. Over the next few weeks I’ll be writing a series of tutorials called “The Basics”. Each one of these tutorials will cover a different subject that will help you learn how to program in C. In this weeks tutorial I’ll teach you how to write your first C program.
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SEO: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is something that’s often overlooked by companies or pushed to the back burner when funds are running out.  Unfortunately this is a big mistake and will hurt the company in the long run.  While not optimizing your website for search engines can be bad, hiring unethical SEO companies can be even worse than not doing anything in the first place. Continue reading SEO: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

Optimize Last is Wrong, Sort Of

One of the methodologies of Extreme Programming is to code first and optimize last. While I can understand where this is coming from I don’t necessarily agree with it, or at least not always. The truth is, there are some cases where quickly optimizing can help you out a lot, especially in the long run.
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How to Deal with Programming Procrastination

Have you ever thought to yourself “I haven’t coded in so long, I really need to” but then did something else instead? This is called programming procrastination (PP), and every developer will face it at least once in their career.

I get programming procrastination a lot when I’m trying to finish up my pet projects or even something to do with work. I don’t know why I don’t want to program sometimes but here are a few things I do to get me back into the programming mind: Continue reading How to Deal with Programming Procrastination

Headphones: A Developers Best Friend

I don’t know about you but I work a lot better when I’m listening to music. I don’t know what it is but I can concentrate a lot easier and work a lot quicker when I’m listening to my favourite tunes. The problem with most development jobs is that, unless you work from home, you’re constantly around co-workers and it would be rude to blast your music.
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