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I’m a productive programmer with a memory of a fruit fly
A love letter to tools that changed everything for me.
Hynek Schlawack
Hynek Schlawack: Pythonista, Gopher, blogger, speaker, and YouTuber from Berlin / Germany.
- Popular posts
- 11
- Total points
- 2,667
- HN comments
- 1,280
- Rank
- #563 personal
Visit hynek.me → RSS feedOn Hacker News Apr 2012 – May 2025
Software Engineering 6Programming Languages 2Infrastructure & DevOps 2Career & Management 2Tools & Productivity 1Systems & Performance 1
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On Conference Speaking
I’ve seen quite a bit of the world thanks to being invited to speak at conferences. Since some people are under the impression that serial conference speakers possess some special talents, I’d like to demystify my process by walking you through my latest talk from start to finish.
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Python Deployment Anti-Patterns
Deploying web applications is hard. No shiny continuous deployment talk and no DevOps coolness can change that. Or to use DevOps Borat’s words: “Is all fun and game until you are need of put it in production.“ There are some mistakes I see people doing again and again so I’d like to address them here.
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Design Pressure: The Invisible Hand That Shapes Your Code
Ever had this weird gut feeling that something is off in your code, but couldn’t put the finger on why? Are you starting your projects with the best intentions, following all best practices, and still feel like your architecture turns weird eventually?
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TIL: You Can Stop Updating Copyright Attribution Years (2021)
Every January 1st, an army of open source developers rushes out to update their copyright attributions in licenses and documentation. Why? Because we’ve always done it that way.
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Python 3 in 2016
My completely anecdotal view on the state of Python 3 in 2016. Based on my own recent experience, observations, and exchanges with other members of the Python community.
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Python Application Deployment with Native Packages
Speed, reproducibility, easy rollbacks, and predictability is what we strive for when deploying our diverse Python applications. And that’s what we achieved by leveraging virtual environments and Linux system packages.
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Storing Passwords in a Highly Parallelized World
Why “Use bcrypt.” is not the best recommendation (anymore).
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Don’t mock what you don’t own
A common issue when writing tests for real-world software is how to deal with third-party dependencies. Let’s examine an old, but counter-intuitive principle.
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Which is not Posix
I learn a non-trivial number of things, because there’s Debian drama about them. The fact that the which command is not part of any standard just joined the flock.
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Subclassing in Python Redux
The conflict between subclassing and composition is as old as object-oriented programming. The latest crop of languages like Go or Rust prove that you don’t need subclassing to successfully write code. But what’s a pragmatic approach to subclassing in Python, specifically?