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Today we are talking about Producing content with Drupal, How Drupal can help content producers, and ways it could be better with guest Jerry Ta. We’ll also cover Stage File Proxy as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/464

Topics

• Brief overview of Urban Institute using Drupal
• What are the day to day responsibilities of a content producer
• Layout Builder or Paragraphs
  • What is your opinion
• You've been in content production for almost 2 decades, what was your first website editing tool.
• How long have you been using Drupal
• What is your number one wish the Drupal community would solve
• Drupalcon
  • What value do you look for for a content producer
• What is the hardest part of using Drupal
• Starshot reaction
• Predictions for Drupal in 5 years for content producers

Resources

• Modules for replacing files on Drupal - , Media Entity File Replace, etc.
  • File Replace
  • Media Entity File Replace
  • File Field Replace
• Content Sync
• Tokens with CKEditor module
• Shortcode
• Common Spot
• Scheduled transitions
• Experience builder
  • https://drupal.slack.com/archives/C072JMEPUS1
  • https://www.drupal.org/project/experience_builder
• Starshot
  • https://drupal.slack.com/archives/C072BF486FN
  • https://www.drupal.org/project/starshot

Guests

Jerry Ta - joshmiller

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Josh Miller - joshmiller

MOTW Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to work on code or configuration changes to your Drupal site in a non-production environment, without having to copy over all the images and other content files? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Stage File Proxy
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Jan 2011 by netaustin, by recent releases are by Stephen Mustgrave, who listeners will probably recognize from the Needs Review initiative, among his many other Drupal contributions
  • Versions available: 7.x-1.10, 3.0.0-alpha2, and 3.1.0, the last of which works with Drupal 10.3 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation - not a lot, but it has been the subject of numerous blog posts over the years
  • Number of open issues: 15 open issues, 2 of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 16,710 sites
• Module features and usage
  • Once you have Stage File Proxy site up on your non-production site, when the environment gets a request for a content file it doesn’t have like an image, it will query the production site to create a local copy
  • It also has a mode where those requests are served 301 redirects to their location on the production server, so no files are ever copied
  • Once you have the module installed, you can set the origin website URL using the admin UI, using a drush variable-set command, or you can add a line to your settings.php file.
  • Also, if you have simple HTTP authentication set up on the site you want to pull from (for example using the Shield module), you can add URL-encoded versions of the username and password to the origin URL, and the module will still be able to copy down the files.
  • This module was previously covered in this podcast way back in episode #33, but I thought it was worth bring back because it is so useful for working on site locally or across non-production environments

Authored by Nadiia Nykolaichuk.

It’s great to have a choice of different options when it comes to creating content pages. In addition to Drupal core’s Layout Builder and CKEditor, you are always free to consider installing alternative contributed tools if that’s what resonates with your team’s preferences. One of the prominent examples is Drupal Gutenberg.

August 2024 Members Newsletter

The lively conversation about the role of data in building and modifying AI systems will continue as the OSI travels to China this month for AI_dev (August 21-23 in Hong Kong) and Open Source Congress (August 25-27 in Beijing). The OSI has been able to chime in on news stories on the topic, several of which are linked here in the newsletter.

Last month the OSI was at the United Nations in New York City for OSPOs for Good, an event that covered key areas of open source policy, as well as emerging examples of ‘Open Source for good’ from across the globe. I participated in a panel on Open Source AI.

Creating an Open Source AI Definition has been an arduous task over the past couple of years, but we know the importance of creating this standard so the freedoms to use, study, share and modify AI systems can be guaranteed. Those are the core tenets of Open Source, and it warrants the dedicated work it has required. Please read about the people who have played key roles in bringing the Definition to life in our Voices of Open Source AI Definition on the blog.

Stefano Maffulli

Executive Director, OSI 

I hold weekly office hours on Fridays with OSI members: book time if you want to chat about OSI’s activities, if you want to volunteer or have suggestions.

News from the OSI OSI at the United Nations OSPOs for Good

From the Research and Advocacy program

Earlier this month the Open Source Initiative participated in the “OSPOs for Good” event promoted by the United Nations in NYC. Read more.

The Open Source Initiative joins CMU in launching Open Forum for AI: A human-centered approach to AI development

From the Research and Advocacy program

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is pleased to share that we are joining the founding team of Open Forum for AI (OFAI), an initiative designed by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Read more

GUAC adopts license metadata from ClearlyDefined

From the License and Legal program

The software supply chain just gained some transparency thanks to an integration of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) project, ClearlyDefined, into GUAC (Graph for Understanding Artifact Composition), an OpenSSF project from the Linux Foundation. Read more.

Better identifying conda packages with ClearlyDefined

From the License and Legal program

ClearlyDefined now provides a new harvester implementation for conda, a popular package manager with a large collection of pre-built packages for various domains, including data science, machine learning, scientific computing and more. Read more.

OSI in the news Can AI even be open source? It’s complicated

OSI at ZDNet

AI can’t exist without open source, but the top AI vendors are unwilling to commit to open-sourcing their programs and data sets. To complicate matters further, defining open-source AI is a messy issue that has yet to be settled. Read more.

Open Source AI: What About Data Transparency?

OSI at The New Stack

AI uses both code and data, and this combination continues to be a challenge for open source, said experts at the United Nations OSPOs for Good Conference. Read more.

A new White House report embraces open-source AI

OSI at ZDNet

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) issued a report supporting open-source and open models to promote innovation in AI, while emphasizing the need for vigilant risk monitoring. Read more.

With Open Source Artificial Intelligence, Don’t Forget the Lessons of Open Source Software

OSI at CISA

While there is not yet a consensus on the definition of what constitutes “open source AI”, the Open Source Initiative, which maintains the “Open Source Definition” and a list of approved OSS licenses, has been “driving a multi-stakeholder process to define an ‘Open Source AI’”. Read more.

Meta inches toward open source AI with new LLaMA 3.1

OSI at ZDNet

Is Meta’s 405 billion parameter model really open source? Depends on who you ask. Here’s how to try out the new engine for yourself​. Read more.

Other news News from OSI affiliates

• Mozilla Foundation: Mozilla’s Policy Vision for the new EU Mandate: Advancing Openness, Privacy, Fair Competition, and Choice for all
• OASIS Open: The biggest names in AI have teamed up to promote AI security
• Apache Software Foundation, Eclipse Foundation, Linux Foundation: How open source attracts some of the world’s top innovators
• Eclipse Foundation: The Eclipse Foundation Announces Agenda and Keynote Speakers for Open Community Experience (OCX 2024), Europe’s Premier Event for Open Source Innovation

News from OpenSource.net

• Open Source takes center stage at United Nations
• Open Source in Europe: Facing the regulatory challenge
• Open Source projects vs products: A strategic approach

Voices of the Open Source AI Definition

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is running a series of stories about a few of the people involved in the Open Source AI Definition (OSAID) co-design process.

• Cailean Osborne
• Hailey Schoelkopf
• Deshni Govender
• Jean-Pierre Lorre

7th annual OSPO and Open Source Management Survey

The TODO Group and Linux Foundation Research, in partnership with Cisco, NGINX, Open Source Initiative, InnerSource Commons, and CHAOSS, are excited to be launching the 7th annual OSPO and Open Source Management survey! Take survey here.

