The next stage: writing a book
I've decided to try and develop this tutorial into an actual book on test-driven development for web apps. Have a look at the chapter outline I've posted as part 6:...
View Article"TDD / Django tutorial: The Book!"
[update April 2012] : The book is now coming out on O'Reilly! more info here: http://www.tdd-django-tutorial.com/blog/articles/2013/test-driven-development-web-applications-book-exis/ Thanks so much...
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"Test Driven Development of Web Applications" -- the book exists, and is...
I can't quite believe this is actually happening, but I have not only signed a contract with O'Reilly, but i have actually written the first four chapters, or at least a first draft of the first four...
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Day against DRM and this book's copyright
Hooray for O'Reilly, who are giving away ebooks half-price in celebration of the FSF's "Day against DRM"! When I was first speaking to publishers about this book, I was a bit nervous. I'm very intersed...
View ArticleA lovely review! "like sitting down to pair-program with the author"
Jason, whom I met at PyCon this year, wrote a lovely review of my book on the O'Reily site. I'm very grateful because I think he actually helped me to see some things I didn't realise myself about the...
View ArticleWhat to say about deployment?
My book has got to the stage of a minimum viable site. I want the next chapter to be about actually deploying the site, even though it's ridiculously early -- to encourage the habit of "deploy early,...
View ArticleUsing the built-in views and forms for new user registration in Django
Have been digging into the built-in forms and views from django.contrib.auth. I always knew you could get generic views for login, logout, even password reset, but I didn't know you could actually...
View ArticleHow to unit test tornado ioloop callbacks
WARNING: this is not battle-tested wisdom of a massively experienced tornado tester. Today was the first time we ever tried to test something that actually uses the ioloop, and we've probably got it...
View ArticleTDD videos from EuroPython 2013, mine and others
I can't believe the videos are already up! Here's a few links: My usual TDD/Django Tutorial now featuring the example from the book! People's favourite bit seemed to be when I stand on the chair... Me...
View ArticleFast tests are useless, hot lava be damned
tl;dr: I think there's a real danger that striving for an ultrafast test suite, will lead you to overly mocky, disjointed tests which don't help you catch bugs and don't help you code well. At this...
View ArticleUnit testing fabric scripts for deployment
In chapter 8 of my book I introduce a fabric script as a way of automating the deployment of our example app. You can see the section where I do so here. After 7 chapters of building everything...
View ArticleTesting Django Class-Based (Generic) Views
This blog post is a first rough draft of a planned appendix to my book. It follows on from Chapter 9, which is all about forms and validation. You can take a look at it here If you want to check out...
View ArticleUnit testing Ajax calls: if you're not using a mocking library, it's a world...
tl;dr: I found myself going through increasing contortions trying to TDD some JavaScript code with Ajax in. Once I started using sinon.js, all the pain went away. Folks, don’t try to roll your own...
View ArticleHow to log exceptions to stderr in Django
Here's a common set of questions about Django: How do I get django to log errors to stderr? Why can't I see Django exceptions in the console? How do I get Django to log exceptions? How to print debug...
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Book upgraded to Django 1.7!
In a (futile) attempt to future-proof the book, I decided to upgrade it to Django 1.7. Here's how that went down. Overview Unsurprisingly, the biggest change was to do with migrations. Like any new...
View ArticleKent Beck on the limits of TDD
For anyone that's been following the DHH / #isTDDDead controversy, or for anyone interested in what the limits of TDD are. Kent Beck (the godfather) had some really good reflections on what he was...
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The print book is available!
My copy of the print edition arrived in the post! I am my own customer... (OK that actually happened last month. This post is a little late. I was distracted by Oscons and stuff!) Anyway, that's it,...
View ArticleHow to get Selenium to wait for page load after a click
Oft-heard is the folorn cry... Every so often you get bitten by a weird behaviour in one of your Selenium tests. You tell it to click a link, and then you ask it something about the new page, and it...
View ArticleTest-Driving a docker-based Postgres service using py.test
[Cross-posted on the PythonAnywhere blog] We've been working on incorporating a Postgres database service into PythonAnywhere, and we decided to make it into a bit of a standalone project. The shiny is...
View ArticleDecorators!
Someone recently wrote to me asking about decorators, and saying they found them a bit confusing. Here's a post based on the email I replied to them with. The best way to understand decorators is to...
