E-Scribe : a programmer’s blog

About Me

PBX I'm Paul Bissex. I build web applications using open source software, especially Django. Started my career doing graphic design for newspapers and magazines in the '90s. Then wrote tech commentary and reviews for Wired, Salon, Chicago Tribune, and others you never heard of. Then I built operations software at a photography school. Then I helped big media serve 40 million pages a day. Then I worked on a translation services API doing millions of dollars of business. Now I'm building the core platform of a global startup accelerator. Feel free to email me.

Book

I co-wrote "Python Web Development with Django". It was the first book to cover the long-awaited Django 1.0. Published by Addison-Wesley and still in print!

Colophon

Built using Django, served with gunicorn and nginx. The database is SQLite. Hosted on a FreeBSD VPS at Johncompanies.com. Comment-spam protection by Akismet.

Pile o'Tags

ajax apple blogs browsers business design django ebay engineering fp fun google hardware haskell history intellectual property interface iphone javascript linux media mercurial mobile open source os x oscon oscon2007 palm php programming python rails rants reading risks ruby site spam textmate the well tips tools ubuntu unix vcs web development web frameworks webservers wmassdevs writing

Stuff I Use

bitbucket, Django, Emacs, FreeBSD, Git, jQuery, LaunchBar, Markdown, Mercurial, OS X, Python, Review Board, S3, SQLite, Sublime Text, Ubuntu Linux

Spam Report

At least 236525 pieces of comment spam killed since 2008, mostly via Akismet.

78 posts tagged "python"

Does Python scale?
Friday, July 31st, 2015
+ +

Booktools
Tuesday, September 14th, 2010
+ +
2 comments

Making your way from PHP to Python and Django
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
+ + + + +
8 comments

Pocket Django
Saturday, May 17th, 2008
+ + + + +

Python one-liner of the day
Thursday, April 24th, 2008
+
9 comments

How not to advocate via Google Code
Thursday, April 10th, 2008
+ + + + + +
2 comments

99 problems
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008
+ +
3 comments

Django Mercurial mirror tweaks
Monday, March 17th, 2008
+ + +
2 comments

From PHP to Python
Thursday, March 13th, 2008
+ + + +
11 comments

Book news: Rough Cuts and Amazon
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
+ + + +
4 comments

The Language I Will Kind of Learn in 2008: Smalltalk
Saturday, February 9th, 2008
+ + + + + + +
4 comments

A Mercurial mirror of Django's Subversion repository
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008
+ + + + + + +
10 comments

Understanding tuples vs. lists in Python
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
+ + + +
31 comments

World's ugliest Django app
Monday, January 21st, 2008
+ + +
14 comments

A little something I've been working on
Monday, January 14th, 2008
+ + + + + +
15 comments

Visualizing trends in the bug-tracker
Saturday, January 12th, 2008
+

Python was apparently 2007's Language of the Year
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008
+

Python 3.0a1 on OS X
Friday, August 31st, 2007
+

OSCON 2007, Day 4
Thursday, July 26th, 2007
+ + +
2 comments

OSCON 2007, Day 2
Tuesday, July 24th, 2007
+ + +
2 comments

Django Unicodification
Friday, July 13th, 2007
+ +
2 comments

Belated comments on Dreaming in Code
Tuesday, June 19th, 2007
+ + +

Django.June wrapup
Sunday, June 17th, 2007
+ +
6 comments

Array comprehensions in Javascript
Tuesday, June 5th, 2007
+ + +

Attachment-viewing script for mutt
Friday, May 11th, 2007
+ +
6 comments

Django.June
Wednesday, May 9th, 2007
+ + +
2 comments

Bicycle Repair Man bundle for TextMate
Saturday, April 14th, 2007
+ + +
2 comments

Python 3 short course
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
+
2 comments

Two new Django-powered sites
Sunday, February 25th, 2007
+ +
4 comments

Neat Python hack: infix operators
Sunday, February 25th, 2007
+ + +
7 comments

Dreaming In Code: The Interview
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007
+ + +

The whitespace brigade
Monday, January 8th, 2007
+ +
3 comments

Python 2.5 Library Reference for Plucker
Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007
+
4 comments

New Year's programming resolutions
Monday, January 1st, 2007
+ +
7 comments

99-byte Python quicksort
Friday, December 15th, 2006
+ +
11 comments

One Laptop Per Child -- with Python
Friday, December 1st, 2006
+

dpaste.com
Thursday, November 16th, 2006
+ + +
1 comment

TextMate command for paste.e-scribe.com
Tuesday, October 24th, 2006
+ + +
2 comments

Pastebin update: Pygments
Friday, October 20th, 2006
+ + +
1 comment

If all else fails, force it
Tuesday, October 17th, 2006
+ +
3 comments

Handling legacy URLs with Django
Friday, September 29th, 2006
+ + +
3 comments

The "path" module
Thursday, September 28th, 2006
+
4 comments

Johnny can too code
Friday, September 15th, 2006
+ + +
6 comments

Django as superego
Tuesday, May 16th, 2006
+ +
2 comments

Enforcing Style
Sunday, April 30th, 2006
+
2 comments

Random crufty open source release of the day
Saturday, April 15th, 2006
+ +

Moving the blog to Django
Monday, April 10th, 2006
+ + + +
12 comments

Neat new stuff in Python 2.5
Sunday, April 9th, 2006

The twenty-minute trouble ticket system
Friday, March 31st, 2006
+ + +
11 comments

Why the python.org redesign is good
Tuesday, March 7th, 2006
+ +

Python.org redesign launches
Monday, March 6th, 2006
+
5 comments

"Reverse" game update -- my language safari
Friday, February 24th, 2006
+ +

Django development tips
Tuesday, February 14th, 2006
+ + +
11 comments

Django: less (magic) is more
Sunday, February 12th, 2006
+
6 comments

More mobile Python options
Monday, February 6th, 2006
+
5 comments

Soft launch
Thursday, January 19th, 2006
+ +
2 comments

Let's play a game: BASIC vs. Ruby vs. Python vs. PHP
Saturday, January 14th, 2006
+ + + +
150 comments

IronPython 1.0 beta
Thursday, January 5th, 2006

YAPWF: Aaron Swartz's web.py released
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006
+ +
4 comments

Turbogears and Subway to merge?
Saturday, December 31st, 2005
+
2 comments

Guido at Google
Saturday, December 31st, 2005
+

Django Docs in Plucker format
Thursday, December 29th, 2005
+ +
1 comment

Python Library Reference for Plucker
Thursday, December 29th, 2005
+

Ajaxy regex tester in Python: retest
Wednesday, December 14th, 2005
+ +
1 comment

Python question: a better urlparse?
Monday, December 12th, 2005
+
2 comments

A minimal wiki in Django
Monday, December 12th, 2005
+ +
15 comments

Figlet Captcha
Monday, December 5th, 2005
+ +

Introduction to Trac
Friday, November 11th, 2005
+

TurboGears progress, or, bring on the CRUD
Sunday, November 6th, 2005
+
3 comments

WebKit screen-grabbers
Sunday, October 30th, 2005
+ + +

Controller freaks
Monday, October 3rd, 2005
+ + +

YAPWF: TurboGears
Sunday, September 18th, 2005
+ +

Python and XUL
Tuesday, September 13th, 2005
+

PyObjC in, Cocoa-Java out
Wednesday, August 17th, 2005
+ + +
2 comments

State of the Python Union
Friday, August 5th, 2005
+

CodeZoo
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005
+ + + +
2 comments

Mobile Python
Thursday, July 28th, 2005
+
1 comment

Python web framework mania
Wednesday, July 13th, 2005
+ +