2024 Open Source Software Funding Survey

This survey tries to better understand how organizations fund, contribute to, and support open source software projects. This survey is a collaboration between GitHub, Inc., the Linux Foundation, and researchers from Harvard University. Take survey here.

Events Upcoming events

• AI_dev China (August 21-23, 2024 – Hong Kong)
• Open Source Congress (August 25-27, 2024 – Beijing)
• Open Source Summit Europe (September 16-18, 2024 – Vienna)
• Nerdearla Argentina (September 24-28, 2024 – Buenos Aires)
• SOSS Fusion (October 22-23, 2024 – Atlanta)
• Open Community Experience (October 22-24, 2024 – Mainz)
• All Things Open (October 27-29 – Raleigh)
• OpenForum Academy Symposium (November, 13-14, 2024 – Boston)

Thanks to our sponsors New members and renewals

• Cisco
• Microsoft
• Bloomberg
• SAS
• Intel
• Look to the right

Interested in sponsoring, or partnering with, the OSI? Please see our Sponsorship Prospectus and our Annual Report. We also have a dedicated prospectus for the Deep Dive: Defining Open Source AI. Please contact the OSI to find out more about how your company can promote open source development, communities and software.

Support OSI by becoming a member!

Let’s build a world where knowledge is freely shared, ideas are nurtured, and innovation knows no bounds! 

Join the Open Source Initiative!

Explore how Selwyn Polit, an experienced Drupal developer, created "Drupal at Your Fingertips" to serve as a quick reference guide for seasoned developers. Learn about the book's focus on providing concise, actionable information and how it continues to evolve with the Drupal ecosystem.

Installing the latest version of Python on your computer could be a common requirement for you as a Python programmer. Fortunately, you’ll have a multitude of installation options. For example, you can download the official Python installer from Python.org, use your operating system’s package manager or app store, and more.

In this tutorial, you’ll focus on official CPython distributions, which are generally the best option for learning to program with the language. However, you’ll also learn about a few other distributions, like the one available on Homebrew for macOS users.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to:

• Check whether a version of Python is installed on your system
• Install or update to the latest Python on Windows, macOS, and Linux
• Install Python on mobile devices like phones or tablets
• Use Python on your browser with online interpreters

This tutorial covers installing the latest Python on the most important platforms or operating systems, such as Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. However, it doesn’t cover all the existing Linux distributions, which would be a huge task. Anyway, you’ll find instructions for the most popular distros nowadays.

To get the most out of this tutorial, you should be comfortable using your operating system’s terminal or command line.

Free Bonus: Click here to get a Python Cheat Sheet and learn the basics of Python 3, like working with data types, dictionaries, lists, and Python functions.

Take the Quiz: Test your knowledge with our interactive “Python Installation and Setup” quiz. You’ll receive a score upon completion to help you track your learning progress:

Interactive Quiz

Python Installation and Setup

In this quiz, you'll test your understanding of how to install or update Python on your computer. With this knowledge, you'll be able to set up Python on various operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Windows: How to Check or Get Python

In this section, you’ll learn to check whether Python is installed on your Windows operating system (OS) and which version you have. You’ll also explore three installation options that you can use on Windows.

Note: In this tutorial, you’ll focus on installing the latest version of Python in your current operating system (OS) rather than on installing multiple versions of Python. If you want to install several versions of Python in your OS, then check out the Managing Multiple Python Versions With pyenv tutorial. Note that on Windows machines, you’d have to use pyenv-win instead of pyenv.

For a more comprehensive guide on setting up a Windows machine for Python programming, check out Your Python Coding Environment on Windows: Setup Guide.

Checking the Python Version on Windows

To check whether you already have Python on your Windows machine, open a command-line application like PowerShell or the Windows Terminal.

Follow the steps below to open PowerShell on Windows:

1. Press the Win key.
2. Type PowerShell.
3. Press Enter.

Alternatively, you can right-click the Start button and select Windows PowerShell or Windows PowerShell (Admin). In some versions of Windows, you’ll find Terminal or Terminal (admin).

Note: To learn more about your options for the Windows terminal, check out Using the Terminal on Windows.

With the command line open, type in the following command and press the Enter key:

Windows PowerShell PS> python --version Python 3.x.z Copied!

Using the --version switch will show you the installed version. Note that the 3.x.z part is a placeholder here. In your machine, x and z will be numbers corresponding to the specific version you have installed.

Alternatively, you can use the -V switch:

Windows PowerShell PS> python -V Python 3.x.z Copied!

Using the python -V or python—-version command, you can check whether Python is installed on your system and learn what version you have. If Python isn’t installed on your OS, you’ll get an error message.

Knowing the Python Installation Options on Windows Read the full article at https://realpython.com/installing-python/ »

[ Improve Your Python With 🐍 Python Tricks 💌 – Get a short & sweet Python Trick delivered to your inbox every couple of days. >> Click here to learn more and see examples ]

As I mentioned in a few recent posts, I’ve been working on some significant work in coverage.py to take advantage of new capabilities in Python.

Mark Shannon has been improving the sys.monitoring API so that branch coverage can be done with low overhead. I want to take advantage of that in coverage.py, but I needed to do some refactoring work first. The tests were focused on mapping the complete set of code pathways (which I called arcs), but using low-overhead branch monitoring won’t provide those complete pathways. If the tests continued to focus on them, they would fail with sys.monitoring.

But the complete pathways aren’t actually needed. The useful information is where the branches are, and which branches were taken. That can be measured with sys.monitoring. So a first step was to refactor the tests to focus on branches instead of arcs. That took a while, but is now done.

Not needing all those arcs also meant I could simplify the AST-based parser that found the arcs, removing about 150 lines. I suspect there’s more that could be removed. Maybe it will happen over time. Also, the new code.co_branches() method might make it all obsolete over time.

If you read Coverage at a crossroads on this blog, I talked about using ideas from SlipCover like inserting fake lines with an import hook. Those exotic ideas were appealing in their way, but are no longer needed, and they would have brought a bunch of complexity. With the two new sys.monitoring events, we can get the branch information directly without advanced shenanigans.

There’s more work to do, including attending to incoming bug reports. If you’d like to help, or learn more about any of this, we have a #coverage-py channel in the Python Discord.

The Drupal community has taken another step forward under the Starshot Initiative. Recently, the team concluded a survey aimed at pinpointing the most desired out-of-the-box features and contributed modules for the upcoming ‘Drupal CMS’. This survey targeted ambitious marketers as part of the broader Drupal Starshot strategy, resulting in 60 detailed submissions and over 100 feature suggestions. These insights, now available on Drupal.org thanks to Pamela Barone's announcement, will play a crucial role in shaping the platform’s future.

The feedback received from the survey highlights a strong community interest in several key areas. Among the most frequently mentioned were enhancements to page-building tools, SEO capabilities, improved form builders, and content management functionalities. The desire for better security, media management, and multilingual support also stood out as significant themes. Interestingly, while many of these suggestions align with existing development initiatives, the survey also introduced several fresh ideas that are now under consideration by the Drupal leadership team.

