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API Design and Pragmatic Python

A talk given by Kenneth Reitz at PyCodeConf 2011.

Outline

  • Bio

    • Work
      • Readability
      • Reflog
      • Worked on Changelog
    • Projects
      • Requests: HTTP for Humans
      • Tablib: Pythonic tabular datasets
      • Legit: Awesome git interface
      • OSX-GCC-Installer: Angers Lawyers
      • Clint: CLI tools
      • Envoy: Subprocess for Humans
      • Httpbin.org: Requests and Response service

  • Philosophy - Python for Humans

    • Want to share your favorite parts?

    • We share a dark past - PHP, Perl, ColdFusion

    • The Zen of Python - PEP20

      import this

  • Live code demo playing with GitHub API

    • Demonstrate Ruby solution - fairly clean
    • Demonstration of Python's shite HTTP interfaces
      • Same request in Python requires ~45 lines of code
    • Admit it - if you saw this as your first experience in Python, you'd leave and never come back

  • The Problem

    • It is not clear which web module we should use
    • Documentation is crap
    • HTTP should be as simple as the print statement

  • The Solution

    • Python needs more pragmatic packages

  • HTTP breakdown

    • A small set of methods with consistent parameters
    • They all accept headers, url parameters, and data
    • urllib2 is toxic
    • How Requests solves this issue
    • Litmus test - is it simple?
    • The API is all that matters

  • Example of Subprocess

    • Does anyone use it? - Power, effective and second worst API ever
    • Documentation is severely lacking
    • The main subprocess object takes 20 different arguments
    • High barrier to entry
    • Proposed Solution - envoy
    • subprocess is blocking devops folks from adopting Python

  • Barriers to Entry

    • Installing Python on OSX has too many options
      • Download installer?
      • 32 bit or 64 bit
      • Build from source?
      • Unix or framework build
      • There should be one way to do it - don't have that now
    • XML
      • etree is terrible
      • lxml is awesome, but difficult to install
    • Packaging and Dependencies?
      • pip or easy_install?
      • setuptools isn't included in Python?
      • Distribute is awesome, but why use it?
      • No easy_uninstall
      • "Released" packages not in the Cheese Shop
    • Date[time]s
      • Which module to use?
      • How to handle timezones?
      • The stdlib can generate but not parse ISO8601 dates
    • unicode
    • Proposed solution: The Hitchhiker's Guide to Python

  • The Manifesto

    • Simplify terrible APIS
    • Add to our documentation

Questions

  • What other modules do you think needs a full rewrite?
    • I don't think we should rewrite - we should add a new module that wraps the poor API.
  • I like the idea of the Hitchhiker's Guide, but do you see any scenarios with conflicting strategies (e.g. enterprise vs. web)?
    • I don't think there should be one way to do absolutely everything. I think those scenarios should be included in the guide.

References