Python on Codex.org

How good is Pop!_OS in 2020?

Sat, 10 Oct 2020 13:08:15 -0400

I have been using MX_linux, and while I think the premise behind it is good, the implementation falls a bit flat. As someone that has used Linux for years, I was avoiding using my small and light laptop because I did not want to deal with the system that was running it. That is not a good sign.

So, I decided that I was going to install a new Linux distro on my system and get back to writing and doing things. Out of curiosity I dropped in to distrowatch to see what the flavor of the month was currently. To my surprise I saw MX_Linux on the top. After the issues I have had with it, that was interesting to see. But, sitting at spot number 5 was Pop!_OS. Huh? I had heard of it, but thought that is was some simplified version for kids. I was wrong.

Trying to Help Other Learn Programming

Tue, 12 May 2020 22:34:39 -0400

Having worked in the industry for a very long time, sometimes I forget how much I have learned (and forgotten) over the years. What seems trivial now, was once a complex idea that I had to wrap my head around, and after learning the fundamentals, there always seemed to be more to learn. This was at, in my mind, a golden age for learning computer systems and how to code. Installing Linux was not what it is today with flashing installers and disk configurators. Heck, X-windows did not start by default and you had to fiddle with configuration setting for ages to get a gui environment up to work in.

Should I stop work on CfnMason or any project?

Sun, 19 Apr 2020 08:55:09 -0400

Off and on for years, and at various companies, I have developed various tools to manage complex AWS CloudFormation templates and stacks. This came out of the lack of tooling that was associated with CloudFormation itself. It was not that CFN was bad, (it is notoriously picky) it is just that it was designed with the intention of being a way to treat your infrastructure in code based manner. That is really not true. CFN was created as a templating language with defined spec.

How to configure environment for Python Poetry based project.

Wed, 25 Dec 2019 14:36:20 -0500

How do I get started?
#

I recently switched over to Poetry as a package manager for my project CfnMason. ( CfnMason is a tool related to CloudFormation stack management, but you can read about that on the Readme as it is updated. ) The question is, how do you use Poetry when you are working on a project across multiple machines and operating systems. I guess I am going to attempt to address the issue.

Setting up the cfnmason project for Python

Sun, 24 Nov 2019 08:17:22 -0500

Cfnmason is yet another tool that can be used to manipulate cloudformation stacks. It is not designed to be a replacement for CloudFormation like Terraform, but as a means of making building and managing them easier. I had written a version of this ages ago in Ruby, but with most of my work now being in Python, I am creating a new version in Python. As I have never created an exportable Python package, this will track the process of building and releasing a new PyPi package.

How do I setup a new python project?

Wed, 13 Nov 2019 21:27:23 -0500

Python prides itself on there only being one best way of doing things. However, if you have ever had the desire to create a package that can be distributed in python, then you may have run into some frustration. Out of the box, there does not appear to be a single clear concise way of creating a new project. After hearing over and over again, that the correct way in Python should be obvious, in this area, it seems that this is definitely not the case.

Getting Started with AWS Step Functions Part I

Sat, 22 Dec 2018 22:57:19 -0500

AWS came out with Step Functions a few years ago, and up until recently, I have not had the opportunity to dive in and give them a try. Yes, I could build my own pipeline or state machine, but the idea behind Step Functions is that it does most of the heavy lifting for you. That, and it ties into other AWS services. As such, I decided to dive into getting started, and looked at the demo options and walkthroughs that were available. None of them met my needs, so I rolled my own.

Writing Tech Blogs are Hard Work

Mon, 19 Nov 2018 21:31:23 -0500

I once read an article that said more people need to write technical blogs. That the problem with much of the technology field was that people did not write in-depth articles on the stuff that they are doing. And, if more people were able to take the time and post a blog entry here and there we would all be better for it. As nice as that sounds, I have to say that writing technical posts are difficult, time consuming, and can quickly go out of date.

Configuring AWSCLI and Python on Windows

Mon, 22 Oct 2018 20:28:29 -0400

Trying and doing stuff on a Windows 10 machine has become a rather interesting experiment. It started as a place to be able to play video games and have access to a few programs that are not easily available on Linux, to a test of seeing if I could now do all the things on Windows 10 that I could do on Linux.

Turns out, I wanted to test out the Cloud Directory service from AWS. I figured the 2 easiest ways to do this would be via the AWS CLI and Python. It did not occur to me that I had neither of these installed until I opened up Cmder.exe and typed [code light=”true”]aws[/code] and then [code gutter=”false”]python[/code] and both came back with the not found.

Issues with Ubuntu’s Startup Disk Creator for non-debian ISOs

Sat, 07 Apr 2018 08:20:31 -0400

Let me start with the scenario that led me into issues with the Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator. I had been running Ubuntu GNOME, a flavor of Ubuntu that was focused on a mostly vanilla install of Gnome on top of Ubuntu. Well, Ubuntu was finally getting rid of the Unity desktop, so the spin off that I had been using was no longer going to be updated. Fair enough.

I had Ubuntu installed, and I wanted to give Fedora a try (it has been a while), so I just needed to create a bootable USB stick. Normally I would use dd, but Ubuntu has a tool, and I thought sure, let’s try this gui tool. Quick and easy. That led me down the rabbit hole that you see here.