View ArticleBDD with Django and Behave
I've started working on a new appendix for the book, which is meant to be an intro to BDD. Will you head on over to the online version of the book and tell me what you think? BDD appendix on Chimera If...
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[OT] HiDPI on Ubuntu with a Samsung Ativ 9
This post isn't about TDD, but I just wanted to gather some notes into one place about how to get Hi-DPI working on Ubuntu. I found other sources but my hope is that this will bring all the important...
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[OT] Autumn Leaves
To my usual readers that come hear for TDD, apologies, this is off-topic, normal service will resume shortly. I was in an autumnal mood yesterday, and found myself listening to 3 different versions of...
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Better tests for Redis integrations with redislite
A colleague and I were staring at some ugly, mocky tests for our redis integration the other day, when I remembered someone at Pycon last year showing me a cool library called redislite -- basically, a...
View ArticleTesting, async, asyncio, and performance
I recently did some experimenting with asyncio, and wanted to report back on how I got on with writing tests for it. While I was at it I was also able to compare its performance with a couple of other...
View ArticleIntermediate TDD workshops in London and Portland
After many successful years of running my beginners' TDD/Django tutorial, I thought it might be time to have a crack at some more intermediate-level topics, so I'm announcing a couple of workshops. the...
View ArticleYour feedback required re: a new edition
Mozilla has announced that they are retiring the Persona project, which I use in the book from chapter 15 onwards. This is sad news, because it was a great project, but also because it's going to break...
View ArticleCoaches needed for Python Bootcamp @ Pycon US in Portland next week.
Coming to Pycon? Want to help some beginners to get to grips with Python, and get the most out of the conference? I need your help! Having observed the surprising number of beginners to be found at...
View ArticleEuroPython 2016 call for beginners' day coaches.
Coming to EuroPython? Will you be there by the Sunday before it all starts? (the 17th) Want to help some beginners to get to grips with Python, and get the most out of the conference? I need your...
View ArticlePlans for the second edition
The second edition was mostly prompted by the announcement by Mozilla that they were shutting down Persona in November 2016. Given that it would affect almost all the chapters from 15 thru to 21, it...
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Second Edition update: Virtualenvs, Django 1.10, REST APIs, cleaner FTs...
A brief update on my progress for the second edition. Getting there! Virtualenvs all the way down. In the first edition, I made the judgement call that telling people to use virtualenvs at the very...
View ArticleUpgraded to Selenium 3! (and Geckodriver)
Selenium 3 and Geckodriver Selenium 3 came out earlier this year, and the Mozilla project, those wonderful technohippies, have been pushing the standard forward (did someone say "bleeding edge"?), and...
View ArticleLatest release (the last big one?): Python 3.6, Django 1.11 beta
Hi all! A brief overview of changes in the latest version, with hopefully a few pointers for people half-way through the book and looking to adapt. Python 3.6 and Django 1.11b: minimal changes, other...
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Second edition is out! Reviews please!
I'm still not great at selfies... Here you get two for the price of one tho. The second edition is officially out! on Amazon.com on Amazon.co.uk on ebooks.com (DRM-free) on Safari Thanks to everyone...
View ArticleSpeeding up Django unit tests with SQLite, keepdb and /dev/shm
Here's the tldr version: DATABASES = { 'default': { 'ENGINE': 'your db settings as normal', [...] 'TEST': { # this gets you in-memory sqlite for tests, which is fast 'ENGINE':...
View ArticleA Pytest pattern: using "parametrize" to customise nested fixtures.
The problem: customisable fixtures in pytest Let's say you're running along merrily with some fixtures that create database objects for you: @pytest.fixture def supplier(db): s = Supplier(...
View ArticlePython Architecture Stuff: do we need more?
I've been learning lots of new stuff about application architecture recently, and I want to get a sense from you, dear reader, of whether these ideas are of interest, and whether we should try and...
View ArticleNew Book Excerpt: On Coupling and Abstractions
At MADE.com i’ve been working on a new book with the chief architect, Bob Gregory, in which we talk about application architecture and design. What follows is an excerpt, a standalone chapter in which...
View ArticleCosmic Python
Folks I've written a new book!Along with my coauthor Bob, we are proud to release "Architecture Patterns with Python", which you can find out more about at cosmicpython.com.The cosmic soubriquet is a...
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