Planetpython

This post was first sent to my newsletter on March 19th, 2021. You really ought to subscribe :) I blame Mahe for this post. Hey, Jason! Can you please write an article on how to build a website like yours, where I can post my blogs? Check out her blogs, here and here. This one is squarely aimed at all the young ones, who are convinced that they need to be writing. (Maybe, it was me who convinced you, in the first place.) You are young (or like me, forever young) and broke (also like me). You need a place for your thoughts to call home. You need a place to write, and grow and focus more on what you want to say about life and what you study or what you work at, or the portfolio/showcase of thoughts you will slowly build. ...

*Update: 15/01/2021. It’s done. I moved everything and it all seems to be working. If something is broken, let me know, on [the fediverse][cbj], or mailing me at jason at this domain. To my tech posse, no there is no forwarding of old links happening. The site is too small and I have no time. Nobody is going to miss this. And to that one little friend, who noticed that the site was dead and actually cried, I love you.* Happy New Year and welcome to the first newsletter of the year :) ...

My plan for the new year … A final thought from Atomic Habits as we start the new year: “Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are. The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader. The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner. The goal is not to learn an instrument, the goal is to become a musician. ...

Could not focus much on programming today. So decided on doing things with Python programs. Nikola Upgrade I use Nikola to generate both my websites. It is an extremely easy to use, no fuss static site generator, which is easy on my server’s resources. Version 8.1.2 was released a few hours ago and I hopped on and installed it. I follow a slightly unconventional upgrade path, because I was terrified of breaking my server in the early days, when I was still learning about how to go about installing things on servers. ...

I started playing with a way to control Git via Python. Kushal had asked me to write a program, that would show me the local git branches. So here it is! I call it Git the Branch. (painfully, punny, I know :)) And now I realise why he asked me to do this. The program itself is trivial. Here’s the code on my code repo, Gitlab, and Github. It just consists of me using GitPython to access the current folder via a GitPython Repo object. And then querying it for its branches. ...

Update, 2020/11/13: This has been working beautifully! I love the poems as they show up in my feed. This is a tiny little niche thing, I built all for my ownsome. It all started, when I got hooked on reading the daily poem, on the Poetry Foundation page. Learning Python as I am, I wondered if there was a way to have it come to my RSS reader. And so Poemfeed is a tiny little utility that does just that for me. ...