Particularly noteworthy are the suggestions for modules that could elevate Drupal’s out-of-the-box experience. Modules like Metatag, Webform, and Admin Toolbar were repeatedly mentioned and are now being evaluated for possible inclusion in future releases. These modules, known for their functionality and ease of use, could significantly enhance the user experience if integrated into the out-of-the-box Drupal CMS offering.

While the survey is not being treated as a direct vote, it serves as a powerful validation tool. The results ensure that the Drupal development tracks are closely aligned with the needs and expectations of its community. As the leadership team assesses these suggestions, they are keenly aware of the balance between innovation and the consistency of user experience that Drupal is known for.

Curious about the detailed findings and how they might shape the next generation of Drupal? You can dive deeper into the survey results here: Community Demands Enhanced Out-of-the-Box Features in DrupalCMS. As the Starshot Initiative continues to gather momentum, the community eagerly awaits the next steps in this exciting journey.

As we turn our attention to the latest from The Drop Times, the focus has been on the ongoing Drupal Association Board Elections. As part of their "Meet the Candidate" campaign, several candidates have shared their visions and plans for Drupal's future.

Matthew Saunders discusses his candidacy in an interview with Alka Elizabeth, a sub-editor at The Drop Times. Focusing on improving governance, fostering inclusivity, and supporting neurodiverse individuals, Matthew outlines his motivations for running for the Drupal Association Board. His ideas provide valuable insights for voters as the election progresses.

Kevin Quillen, Practice Lead at Velir, brings over 16 years of experience to his candidacy. In his interview with Alka Elizabeth, Kevin emphasizes the importance of modernizing Drupal.org, attracting new developers, and enhancing Drupal's global appeal. His vision for the future could significantly impact the platform’s evolution.

Albert Hughes, Product Owner at Stanford University, offers a unique perspective on expanding Drupal’s reach. His candidacy is grounded in his diverse experiences and a strong commitment to innovation. As the election continues, Albert’s ideas for growth and development resonate with many in the community.

In the final installment of The Drop Times' campaign, Alejandro Moreno Lopez, Partner Manager and Developer Relations at Pantheon, shares his journey within the Drupal community. Alejandro is passionate about reducing the Association's dependency on DrupalCon and fostering collaboration and innovation. His interview provides a compelling case for his candidacy as voting continues until September 5th.

Discover why Drupal's latest product will be called 'Drupal CMS' and not just 'Drupal.' An insightful article authored by Sebin A Jacob, Editor-in-Chief of The Drop Times, explore the strategic decision-making, community feedback, and future implications behind this significant naming shift that redefines the way we think about Drupal's evolution. 

The Drupal Decoupled project, also known as headless Drupal, has introduced a new feature to simplify the adoption and implementation of decoupled architecture. This project, which separates the back-end content management from the front-end display, now leverages "Recipes" and can be easily adopted as a Composer Project Template. Jesús Manuel Olivas, Co-Founder and CEO of Octahedroid and Composabase, recently announced this update.

Morpht has launched its "Content Recommendation Playbook," showcasing how personalized content recommendations using Recombee's service can enhance user experiences. The playbook explains how to integrate these systems into Drupal and GovCMS to deliver tailored content based on user behavior, boosting engagement. 

During DrupalCon Portland 2022, concerns over the sustainability of free software led to the conception of Drupal Forge, a platform aimed at financially supporting project maintainers. The idea, sparked by Webform developer Jacob Rockowitz, was further developed by Darren Oh, who proposed adding a launch button for trial sites on project pages to generate recurring revenue. While the initiative has garnered interest, challenges remain in implementing and scaling this solution.

Sponsorship opportunities for BADCamp 2024, set for October 24-25 in Oakland, California, are now open, offering extensive visibility to organizations within the Drupal community. With packages ranging from $1,000 to $2,000, sponsors can gain exposure through speaking engagements, branding at summits, and hosting social events.

Chattanooga Open Source Camp, featuring DrupalCamp Chattanooga 2024, seeks sponsors for its November 2nd event at Chattanooga State Community College. Sponsorships range from $20 to $2,000, offering opportunities for businesses to gain visibility within the tech community. In-kind sponsorships are also welcomed, with a total event budget of $6,500.

The Drop Times has been named the official Media Partner for DrupalCamp Pune 2024, set for October 19-20 at Yashada, Pune. This partnership will ensure comprehensive coverage of the event, featuring sessions, workshops, and keynotes from industry leaders. Organized by the Drupalers Association Pune, the camp aims to foster innovation, learning, and networking within the Drupal community.

The Splash Awards will debut in Asia during DrupalCon Singapore 2024, with submissions open until September 27. The prestigious event, recognizing excellence in Drupal web development, will culminate in a ceremony on December 9 at the Garden Ballroom, PARKROYAL Collection Marina Bay.

The Drupal CEO Network and the Drupal Association have extended the deadline for the 2024 Drupal Business Survey to September 4th. This annual survey gathers crucial insights from Drupal business leaders, shaping an anonymized industry report to guide strategic decisions. The results will be unveiled at DrupalCon Barcelona 2024, with discussions set for September 25 and 26.

The Aten Design Group will host an online session on August 28, 2024, at 2:00 PM EDT to discuss the recent release of Drupal 11. Seth Hill, Senior Developer at Aten, will lead the session designed for Drupal site owners, content administrators, and developers who want to learn more about the new version and its potential benefits.

We acknowledge that there are more stories to share. However, due to selection constraints, we must pause further exploration for now.

To get timely updates, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. You can also, join us on Drupal Slack at #thedroptimes.

Thank you,
Sincerely
Kazima Abbas
Sub-editor, The DropTimes.

This year, I attended FrOScon for the first time . FrOScon is the biggest conference about free and open-source software in Germany. It takes place every year in Bonn/Siegburg (Germany) at the weekend and is free to attend.

For the first time, I was not at a conference to staff a KDE stand. My employer had a stand there, and it was a great occasion for me to meet some colleagues, fellow KDE, and Matrix contributors.

GnuPG Stand

So I spent the majority of my time at the GnuPG stand and discussing many things with Volker, including KDE PIM and the future of KWallet.

I also meet many Matrix community members and am excited to attend the Matrix Conference next month.

Matrix Stand

All in one, it was a great conference and I hope to see more KDE people there next year and maybe even having out own KDE stand.

