Test & Code

Latest Episodes:

90: Dynamic Scope Fixtures in pytest 5.2 - Anthony Sottile Oct 11, 2019

Show notes

pytest 5.2 was just released, and with it, a cool fun feature called dynamic scope fixtures. Anthony Sottile so tilly is one of the pytest core developers, so I thought it be fun to have Anthony describe this new feature for us.

We also talk about parametrized testing and really what is fixture scope and then what is dynamic scope.

Special Guest: Anthony Sottile.

Links:

pytest changelog
pytest fixtures
dynamic scope fixtures
episode 82: pytest - favorite features since 3.0
the pytest book — Python Testing with pytest

89: Improving Programming Education - Nicholas Tollervey Sep 28, 2019

Show notes

Nicholas Tollervey is working toward better ways of teaching programming. His projects include the Mu Editor, PyperCard, and CodeGrades. Many of us talk about problems with software education. Nicholas is doing something about it.

Special Guest: Nicholas Tollervey.

Links:

Code With Mu — a simple Python editor for beginner programmers
Made With Mu — A blog to celebrate projects that use the Mu Python code editor to create cool stuff.
PyperCard — Easy GUIs for All
CodeGrades

88: Error Monitoring, Crash Reporting, Performance Monitoring - JD Trask Sep 20, 2019

Show notes

Tools like error monitoring, crash reporting, and performance monitoring are tools to help you create a better user experience and are fast becoming crucial tools for web development and site reliability. But really what are they? And when do you need them?

You've built a cool web app or service, and you want to make sure your customers have a great experience.

You know I advocate for utilizing automated tests so you find bugs before your customers do. However, fast development lifecycles, and quickly reacting to customer needs is a good thing, and we all know that complete testing is not possible. That's why I firmly believe that site monitoring tools like logging, crash reporting, performance monitoring, etc are awesome for maintaining and improving user experience.

John-Daniel Trask, JD, the CEO of Raygun, agreed to come on the show and let me ask all my questions about this whole field.

Special Guest: John-Daniel Trask.

87: Paths to Parametrization - from one test to many Sep 11, 2019

Show notes

There's a cool feature of pytest called parametrization.
It's totally one of the superpowers of pytest.

It's actually a handful of features, and there are a few ways to approach it.
Parametrization is the ability to take one test, and send lots of different input datasets into the code under test, and maybe even have different output checks, all within the same test that you developed in the simple test case.

Super powerful, but something since there's a few approaches to it, a tad tricky to get the hang of.

Links:

git branch — -a : list all branches, -r : just remotes
pytest changelog
pytest deprecations and removals
Python Testing with pytest — Test function parametrization is in chapter 2. Fixture parametrization is in chapter 3.
Parametrizing test functions — pytest documentation
pytest fixtures — pytest documentation

86: Teaching testing best practices with 4 testing maxims - Josh Peak Sep 06, 2019

Show notes

You've incorporated software testing into your coding practices and know from experience that it helps you get your stuff done faster with less headache.

Awesome.

Now your colleagues want in on that super power and want to learn testing.

How do you help them?

That's where Josh Peak is. He's helping his team add testing to their workflow to boost their productivity.

That's what we're talking about today on Test & Code.

Josh walks us through 4 maxims of developing software tests that help grow your confidence and proficiency at test writing.

Special Guest: Josh Peak.

Links:

85: Speed Up Test Suites - Niklas Meinzer Aug 26, 2019

Show notes

Good software testing strategy is one of the best ways to save developer time and shorten software development delivery cycle time.

Software test suites grow from small quick suites at the beginning of a project to larger suites as we add tests, and the time to run the suites grows with it.

Fortunately, pytest has many tricks up it's sleave to help shorten those test suite times.

Niklas Meinzer is a software developer that recentely wrote an article on optimizing test suites. In this episode, I talk with Niklas about the optimization techniques discussed in the article and how they can apply to just about any project.

Special Guest: Niklas Meinzer.

Links:

Profiling and improving the runtime of a large pytest test suite | Niklas Meinzer

84: CircuitPython - Scott Shawcroft Aug 20, 2019

Show notes

Adafruit enables beginners to make amazing hardware/software projects.
With CircuitPython, these projects can now use Python.

The combination of Python's ease of use and Adafruit's super cool hardware and a focus on a successful beginner experience makes learning to write code that controls hardware super fun.

In this episode, Scott Shawcroft, the project lead, talks about the past, present, and future of CircuitPython, and discusses the focus on the beginner.

We also discuss contributing to the project, testing CircuitPython, and many of the cool projects and hardware boards that can use CircuitPython, and Blinka, a library to allow you to use "CircuitPython APIs for non-CircuitPython versions of Python such as CPython on Linux and MicroPython," including Raspberry Pi.

Special Guest: Scott Shawcroft.

Links:

CircuitPython
Downloads — All the products that run CircuitPython
Learning Guides with CircuitPython
Loading CircuitPython on Circuit Playground Express
Adafruit Discord Server
Scott Shawcroft (@tannewt) / Twitter
Adafruit-Blinka

83: PyBites Code Challenges behind the scenes - Bob Belderbos Aug 16, 2019

Show notes

Bob Belderbos and Julian Sequeira started PyBites a few years ago.
They started doing code challanges along with people around the world and writing about it.

Then came the codechalleng.es platform, where you can do code challenges in the browser and have your answer checked by pytest tests. But how does it all work?

Bob joins me today to go behind the scenes and share the tech stack running the PyBites Code Challenges platform.

We talk about the technology, the testing, and how it went from a cool idea to a working platform.

Special Guest: Bob Belderbos.

Links:

82: pytest - favorite features since 3.0 - Anthony Sottile Jul 31, 2019

Show notes

Anthony Sottile is a pytest core contributor, as well as a maintainer and contributor to
many other projects. In this episode, Anthony shares some of the super cool features of pytest that have been added since he started using it.

We also discuss Anthony's move from user to contributor, and how others can help with the pytest project.

Special Guest: Anthony Sottile.

Links:

pytest documentation
pytest Changelog
pytest API Reference
sponsor pytest
getting started contributing to pytest
the book: Python Testing with pytest — The fastest way to learn pytest

81: TDD with flit Jul 17, 2019

Show notes

In the last episode, we talked about going from script to supported package.
I worked on a project called subark and did the packaging with flit.

Today's episode is a continuation where we add new features to a supported package and how to develop and test a flit based package.

Covered:

viewing stages of a project with git tags
flit support for editable installs
flit description entry in pyproject.toml to put README on pypi.
development dependencies in pyproject.toml
editor layout for optimal TDD-ing
test case grouping
modifications to traditional TDD that helps me develop faster.

code and command snippets from episode:

For git checkout of versions:

$ git clone https://github.com/okken/submark.git $ cd submark $ python3 -m venv venv --prompt submark $ source ./bin/activate (submark) $ git checkout v0.1 ... etc ... (submark) $ git checkout v0.7

To grab the latest again:

(submark) $ git checkout master

pyproject.toml change for README to show up on pypi:

[tool.flit.metadata] ... description-file = "README.md" ...

Adding dev dependencies to pyproject.toml:

[tool.flit.metadata.requires-extra] test = ["pytest", "pytest-cov", "tox"]

Installing in editable mode (in top level repo directory). works in mac, linux, windows:

(submark) $ flit install --pth-file

or for mac/linux:

(submark) $ flit install -s

Links: