December 11th, the electric power went out here in the northeast, and stayed out until late on the 14th.

We have gas heat, gas cooking. But the furnace wouldn't run without AC power. So, I now have a favorite electrical appliance -- the blower on my furnace.:Apple-tab-span:``

Here's my strategy …

See Configuration Options in Code or INI Files? . Also, see Python as Configuration Language .

Here's some of the argument.

• Editing. Which is easier? Which is more expressive? Some say that Text (INI format especially) is easier -- but I don't see what. Python is just as easy as INI, and has …

Check out this StackOverflow "question": Does anyone have metrics on the utility of formal Unit Testing? . While -- technically -- it does have a question, it's more of a rant against formal unit testing than a proper question.

Here's the conflation comment. "I've worked with developers who never caught any errors in …

No one wants to be Rickrolled. I suppose it could have been funny, once, for about 15 minutes. I didn't think it was all that funny to begin with, but there it is -- a part of the lexicon. However, it remains obscure, and sometimes hard to explain to non-technical folks …

The Open Source Enterprise article in the November 15th InformationWeek is quite cool. Here's the "wow" quote for me.

Another way that open source code meets current needs is through lighter-weight integration than commercial vendors typically offer. By definition, open source code adheres to publicly approved standards. That means open …

See this question on Python objects deleting themselves . There was some fundamental confusion about objects, deletion and garbage collection.

Some additional material was posted in an answer (not in the question, where it belongs) making it a little hard to go from question to answers. The original poster's non-answer had …

There's this huge gulf between "protecting" our intellectual property (IP) and making money off our intellectual property. In our case, we have experts creating business models that we embody in some source code as business rules.

What's the IP? The software or the model? Where's the value? Is it out …

How do we provide some kind of admin support/tools/procedures for the sales team?

We know they'll invent new scenarios. We know they'll want to save that configuration. With Django's admin utilities, we can do a "dumpdata" that preserves the interesting parts of the the database. That much is …

The SD Times article (Python 3.0 won't be compatible... ) was very helpful -- crisp, to the point, management-friendly coverage. [For some additional thoughts, see the Python 3.0 and Language Evolution question on Stackoverflow.]

This applied to what we're building at work. Here's the best part. When I started on …

We've got a fairly complex application that fits the "broker" pattern. It offers web services and it consumes web services. It does some complex calculations of it's own and it's got a pretty complex database.

One thing I like to have is a "ready for deployment" test suite that exercises …