Mocking and Unit Testing and Test-Driven Development

Mocking is essential to unit testing.

However.

It's also annoyingly difficult to get right.

If we aren't 100% perfectly clear on what we're mocking, we will merely canonize any dumb assumptions into mock objects that don't really work. They work in the sense that they don't crash, but they don't …

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Amazon Reviews

Step 1. Go to amazon.com and look for one (or more) of my Python books.

Step 2. Have you read it?

  • Yes: Thanks! Consider posting a review.
  • No: Hmmm.

That's all. Consider doing this for other authors, also.

Social media is its own weird economy. The currency seems to …

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Upgrading to Python 3

Date Tags #python

Folks who don't use Python regularly -- the folks in TechOps, for example -- are acutely aware that the Python 3 language is "different," and the upgrade should be done carefully. They've done their homework, but, they're not experts in everything.

They feel the need to introduce Python 3 slowly and cautiously …

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Python Essentials

Get Packt's Python Essentials. I think it covers a large number of important topics. Central to this is Python 3.4. The book covers Python 3 with few -- if any -- backward glances. If it makes any mention of Python 2, the reference is strictly derogatory. There isn't even a mention …

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A plea to avoid sys.exit() [Updated]

Date Tags #python

Let me gripe about this for a moment.

sys.exit()

The use case for this function is limited. Very, very limited.

Every place that this appears (except for one) is going to lead to reusability issues.

Consider some obscure little function, deep within the app.

def deep_within_the_app(x, y, zed …
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