<strong>Topics covered in this episode:</strong><br> <ul> <li><strong>Open Source Myths</strong></li> <li><a href="https://astral.sh/blog/uv-unified-python-packaging?featured_on=pythonbytes"><strong>uv 0.3.0 and all the excitement</strong></a></li> <li><a href="https://pythontest.com/top-pytest-plugins/?featured_on=pythonbytes"><strong>Top pytest Plugins</strong></a></li> <li><strong><a href="https://github.com/hbmartin/comparison-hosts-serverless-cloud-function-faas-for-python?tab=readme-ov-file&featured_on=pythonbytes">A comparison of hosts / providers for Python serverless functions</a><a href="https://github.com/hbmartin/comparison-hosts-serverless-cloud-function-faas-for-python?tab=readme-ov-file&featured_on=pythonbytes"> </a><a href="https://github.com/hbmartin/comparison-hosts-serverless-cloud-function-faas-for-python?tab=readme-ov-file&featured_on=pythonbytes">(aka</a><a href="https://github.com/hbmartin/comparison-hosts-serverless-cloud-function-faas-for-python?tab=readme-ov-file&featured_on=pythonbytes"> Faas)</a></strong></li> <li><strong>Extras</strong></li> <li><strong>Joke</strong></li> </ul><a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whaXyRCrrtc' style='font-weight: bold;'data-umami-event="Livestream-Past" data-umami-event-episode="398">Watch on YouTube</a><br> <p><strong>About the show</strong></p> <p>Sponsored by us! Support our work through:</p> <ul> <li>Our <a href="https://training.talkpython.fm/?featured_on=pythonbytes"><strong>courses at Talk Python Training</strong></a></li> <li><a href="https://courses.pythontest.com?featured_on=pythonbytes"><strong>pytest courses and community at PythonTest.com</strong></a></li> <li><a href="https://www.patreon.com/pythonbytes"><strong>Patreon Supporters</strong></a></li> </ul> <p><strong>Connect with the hosts</strong></p> <ul> <li>Michael: <a href="https://fosstodon.org/@mkennedy"><strong>@mkennedy@fosstodon.org</strong></a></li> <li>Brian: <a href="https://fosstodon.org/@brianokken"><strong>@brianokken@fosstodon.org</strong></a></li> <li>Show: <a href="https://fosstodon.org/@pythonbytes"><strong>@pythonbytes@fosstodon.org</strong></a></li> </ul> <p>Join us on YouTube at <a href="https://pythonbytes.fm/stream/live"><strong>pythonbytes.fm/live</strong></a> to be part of the audience. Usually <strong>Monday</strong> at 10am PT. Older video versions available there too.</p> <p>Finally, if you want an artisanal, hand-crafted digest of every week of the show notes in email form? Add your name and email to <a href="https://pythonbytes.fm/friends-of-the-show">our friends of the show list</a>, we'll never share it. </p> <p><strong>Brian #1:</strong> <strong>Open Source Myths</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://infosec.exchange/@joshbressers?featured_on=pythonbytes">Josh Bressers</a></li> <li><a href="https://infosec.exchange/@joshbressers/112845039329832564?featured_on=pythonbytes">Mastodon post kicking off a list of open source myths</a></li> <li><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fzq8I67inb4725EYMhTGHsNhrSUviSU97lFYnt8sgtc/edit?featured_on=pythonbytes">Feedback and additional myths compiled to a doc</a></li> <li>Some favorites <ul> <li>All open source developers live in Nebraska</li> <li>It’s all run by hippies</li> <li>Everything is being rewritten in rust</li> <li>Features are planned</li> <li>If the source code is available, it’s open source</li> <li>A project with no commits for 12 months is abandoned</li> <li>Many eyes make all bugs shallow</li> <li>Open source has worse UX</li> <li>Open source has better UX</li> <li>Open source makes you rich</li> </ul></li> </ul> <p><strong>Michael #2:</strong> <a href="https://astral.sh/blog/uv-unified-python-packaging?featured_on=pythonbytes"><strong>uv 0.3.0 and all the excitement</strong></a></p> <ul> <li>Thanks to Skyler Kasko and John Hagen for the emails.</li> <li><a href="https://simonwillison.net/2024/Aug/20/uv-unified-python-packaging/?featured_on=pythonbytes">Additional write up</a> by Simon Willison</li> <li><a href="https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2024/8/21/harvest-season/?featured_on=pythonbytes">Additional write up</a> by Armin Ronacher</li> <li>End-to-end project management: uv run, uv lock, and uv sync</li> <li>Tool management: uv tool install and uv tool run (aliased to uvx)</li> <li>Python installation: uv python install</li> <li>Script execution: uv can now manage hermetic, single-file Python scripts with inline dependency metadata based on PEP 723.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Brian #3:</strong> <a href="https://pythontest.com/top-pytest-plugins/?featured_on=pythonbytes"><strong>Top pytest Plugins</strong></a></p> <ul> <li>Inspired by (and assisted by) Hugo’s <a href="https://hugovk.github.io/top-pypi-packages/?featured_on=pythonbytes">Top PyPI Packages</a></li> <li>Write up for <a href="https://pythontest.com/pytest/finding-top-pytest-plugins/?featured_on=pythonbytes">Finding the top pytest plugins</a></li> <li>BTW, <a href="https://pypi.org/project/pytest-check/?featured_on=pythonbytes">pytest-check</a> has made it to 25.</li> <li>Same day, <a href="https://micro.webology.dev/2024/08/25/using-claude-sonnet.html?featured_on=pythonbytes">Jeff Triplett throws my code into Claude 3.5 Sonnet and refactors it</a></li> <li>Thanks <a href="https://fosstodon.org/@brianokken/113024832168707843">Jeff Triplett &amp; Hugo for answering how to add Summary and other info</a></li> </ul> <p><strong>Michael #4:</strong> <a href="https://github.com/hbmartin/comparison-hosts-serverless-cloud-function-faas-for-python?tab=readme-ov-file&featured_on=pythonbytes">A comparison of hosts / providers for Python serverless functions</a><a href="https://github.com/hbmartin/comparison-hosts-serverless-cloud-function-faas-for-python?tab=readme-ov-file&featured_on=pythonbytes"> </a><a href="https://github.com/hbmartin/comparison-hosts-serverless-cloud-function-faas-for-python?tab=readme-ov-file&featured_on=pythonbytes">(aka</a><a href="https://github.com/hbmartin/comparison-hosts-serverless-cloud-function-faas-for-python?tab=readme-ov-file&featured_on=pythonbytes"> Faas)</a></p> <ul> <li>Nice feature matrix of all the options, frameworks, costs, and more</li> <li>The WASM ones look particularly interesting to me.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Extras</strong> </p> <p>Brian:</p> <ul> <li><a href="#">When is the next live episode of Python Bytes?</a> - via arewemeetingyet.com <ul> <li>Thanks to Hugo van Kemenade</li> </ul></li> <li>Some <a href="https://github.com/hugovk?featured_on=pythonbytes">more cool projects by Hugo</a> <ul> <li><a href="https://hugovk.github.io/python-logos/?featured_on=pythonbytes">Python Logos</a></li> <li><a href="https://hugovk.github.io/pypi-tools/charts?featured_on=pythonbytes">PyPI Downloads</a> by Python version for various Python tools, in pretty colors</li> <li><a href="https://hugovk.github.io/python-core-devs/?featured_on=pythonbytes">Python Core Developers </a>over time</li> </ul></li> </ul> <p>Michael:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.codeinacastle.com/python-zero-to-hero-2024?featured_on=pythonbytes">Code in a Castle Course event</a> - just a couple of weeks left</li> <li><a href="https://ladybird.org?featured_on=pythonbytes">Ladybird</a>: A truly independent browser</li> <li>“I'm also interested in your video recording setup, would be nice to have that in the extras too :D” <ul> <li><a href="https://obsproject.com?featured_on=pythonbytes">OBS Studio</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.elgato.com/us/en/s/welcome-to-stream-deck?featured_on=pythonbytes">Elgato Streamdeck</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.elgato.com/us/en/p/key-light?featured_on=pythonbytes">Elgato Key light</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve?featured_on=pythonbytes">DaVinci Resolve</a></li> </ul></li> </ul> <p><strong>Joke:</strong> DevOps Support Group</p> <p>via Blaise</p> <ul> <li>Hi, my name is Bob</li> <li><em>Group</em>: Hi Bob</li> <li>I's been 42 days since I last ssh'd into production.</li> <li><em>Group</em>: Applause</li> <li>But only 4 days since I accidentally took down the website</li> <li><em>Someone in back</em>: Oh Bob…</li> </ul>

