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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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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On Pre-built Binaries for Python Packages

Or. Why I Hate Windows. For Mac OS X, you download XCode (for free) and you can build anything. For Linux, you use some kind of yum or rpm installer for the developer tools, and you can build anything. For Windows... Pre-built binaries. 😂 And a hope that the version numbers …

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