Blue Sky On Mars

Last month, I introuced Testido, a unittest extension that removes the need to write TestSuites by hand and simplifies some testing. To be in line with TurboGears, for which Testido was originally created, the package has been renamed TestGears.

Here are the changes between Testido 0.1 and TestGears 0.2:

* unittest.TestCase instances are collected regardless of whether their names begin with “test”. (Thanks to Robert Brewer for the report.)
* Now calls setup_module(module) and teardown_module(module) as in py.test.

Python

TurboGears brings together four major pieces to create an easy to install, easy to use web megaframework. It covers everything from front end (MochiKit JavaScript for the browser, Kid for templates in Python) to the controllers (CherryPy) to
the back end (SQLObject).

The TurboGears project is focused on providing documentation and integration with these tools without losing touch with the communities that already exist around those tools.

TurboGears is easy to use for a wide range of web applications.

To get a quick idea of what TurboGears is like, take a look at the 20 Minute Wiki tutorial and screencast. The total screencast with brief intro and conclusion did take a little over 23 minutes, but it’s close to 20 minutes

A big thanks to Remi Delon, Ian Bicking, Bob Ippolito, Ryan Tomayko, Phillip Eby and the many other contributors who have provided all of these great tools.

Software Development, TurboGears

I thought it would be worthwhile to post a note about the first meeting of the Michigan Python Users Group, which was last night.

Including myself, we had 11 in attendance, which I thought was quite good! The mailing list is up to 26 members, so all in all we’re off to a good start membership-wise.

The members that were present last night have varying levels of Python experience and have used different combinations of tools. So, there’s a whole bunch we can profitably talk about. As a sign of the fact that there was plenty to talk about, the meeting ran for 2 hours.

Steve Kryskalla gave a good presentation showing off how easy it is to generate graphics on-the-fly using PIL with standard Python CGI. I haven’t needed to generate images in Python, so seeing PIL’s API up close was interesting for me.

I’m going to skip talking about my presentation for now.

Mark Ramm hosted us at the Humantech office, which is very nice and has an excellent meeting room for this type of meeting. We didn’t make too much of a mess and Mark has invited us back next month.

So, if you’re in southeastern lower Michigan and have Python topics you’d like to toss around with others, now is a great time to join the mailing list! We’ll be starting to decide next month’s agenda soon, I’d imagine.

Python

In May, I wrote Poor Weight Gain: A Cautionary Tale to stress how important it is to do your own research before accepting a negative diagnosis. As much as a good doctor knows, it’s impossible for one person to know it all. A letter received by Google from parents of a premie twin that were told he needed a blood transfusion talks about a very serious scenario in which doing a search on Google avoided a dangerous procedure.

I do wonder at what point it becomes standard operating procedure for medical staff to do searches to find the latest information before prescribing such a treatment. That would seem to be more productive than less-educated parents doing the searches. But, ultimately, we are our own best advocates for great health care, so it will always pay to be in the know ourselves.

Parenting

Skype had 2004 revenue of $7 million, and projects 2005 revenue of $60 million. Not earnings, but revenue… this makes the $2.6 billion that eBay is paying to acquire Skype quite remarkable. Skype does have powerful network effects going, though, and they will not prove easy to dethrone. Just like eBay. I’m sure that’s where the attraction is, but the purchase amount just boggles the mind.

One thing I forgot to mention initially when I put this post up: eBay is paying $1.3 billion in cash. This isn’t the stock-for-stock hocus pocus that went on in the late ’90s. The people who funded Skype get to walk away with real euros the day the transaction closes.

There must be something there, though. After all, Blazing Things’ phone number comes from Skype In.

Money

Congrats to Ian Landsman, a felllow micro ISV, who has just released the beta of HelpSpot, his help desk software. Woot! There’s nothing like the feeling of shipping software.

Technology

I recommended Deer Park a few weeks ago, and now the official Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 is out! A word of warning, however: the Web Developer extension has not yet been updated for 1.5. And, for me, after I ran 1.5 on my Mac, my Deer Park alpha no longer sees extensions. So, I’m basically left without Web Developer until it’s updated. I’m sure that will be soon, but this is something to keep in mind if you’re a heavy user of Web Developer.

Update: the Web Developer extension has been updated to support Firefox 1.5 beta.

Technology

Apparently, encyclopedias and dictionaries will sometimes include fake entries to allow them to identify works that are copying their own. The New Yorker talks about one such case in the New Oxford American Dictionary. The word, as of 9/9/2005, is up over 800 hits on Google. The article is interesting… not only does it reveal the word, but it also talks about the pain involved in tracking it down. Luckily, the publishers were kind enough to confirm the word after presented with the results of the investigation.

Funny

I’ve been meaning to write up a review of Call To Action by Bryan Eisenberg and Jeffrey Eisenberg for some time. Meanwhile, in between the time that I read Call To Action and today, Seth Godin has released his KnockKnock ebook for free. I decided to review the two at the same time, because there is a lot of overlap.

I discovered Call To Action through Seth Godin’s blog, and wrote an early opinion of it back in June. At 70 pages in, I was underwhelmed. Thankfully, the book picked up after that point and I really started to get into it. I even sent a note to Ian Landsman toward the end of June saying that the book was a must read.

Call To Action is all about conversion: getting the somewhat random people that show up at your site to do whatever it is you want them to do (buy something, read something, download something). They use many real life examples to talk about good strategies for doing this. One big takeaway I got was that relying on a site search engine is a bad idea. If someone resorts to the search engine, your primary navigation has failed them. And, once they’re at the search engine, there’s a good chance they’re going to end up leaving your site.

The Eisenbergs also stress the testing of your ideas to see what actually works. This is something that comes up in many areas (including software development). If it’s fairly easy to test, why just go on a hunch about what the problem is?

Call To Action is a fine book with important ideas, but you can get the same important ideas in the free and far more succinct Knock Knock.

Godin’s ebook weighs in a 41 pages, including unobtrusive ads, colorful screenshots and pleasantly easy-on-the-eyes text.

By the time you’ve hit page 300 of Call To Action, you’re starting to think “all right, all right, I get it. Now leave me to work.” Many business books seem to have a problem with repetition. It’s like they need to fill pages so that you feel like you’re getting your money’s worth.

Sure, Knock Knock doesn’t go into some of the detail that Call To Action does. There are no references to stats and studies, for example. But, in my opinion, the most important thing from both of these books is the idea that you’ve got to get the people that come to your website to do something, and all of your efforts in site building should be focused on that.

Now that I’ve given the idea away, you don’t have to read either book. I’d still recommend reading Knock Knock, however. Being told something is not the same as seeing it for yourself. Godin’s text and examples do a good job in making the point, and Knock Knock is easy to read over lunch (that’s what I did).

In case it’s not clear by now, unless you’ve got a website that’s already converting 90% of visitors, I highly recommend reading Knock Knock by Seth Godin.

Product Management

Michigan Python Users Group
First meeting!

Wednesday, September 14, 2005
7PM

At the Humantech office in Ann Arbor.

Agenda:

* Introductions and discussion about how people are using Python currently
* Steve Kryskalla will talk about creation of random and dynamic
images in CGI scripts
* Kevin Dangoor will talk about developing webapps with CherryPy and SQLObject

If you’re interested and can make it, please sign up for the michipug
group and let us know.

Directions to the Humantech office are available.

See you there!

Python