Alex Gaynor is a software resilience engineer focused on building reliable, secure systems across government, industry, and open source. He writes about software security, serialization, benchmarks, and the economics of open-source infrastructure.
121 articles from this blog
A personal recap of the first two days at PyCon 2010, covering the Language Summit and key Python community discussions.
Compares the committer models and development processes of three Python projects: Unladen Swallow, PyPy, and Django.
Analysis of Facebook's HipHop PHP compiler, discussing its design, performance goals, and limitations compared to dynamic language implementations.
Explores how open source software development embodies a perfect form of democracy through the power of forking and community consent.
A programmer argues that innate talent, particularly intelligence, is a significant factor in programming skill, contrasting with the 'hard work over talent' viewpoint.
A review of 'Dive into Python 3', a book for programmers learning Python, covering its content, style, and availability.
Announcing django-wsgi, a package to bridge Django and the WSGI world, allowing Django views/URLConfs to be exposed as WSGI apps and vice versa.
A developer announces moving their blog to a custom Django-based platform, thanking contributors for hosting and design.
Explains how to use a Python metaclass to solve recursive class definition issues when modeling a C++ API, similar to Django's approach.
A beginner's guide to writing basic tests for Django applications, covering view responses and form handling.
Explains Django's migration strategy from Python 2 to Python 3, detailing version support deprecation and future compatibility plans.
Explains the removal of the Meta.using option in Django's multiple database support and the search for a better, more reusable API.
A final review of the 'Python Essential Reference' book, highlighting its in-depth coverage of concurrency and network programming.
A guide on how to file effective bug reports and feature requests for open-source software projects, using Django as an example.
Explains how to use the PLY parser generator with a custom, hand-written lexer instead of PLY's built-in lexer.
A 2009 benchmark comparing CPython, Unladen Swallow, and PyPy performance on a Mandelbulb application, analyzing JIT patch results.
A software developer contrasts the theoretical CS concepts learned in college with practical skills gained through professional and open-source work.
A developer details two performance optimizations for Unladen Swallow, a Python implementation, focusing on argument parsing and JIT compilation.
Announcing a Django library for generating histogram reports in the admin interface, grouped by date fields.
A technical guide on writing a custom lexer by hand, covering structure, state management, and test-driven development.
