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Zsh: clear the “You have mail“ message

Do you see this message when you open a new terminal session?

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Boost Your Git DX now has a free sample

Last week, I released the second update to my book Boost Your Git DX. Today I’m happy to announce that I have released a free sample of the book.

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Boost Your Git DX second update out now

Today I have released the second update to Boost Your Git DX, my book of developer experience (DX) recommendations for using Git. Since the last update (2024-04-04), it has grown again by 28 pages, for a new total of 391 pages!

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Shell: benchmark the difference between two Git branches with hyperfine

hyperfine is a neat tool for benchmarking commands. If you provide it multiple commands, its output includes a comparison, saying which is the fastest, and by how much.

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Python: fuss-free use of Homebrew libraries for package dependencies

Some Python packages require native libraries to be installed on your system when you install them. For example, mysqlclient requires libssl and libcrypto. If those libraries are missing at install time, clang, the C compiler, fails with a message like:

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Django: render JavaScript import maps in templates

JavaScript’s import statement lets module scripts import objects from other scripts. For example, you can define a script as a module in HTML:

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Firefox: disable an extension that’s spamming devtools logs

Browser extensions can run JavaScript within the content of your tabs. This means they can trigger messages that appear in the devtools console. For example, one extension I use logs this warning on every tab:

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Django: silence “Exception ignored in ... OutputWrapper”

You might see this message when running pytest on your Django project:

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Python: test for unraisable exceptions with unittest.mock

A few days ago, I blogged about debugging unraisable exceptions with Rich. Here’s a sequel on testing that some block of code doesn’t trigger any unraisable exceptions.

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Git: force colourization with color.ui or --color

By default, Git only colourizes in its output when writing to an interactive terminal. Sometimes, this heuristic isn’t accurate, for example, when you’re piping Git output through another command. In such cases, you can force colourization on or off with either the color.ui configuration option or the --color option. Let’s look at both in turn.

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Python: debug unraisable exceptions with Rich

Take this Python class:

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Git: undo a pull

Okay, so you just ran git pull on a branch, and something broke, so you want to undo it. Here are two ways how.

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Python: spy for changes with sys.monitoring

Python 3.12 introduced sys.monitoring, a new framework for “monitoring” tools like debuggers and profilers to hook into. It provides fine-grained control so tools can listen only to certain events on specific lines of code. The framework came from PEP 669, thanks to Mark Shannon of the Faster CPython team.

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Python: create temporary files and directories in unittest

Sometimes, tests need temporary files or directories. You can do this in Python’s unittest with the standard library tempfile module. Let’s look at some recipes to do so within individual tests and setUp().

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Django: Fail in templates with {% url '' %}

Previously, I covered using 1/0 to crash Python within minimal typing, useful to quickly answer questions like “does the code even get here?”. Recently, I wanted to do the same in Django templates, to trace if a given template was even being rendered, and under which code paths.

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Django Quiz 2024

Yesterday, I held another quiz at the December edition of Django London. The quiz is a regular tradition at our meetup, a way of having a more relaxed event in December and giving away some nice prizes. This was the sixth quiz that I’ve presented, and the seventh overall.

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Django: launch pdb when a given SQL query runs

Here’s another technique for using pdb within Django. I will add this to the new debugging chapter of Boost Your Django DX in a future update.

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Django: launch pdb in templates with a custom {% breakpoint %} tag

In my recent Boost Your Django DX update, I added a new chapter on debuggers. Here’s an extra technique I didn’t finish in time for the update, but I will include it in the next one.

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Django: fix a view using pdb with breakpoint()

Python’s breakpoint() function opens its debugger, pdb, which pauses the program and allows you to inspect and modify things. Let’s look at an example of using it within a Django view, from a sample project included in Boost Your Django DX.

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Django: find ghost tables without associated models

Heavy refactoring of models can leave a Django project with “ghost tables”, which were created for a model that was removed without any trace in the migration history. Thankfully, by using some Django internals, you can find such tables.

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Git: count commits with rev-list

git rev-list lists details about commits (also known as “revisions”, hence the name). Its --count option outputs the count of commits in the given range. Pass it @, the short alias for HEAD, to count commits on the current branch:

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Django-related Deals for Black Friday 2024

Here are some Django-related deals for this year’s Black Friday (29th November) and Cyber Monday (1st December), including my own.

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Boost Your Django DX updated again

I have just released the second update to Boost Your Django DX, my book of developer experience (DX) recommendations for Django projects. This update contains a new chapter, changes some recommended tools, and upgrades to Python 3.13 and Django 5.1. Overall, the book is 45 pages longer, now totalling 326!

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Django: Introducing Djade, a template formatter

Happy DjangoCon US 2024 to you. Whilst I am not there, I have adopted the spirit of the season and got to work hacking together a new tool.

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Git: find when a commit was reverted or reapplied

Git doesn’t store reversion links between commits. It only relies on commit messages to track this information. When you run git revert, the default message includes a line about the reverted commit:

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