Hynek On Big Stages

Python appears to be everywhere nowadays! How did it happen, that a language that almost died in the Python 2 to 3 process is now the lingua franca a default choice when people talk about programming? There must be some secret superpower and I think I found it!

Ever had this weird gut feeling that something is off in your code, but couldn’t put the finger on why? Are you starting your projects with the best intentions, following all best practices, and still feel like your architecture turns weird eventually?

Ever seen a code base where understanding a simple method meant jumping through tangled class hierarchies? We all have! And while “Favor composition over inheritance!” is almost as old as object-oriented programming, strictly avoiding all types of subclassing leads to verbose, un-Pythonic code. So, what to do?

Let’s talk about abstractions and Pythonic code.

PyPI is a gold mine of great packages but those packages have to be written first. More often than not, projects that millions of people depend on are written and maintained by only one person. If you’re unlucky, that person is you! This talk tries to lighten the burden by giving you useful tools and approaches.

The DevOps movement gave us many ways to put Python applications into production. But how can you practically structure and configure your applications to make them indifferent to the environment they run in? How do secrets fit into the picture? And where do you put that log file?

No matter whether you run a web app, search for gravitational waves, or maintain a backup script: reliability of your systems make the difference between sweet dreams and production nightmares at 4am.

To get real time insight into running applications you need to instrument them and collect metrics: count events, measure times, expose numbers. That used to be a clusterfuck of technologies and approaches. Prometheus changes that.

Your Python applications are running but you’re wondering what they are doing? The only clue about their current state is the server load after ssh-ing into the servers? Let’s change that!

TLS is the best technology we have for securing our communications. It comes with many sharp edges though. This talk tries to jumpstart a rough understanding and these links should help you to complete the picture.

Without orientation, deployments of Python applications can be tiresome and even painful. This talk attempts to replace anxiety and pain through informed annoyance.