Integrating with Jira APIs 2024-08-26, by Dariusz Suchojad Overview

Continuing in the series of articles about newest cloud connections in Zato 3.2, this episode covers Atlassian Jira from the perspective of invoking its APIs to build integrations between Jira and other systems.

There are essentially two use modes of integrations with Jira:

1. Jira reacts to events taking place in your projects and invokes your endpoints accordingly via WebHooks. In this case, it is Jira that explicitly establishes connections with and sends requests to your APIs.
2. Jira projects are queried periodically or as a consequence of events triggered by Jira using means other than WebHooks.

The first case is usually more straightforward to conceptualize - you create a WebHook in Jira, point it to your endpoint and Jira invokes it when a situation of interest arises, e.g. a new ticket is opened or updated. I will talk about this variant of integrations with Jira in a future instalment as the current one is about the other situation, when it is your systems that establish connections with Jira.

The reason why it is more practical to first speak about the second form is that, even if WebHooks are somewhat easier to reason about, they do come with their own ramifications.

To start off, assuming that you use the cloud-based version of Jira (e.g. https://example.atlassian.net), you need to have a publicly available endpoint for Jira to invoke through WebHooks. Very often, this is undesirable because the systems that you need to integrate with may be internal ones, never meant to be exposed to public networks.

Secondly, your endpoints need to have a TLS certificate signed by a public Certificate Authority and they need to be accessible on port 443. Again, both of these are something that most enterprise systems will not allow at all or it may take months or years to process such a change internally across the various corporate departments involved.

Lastly, even if a WebHook can be used, it is not always a given that the initial information that you receive in the request from a WebHook will already contain everything that you need in your particular integration service. Thus, you will still need a way to issue requests to Jira to look up details of a particular object, such as tickets, in this way reducing WebHooks to the role of initial triggers of an interaction with Jira, e.g. a WebHook invokes your endpoint, you have a ticket ID on input and then you invoke Jira back anyway to obtain all the details that you actually need in your business integration.

The end situation is that, although WebHooks are a useful concept that I will write about in a future article, they may very well not be sufficient for many integration use cases. That is why I start with integration methods that are alternative to WebHooks.

Alternatives to WebHooks

If, in our case, we cannot use WebHooks then what next? Two good approaches are:

1. Scheduled jobs
2. Reacting to emails (via IMAP)

Scheduled jobs will let you periodically inquire with Jira about the changes that you have not processed yet. For instance, with a job definition as below:

Now, the service configured for this job will be invoked once per minute to carry out any integration works required. For instance, it can get a list of tickets since the last time it ran, process each of them as required in your business context and update a database with information about what has been just done - the database can be based on Redis, MongoDB, SQL or anything else.

Integrations built around scheduled jobs make most sense when you need to make periodic sweeps across a large swaths of business data, these are the "Give me everything that changed in the last period" kind of interactions when you do not know precisely how much data you are going to receive.

In the specific case of Jira tickets, though, an interesting alternative may be to combine scheduled jobs with IMAP connections:

The idea here is that when new tickets are opened, or when updates are made to existing ones, Jira will send out notifications to specific email addresses and we can take advantage of it.

For instance, you can tell Jira to CC or BCC an address such as zato@example.com. Now, Zato will still run a scheduled job but instead of connecting with Jira directly, that job will look up unread emails for it inbox ("UNSEEN" per the relevant RFC).

Anything that is unread must be new since the last iteration which means that we can process each such email from the inbox, in this way guaranteeing that we process only the latest updates, dispensing with the need for our own database of tickets already processed. We can extract the ticket ID or other details from the email, look up its details in Jira and the continue as needed.

All the details of how to work with IMAP emails are provided in the documentation but it would boil down to this:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*- # Zato from zato.server.service import Service class MyService(Service): def handle(self): conn = self.email.imap.get('My Jira Inbox').conn for msg_id, msg in conn.get(): # Process the message here .. process_message(msg.data) # .. and mark it as seen in IMAP. msg.mark_seen()

The natural question is - how would the "process_message" function extract details of a ticket from an email?

There are several ways:

1. Each email has a subject of a fixed form - "[JIRA] (ABC-123) Here goes description". In this case, ABC-123 is the ticket ID.
2. Each email will contain a summary, such as the one below, which can also be parsed:

Summary: Here goes description Key: ABC-123 URL: https://example.atlassian.net/browse/ABC-123 Project: My Project Issue Type: Improvement Affects Versions: 1.3.17 Environment: Production Reporter: Reporter Name Assignee: Assignee Name

1. Finally, each email will have an "X-Atl-Mail-Meta" header with interesting metadata that can also be parsed and extracted:

X-Atl-Mail-Meta: user_id="123456:12d80508-dcd0-42a2-a2cd-c07f230030e5", event_type="Issue Created", tenant="https://example.atlassian.net"

The first option is the most straightforward and likely the most convenient one - simply parse out the ticket ID and call Jira with that ID on input for all the other information about the ticket. How to do it exactly is presented in the next chapter.

Regardless of how we parse the emails, the important part is that we know that we invoke Jira only when there are new or updated tickets - otherwise there would not have been any new emails to process. Moreover, because it is our side that invokes Jira, we do not expose our internal system to the public network directly.

However, from the perspective of the overall security architecture, email is still part of the attack surface so we need to make sure that we read and parse emails with that in view. In other words, regardless of whether it is Jira invoking us or our reading emails from Jira, all the usual security precautions regarding API integrations and accepting input from external resources, all that still holds and needs to be part of the design of the integration workflow.

Creating Jira connections

The above presented the ways in which we can arrive at the step of when we invoke Jira and now we are ready to actually do it.

As with other types of connections, Jira connections are created in Zato Dashboard, as below. Note that you use the email address of a user on whose behalf you connect to Jira but the only other credential is that user's API token previously generated in Jira, not the user's password.

Invoking Jira

With a Jira connection in place, we can now create a Python API service. In this case, we accept a ticket ID on input (called "a key" in Jira) and we return a few details about the ticket to our caller.

This is the kind of a service that could be invoked from a service that is triggered by a scheduled job. That is, we would separate the tasks, one service would be responsible for opening IMAP inboxes and parsing emails and the one below would be responsible for communication with Jira.

