New Year's Python meme

Python    2010-01-05

A few days too late ...

  1. What's the coolest Python application, framework or library you have discovered in 2009?
    2. PIL. Okay, maybe it wasn't exactly a new discovery, but I'd never used it before to the extent that I did in the last quarter of 2009, and man was it fun. For the artist sites I maintain, we do a lot of image uploading and scaling - for everything from thumbnails for blog posts to full-featured galleries. The last few months of last year found me rewriting large chunks of that automated process in Python, and although everything that I wrote using PIL was eventually vetoed in favor of ImageMagick, I learned a lot, had a good time, and have archived my PIL scripts for future use. I'm sure they'll come in handy.
  2. What new programming technique did you learn in 2009?
    3. This is a tough one. I can't say that I learned any new technique that stands out. I discovered new ways to build the things I wanted with Django, Python, a few Javascript libraries, some other languages. I used SQL in ways I hadn't before. I got to work with a few fun APIs, each posing their own unique challenges.
  3. What's the name of the open source project you contributed the most in 2009? What did you do?
    4. Well, technically I still haven't made any code contributions to open source projects, but that's more to do with uncertainty than lack of interest. However, if my posts on legacy data and inspectdb were helpful to anyone, then I guess I could say that I made some contributions to the Django community.
  4. What was the Python blog or website you read the most in 2009?
    5. Planet Python, definitely, although I also spent a lot of time absorbing the pith and wisdom of both Erics, Simon, James, Jacob, and Danny.
  5. What are the three top things you want to learn in 2010?
    1. I feel like I've gone as far as I can (or want to) with RDBMS - I want to plunge into the world of schema-less storage, and learn all I can about Cassandra, CouchDB, MongoDB, and Tokyo Cabinet and the like. I just need to come up with a project idea ...
    2. Implementing multi-db in Django. Again, I could use some inspiration - the project I could have used multi-db for a few years ago is no longer viable.
    3. Signals. Seriously. Stop laughing.