Thanks to this loose coupling, we make everything much more reusable - that the services can be changed independently is but one part and the more important side is that, with such separation, both of them can be reused by future services as well, without tying them rigidly to this one integration alone.

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*- # stdlib from dataclasses import dataclass # Zato from zato.common.typing_ import cast_, dictnone from zato.server.service import Model, Service # ########################################################################### if 0: from zato.server.connection.jira_ import JiraClient # ########################################################################### @dataclass(init=False) class GetTicketDetailsRequest(Model): key: str @dataclass(init=False) class GetTicketDetailsResponse(Model): assigned_to: str = '' progress_info: dictnone = None # ########################################################################### class GetTicketDetails(Service): class SimpleIO: input = GetTicketDetailsRequest output = GetTicketDetailsResponse def handle(self): # This is our input data input = self.request.input # type: GetTicketDetailsRequest # .. create a reference to our connection definition .. jira = self.cloud.jira['My Jira Connection'] # .. obtain a client to Jira .. with jira.conn.client() as client: # Cast to enable code completion client = cast_('JiraClient', client) # Get details of a ticket (issue) from Jira ticket = client.get_issue(input.key) # Observe that ticket may be None (e.g. invalid key), hence this 'if' guard .. if ticket: # .. build a shortcut reference to all the fields in the ticket .. fields = ticket['fields'] # .. build our response object .. response = GetTicketDetailsResponse() response.assigned_to = fields['assignee']['emailAddress'] response.progress_info = fields['progress'] # .. and return the response to our caller. self.response.payload = response # ########################################################################### Creating a REST channel and testing it

The last remaining part is a REST channel to invoke our service through. We will provide the ticket ID (key) on input and the service will reply with what was found in Jira for that ticket.

We are now ready for the final step - we invoke the channel, which invokes the service which communicates with Jira, transforming the response from Jira to the output that we need:

$ curl localhost:17010/jira1 -d '{"key":"ABC-123"}' { "assigned_to":"zato@example.com", "progress_info": { "progress": 10, "total": 30 } } $

And this is everything for today - just remember that this is just one way of integrating with Jira. The other one, using WebHooks, is something that I will go into in one of the future articles.

More resources

➤ Python API integration tutorial
➤ What is an integration platform?
➤ Python Integration platform as a Service (iPaaS)
➤ What is an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)? What is SOA?

More blog posts➤

Haruna version 1.2.0 is out with a new footer style.

Availability of other package formats depends on your distro and the people who package Haruna.

Windows version:

• haruna-1.2.0-windows-gcc-x86_64.exe
• haruna-1.2.0-windows-gcc-x86_64.7z
• haruna-1.2.0-windows-gcc-x86_64-dbg.7z

If you like Haruna then support its development: GitHub Sponsors | Liberapay | PayPal

Feature requests and bugs should be posted on bugs.kde.org, but for bugs make sure to fill in the template and provide as much information as possible.

Changelog: 1.2.0

• Added floating footer/bottom toolbar style with 2 ways to trigger it:
  • on every mouse movement of the video area
  • only when the mouse is in the lower part of the video area
• Removed the docbook and moved its content to tooltips
• Middle clicking the playlist scrolls to the playing item

Every two years, the KDE community selects three goals that serve as focal points for the entire community's efforts in the coming years. This cyclical process of goal-setting and community-wide focus is a great example of KDE's Cumulative Culture in action.

This concept, typically observed in human societies, refers to the ability to build upon previous knowledge and innovations to create increasingly complex and effective solutions. In KDE's case, each cycle of goals represents a new layer of accumulated wisdom, i.e. new features and more stability.

The First Cycle (2018-2020)

The first cycle of goals laid the groundwork with its focus on community growth, privacy, and usability.

• Streamlined Onboarding: Focused on attracting and retaining new contributors by making the onboarding process smoother and more engaging.
• Privacy Software: Prioritized user privacy and security, ensuring KDE software respects user data and complies with security standards.
• Usability & Productivity: Aimed to enhance the usability and productivity of KDE software, making it powerful yet easy to use.

The Second Cycle (2020-2022)

The second cycle tackled more complex challenges. Goals like Wayland implementation improvements (which layed the foundation for the Plasma 6 release), improving the app ecosystem, and ensuring consistency in design and functionality.

• Wayland: This task aimed at stabilizing Wayland support accross KDE apps.
• All About the Apps: Improved KDE's app infrastructure, enabling more efficient app delivery and better support services.
• Improve Consistency across the Board: Ensured uniformity in design and functionality across KDE software, improving usability and reducing redundancy.

The Third Cycle (2022-2024)

The third cycle, which is currently coming to an end, was about progress and adaptation. A focus to include environmental responsibility, operational efficiency, and inclusive design.

• Sustainable Software: Focused on making KDE software more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly by implementing practices that reduce resource consumption and ensure long-term sustainability.
• Automate and Systematize Internal Processes: Aimed to streamline KDE’s internal workflows by automating repetitive tasks, adding code tests across projects and creating a Quality Assurance team to name a few.
• KDE For All: Seeked to make KDE software accessible and inclusive for all users.

A New Cycle A Comin' (2024-2026)

Now, as we enter the fourth cycle of the KDE Goals, we see the full power of this cumulative process. Each goal, whether fully achieved or not, contributes to the collective knowledge and capability of the KDE community. Ideas and partial solutions from past cycles become a solid foundation of knowledge and experience that support future efforts.

The commmunity is currently voting on the following proposals for the next KDE Goals cycle that will guide our efforts and shape our focus for the coming years:

• Enhancing control and automation: integrate KDE Plasma (and apps) with Smart Home Ecosystems
• Freedom through Better Data and Workflow Organization and Management
• KDE Needs You! 🫵 - Formalise and boost KDE's processes for recruiting active contributors
• KDE-based Text Snippet Expansion
• Sandbox all the things!
• Plasma - A Beacon for Open Design
• Refining and Enriching KDE: Empowering Users with Convenient and Intuitive Features
• Streamlined Application Development Experience
• Unify the Plasma experience
• We care about your Input

KDE Goals at Akademy

The three most voted goals will be announced at Akademy, where there will also be a wrap-up talk about the achievements of the current goals. Also, there will be Birds-of-a-feather (BoF) sessions with the new goal champions.

Join the Matrix room and keep an eye on the website for the latest KDE Goals updates.

Quick Jump List A: abs, aiter, all, anext, any, ascii, B: bin, bool, breakpoint, bytearray, bytes, C: callable, chr, classmethod, compile, complex, D: delattr, dict, dir, divmod E: enumerate, eval, exec, F: filter, float, format, frozenset, G: getattr, globals, H: hasattr, hash, help, hex, I: id, input, int, isinstance, issubclass, iter, L: len, list, locals, M: map, max, memoryview, min, N: next, O: object, oct, open, ord, P: pow, print, property, R: range, repr, reversed, round, S: set, setattr, slice, sorted, staticmethod, str, sum, super, T: tuple, type, V: vars, Z: zip, _: __import__,

KDE's Okular is the first software which got awarded with the Blue Angel label for resource and energy-efficient software products. The certification was based on the first version of the criteria for this product criteria which were introduced in 2020. Now the criteria have been updated. What has changed and what does that mean for KDE?

The revised criteria are available as version 4 on the Blue Angel web site. Only the German version is currently available; the English version will follow shortly.

New software categories

The biggest change is the scope of the label. In the past it was limited to desktop software. With the updated version, the criteria also include software on mobile devices and server software or a combination of these categories, such as a web service with mobile and desktop clients.

The biggest challenge is the measurement of the energy and resource efficiency for these new categories, which requires a more flexible approach and must accommodate scenarios where the measurement cannot be done by inserting a meter in front of the power supply of a single device. The new criteria address this by defining applicable methods for the measurement of mobile and server applications.

The extended scope covers a much broader range of software. For KDE the desktop category is most relevant, but of course a lot of software also interacts with a server component, for example an email client like KMail, which could now be treated and assessed as a combined client-server system to give more realistic and relevant results.

More flexible measurement procedure

The expansion in scope requires an expanded view on the measurement of energy and resource efficiency as well. The first version of the criteria was quite strict and prescribed a very specific measurement procedure on specified reference systems. It was based on a comparison of measurements in a representative usage scenario and in idle mode. This gave a realistic impression of what the usage of a computer program meant in terms of energy consumption.

The new criteria allow for more variation in how the measurements are carried out. The original method is still there, but variations which lead to comparable results are possible as well. This change means that a new criterion was introduced to document the way measurements are done.

In addition to the measurement of the usage scenario, a new type of measurement was introduced. This measures total energy consumption of a production system over a longer period of time. This is particular useful for server applications, where this method can lead to more realistic numbers by averaging resource consumption over real-world usage of multiple users.

For mobile applications, the measurement also has to include the data volume transmitted during a standard usage scenario and the list of URLs it has accessed. This is based on the assumption that large volumes of data transfer imply a higher energy usage. It can also be used to assess if the application is using advertisements or is collecting tracking information. Both are forbidden under the revised Blue Angel criteria.

Ongoing assessment of energy and resource efficiency

The original criteria demanded that updates of the software still run on old reference systems and that the energy consumption does not increase more than 10%. They were not very clear in how exactly this should be proven and documented. Especially for software which is released very often, testing every individual update is impractical. For mobile and even more for server software, update cycles can be very short, up to multiple updates a day.

In the updated criteria there is a more precise way of handling updates. The general idea is still there that updated software run on old hardware and energy consumption not increase too much. But it's not tied to individual updates anymore. The required procedure is to do a measurement at least once a year and publish the results as part of the documentation of the software product. This includes documentation of the measurement setups and any changes to it as well as preserving the history of measurements, so that users can judge for themselves how much energy and resource usage is increasing over time.

This procedure clarifies the requirments and opens a pragmatic way of measuring updates. It implies a certain burden on updating documentation.

Consequences for KDE and Okular

KDE holds the Blue Angel label for its PDF viewer Okular. This is desktop software and the standard usage scenario doesn't include any network access. That means that the expanded scope does not change anything for the existing certification. The revised criteria open up the opportunity to apply for the Blue Angel label for mobile software, such as KDE Connect, and mixed scenarios which also include server components, but the eco-certification for Okular is covered as it was before.

The more flexible measurement criteria give us more leeway in how we are doing the measurements. We have set up KEcoLab for being able to regularly do measurements. This setup follows the procedure prescribed in the original criteria. As this is still valid, it also means no change for us, and our measurements still fulfill the criteria. However, it gives us more opportunities to improve the lab and doesn't strictly tie us to the original list of reference systems anymore. We might want to take advantage of that.

The documentation of the measurement system is something we have always done in a transparent way, so this also doesn't require any big changes on our side. We have to consider how to best convey this in the documentation of Okular, but this is mostly a question on how we communicate the existing content.

The ongoing assessment of energy and resource efficiency ties very well into how we handle software updates. We have a continuous release stream with frequent updates and incremental changes. This fits the model of the new criteria. We have to review how we include regular updates of the documentation and measurement data in releases, but this again is mostly a question of how we communicate the existing content.

Conclusion

The revised criteria provide a welcome expansion of the Blue Angel to more categories of software and a more flexible way to do energy and resource efficiency measurements. They continue to align well with how KDE develops software in general and Okular in particular, so we do not see any issues with continuing the Blue Angel certification for Okular.

We would be happy if the new version of the criteria would increase adoption of the Blue Angel ecolabel for resource and energy efficient software. Sustainable software is an important topic and the Blue Angel can be one way of making progress in this area more visible to a broad audience.

I finally took an evening to get NextCloudPi installed on a Raspberry Pi 5 with a large-ish NVMe drive. This was not a smooth ride. For your pleasure, this is how I got it working.

First, use Jeff Geerling’s guide to get the Pi booting from the NVMe drive.

Second, use this guide to move from Debian networking to systemd-networkd, but do not hold the avahi-daemon package.

Third, run the NextCloudPi curl install script.

Next up – the migration from my old instance. I have 1.5TB of files on a spin disk connected via USB that I need to move to the new NVMe storage – but that is for another night.

For the record – I do love NextCloud and NextCloudPi, so no finger pointing here, just sharing some frustration and how I got around the issue.

At this years Debian conference in South Korea I've presented1 the new feature of the FAIme web service. You can now build your own Debian live media/ISO.

The web interface provides various settings, for e.g. adding a user name and its password, selecting the Debian release (stable or testing), the desktop environment and the language. Additionally you can add your own list of packages, that will be installed into the live environment. It's possible to define a custom script that gets executed during the boot process. For remote access to the live system, you can easily sepcify a github, gitlab or salsa account, whose public ssh key will be used for passwordless root access. If your hardware needs special grub settings, you may also add those. I'm thinking about adding an autologin checkbox, so the live media could be used for a kiosk system.

And finally newer hardware is supported with the help of the backports kernel for the Debian stable release (aka bookworm). This combination is not available from the official Debian live images or the netinst media because the later has some complicated dependencies which are not that easy to resolve2. At DebConf24 I've talked to Alper who has some ideas3 how to improve the Debian installer environment which then may support a backports kernel.

The FAI web service for live ISO is available at

      https://fai-project.org/FAIme/live

1. https://debconf24.debconf.org/talks/136-a-web-service-for-building-your-own-customized-debian-live-image/ ↩

2. https://lists.debian.org/debian-cd/2024/07/msg00031.html ↩

3. https://debconf24.debconf.org/talks/75-ideas-to-move-debian-installer-forward/ ↩

2024 Minnesota State Fair foods About • Blog • Newsletter • Links 2024 Minnesota State Fair foods

Published 2024-08-25 by Seth Larson
Reading time: minutes

If you didn't know, I'm from Minnesota. Minnesotans love their State Fair, and I'm not an exception! My wife and I were lucky enough to go to a State Fair preview for LuLu's Public House for fried ranch dressing among a handful of new drinks. I shared my thoughts on Mastodon and a few folks seemed interested in hearing more: so here's more!

Cajun fried pickles from The Perfect Pickle

These are hands-down the best food at the Minnesota State Fair. You eat an order, ponder getting more (some years we do!) and then wonder to yourself why they put the best of the best right next to the shuttle entrance. Don't go out looking for answers lest they move these further away, sometimes it's best to leave sleeping “pickle dogs” lie.

Seriously, if you like pickles even a little bit, get these pickles. You can get them quick if you're lucky and other folks don't realize there are supposed to be six lines of people taking orders.

They're ripping hot right when they hand them to you, so if you're like me and enjoy food “biting back” then don't delay! 🔥

This year included a noticeable increase in the amount of Cajun seasoning, or we got lucky and someone behind the scenes gave us an extra coating (either way we're not complaining!)

Peanut Butter Bacon Cakes and Blue Cheese & Corn Fritz from The Blue Barn

Celebrating their 10th consecutive year at the Minnesota State Fair, The Blue Barn is always a fan favorite. Seriously, run over there if you get to the fair early to beat the massive lines for food and drinks.

We grabbed the new Peanut Butter Bacon Cakes along with the returning classic Blue Cheese & Corn Fritz which I had never tried before.

The Peanut Butter Bacon Cakes were really great, there was thick-cut bacon griddled inside of pancake batter strips along with jelly and a peanut butter whipped cream. Perfect combo of savory and sweet, and you're in complete control of the ratios. The bacon and pancake flavors reminded me of learning to make pancakes with my late grandfather. Although that bacon was microwave-ready Hormel bacon... I promise this one's delish!

The Blue Cheese & Corn Fritz was really great, I missed out on this one last year. Perfect amount of sweetness from the corn, really well-balanced cheesy little bite! Wish I could have had more than one of these, we were sharing amongst a big group!

Wrangler Waffle Burger, Bacon-Wrapped Pickle Dog, and “Kind of a Big Dill” Lemonade from Nordic Waffles

Another vendor that fills up immediately after opening, Nordic Waffle should be top of your list because of two returning new foods from 2023: the Bacon-Wrapped Pickle Dog and the Pickle Lemonade. Both of these are really great, the lemonade sounds strange but works really well (even if you don't love pickles). The subtle saltiness balances out the sweet and tartness which makes for a dangerously drinkable item.

The Wrangler was good, it's one of those winning combinations of flavors that is really hard to mess up: beef, cheese, caramelized onions, and a mayo-based sauce. The onions being grilled into the waffle was fun but didn't do much flavor-wise (they might as well have been a topping), honestly wish they went all-out on the onions to the point of being noticeable texture-wise in the waffle. The bacon-wrapped pickle dog is as awesome as it sounds, so much more interesting flavor-wise!

I'm also not a fan of their choice of sauce, they went with Whataburger, a famously mid-tier burger joint in Texas, of all places? This is a grave error by Nordic Waffles because Minnesota and Texas have serious State Fair beef. Minnesota seeing the highest single-day attendance over 12 days, where the Texas State Fair sees the highest total attendance over 24 days (it might be obvious which State Fair I think is the true champion).

Sweet Corn Cola Float from Blue Moon Dine-in Theater

This one was interesting! Sweet Corn icecream and house-made “corn Cola”, so I take that to mean corn syrup Cola? Not sure. The flavor definitely gave a “not-too-sweet” vibe which was nice, there was a good amount of a corny and almost “earthy” flavor in the float.

The texture of the corn icecream was a little less smooth than a normal icecream, which landed somewhere between novel and “interesting”. I actually recommend giving this one a good mix before you drink it to blend the flavors together better, you're only given a boba straw to drink it.

Overall, would I get it again? Probably not, because Lift Bridge root beer floats exist and are much better. But worth a try!

Sweet Heat Bacon Crunch from RC's BBQ

Had this one side-by-side with my typical order from RC's which is a bunch of ribs and yeah, it was fine, but if I'm buying barbecue I want ribs or brisket. There was some chili crisp (but not much, maybe because it's Minnesota) and hot honey that got a bit lost in the dish. Can't recommend this one, RC's usual items are much better.

Spam breakfast sandwich from SPAM

Attention all SPAM-lovers at the fair! The SPAM booth has moved from under the Grandstand bridge to the southern edge of the DNR building. I nearly had a heart-attack when I saw the SPAM booth wasn't in its usual spot, I had to sneak away with a fellow SPAM-lover from our group to snag this item.

We got ours with pickles (surprise!) and jalapeños, a little bit of kick and acid to cut through the lovely fatty grilled SPAM. Pretty sure this little sandwich was gone in 4 bites, highly recommend finding this stand if you're a long-time-enjoyer or first-timer of SPAM!

That's all for this year. At this point we kept trying new items, but I suspect not being hungry started to impact my opinions of the foods, so you'll have to try them yourself! :)

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GSoC Work Product: GNUnet over HTTP/3 Goals of the Project.

This project aimed to implement a new communicator for GNUnet's Transport Next Generation (TNG) using the HTTP/3 protocol.

What I did.

We chose ngtcp2 and nghttp3 for their stability and adherence to RFC standards. I began by studying communicator fundamentals and analyzing relevant code examples. I then created a QUIC communicator using libngtcp2, implementing essential communication features. Building on this, I integrated libnghttp3 to support HTTP/3 layer communication. After establishing basic uni-directional communication, I proceeded to implement bi-directional capabilities. With the help and guidance of my mentors, I completed the above work, including the selection and design of message transmission methods and the implementation of code.

The current state.

We have two branches, dev/shichao/http3 for basic communication and dev/shichao/http3bidirect for bi-directional communication. They can pass the basic tests. However, we found that there were occasional failures during the test. We currently assume that this is caused by the test harness not being able to process the received data packets in time.

What's left to do.

There are still many areas that can be improved in the HTTP/3 communicator, such as using CID map instead of IP address map. In addition, in bi-directional communication, the server's sending rate is slightly lower than the client's transmission rate, and this will be optimized in the future. Finally, integrating the Peer Identity into the TLS handshake in order to authenticate the peers is a natural feature to implement.

What code got merged (or not) upstream.

All the code is available upstream in the master branch and will be available with the next release.

Challenges I Encountered.

Initially, I was unfamiliar with the ngtcp2 and nghttp3 libraries. While there were some examples available, I found limited guidance for more advanced usage. Through careful study and experimentation, I gradually gained a deeper understanding of these libraries. But in this process, I have a deeper understanding of QUIC and HTTP/3 protocols, and also improved my coding skills.

The rising costs of site ownership Aug 24, 2024 By John Locke

How much do you spend on your website? I'm not asking how much it cost you to create/build -- I mean day to day, what does it cost to own and maintain your site?

And what happens if you stop paying that?

Sustainable/Open Business Read More

What are the top downloaded pytest plugins? I want to know this. And I’d like the answer updated regularly. So today I decided to write a script to do that for me. Grab data Let’s start with Top PyPI Packages from Hugo van Kemenade. This list is “A monthly dump of the 8,000 most-downloaded packages from PyPI.” Perfect. Parse Now: Filter for “pytest” in the package name Remove “pytest” itself.