Python

Idiomatic Python: EAFP versus LBYL

June 29, 2016 Jun 29, 2016 06/29/16

Brett Cannon

One idiomatic practice in Python that often surprises people coming from programming languages where exceptions are considered, well, exceptional, is EAFP: "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission". Quickly, EAFP means that you should just do what you expect to work and if an exception might be thrown from the operation then catch ...

Python and Django on Nano Server

June 20, 2016 Jun 20, 2016 06/20/16

Steve Dower

This post is contributed by Refaat Issa from the Nano Server team, and was originally posted on their blog. Nano Server has also blogged about their support for MySQL and Node.js. One of Nano Server’s core scenarios is to serve as a lightweight OS for born-in-the-cloud applications running in a VM or a container. Nano Server already ...

Python lambda expressions unleashed

June 7, 2016 Jun 7, 2016 06/7/16

CarlKadie

Carl Kadie, Ph.D., is a research developer in Microsoft Research/TnR working on Genomics. Lambda expressions provide a way to pass functionality into a function. Sadly, Python puts two annoying restrictions on lambda expressions. First, lambdas can only contain an expression, not statements. Second, lambdas can't be serialized to ...

Microsoft at PyCon US 2016

May 25, 2016 May 25, 2016 05/25/16

Steve Dower

This coming weekend is the start of PyCon US 2016 in Portland, USA. And as usual, we've sponsored the conference and will be bringing some of our engineering team. Here's where you'll be able to find us: Booth For many people, the main attraction is the Expo Hall. Here most of the sponsoring organizations will have booths set up to tell you ...

How to debug Python Azure Worker Roles

May 10, 2016 May 10, 2016 05/10/16

Christopher Wilcox

Two months ago I wrote a blog post on Python 3 Adoption. If you want to read the first post you can find it here. In the two months since that blog post was written we have more data to process and I got to thinking: why shouldn't we scale this up and increase the performance a bit? You'll recall that I used a worker role on Azure to process ...

Using CPython’s Embeddable Zip File

April 26, 2016 Apr 26, 2016 04/26/16

Steve Dower

On the download page for CPython 3.5.1, you'll see a wide range of options. Not all of these are well explained, especially for Windows users who have seven (seven!) choices. Let me restructure the Windows items into a more feature-focused table: Installer Initial download size Installer requires internet? Compatibility x86 web-based ...

Idiomatic Python: boolean expressions

April 18, 2016 Apr 18, 2016 04/18/16

Brett Cannon

You might think that boolean expressions -- most frequently used as conditional guards which are the the bit of code that tests whether an if or while statement should execute -- are a fairly straight-forward concept and that there isn't really anything subtle to them at all. And while the general concept is simple, there are some idiomatic ...

How to deal with the pain of “unable to find vcvarsall.bat”

April 11, 2016 Apr 11, 2016 04/11/16

Steve Dower

Python's packaging ecosystem is one of its biggest strengths, but Windows users are often frustrated by packages that do not install properly. One of the most common errors you'll see is this one: As far as errors go, "unable to find vcvarsall.bat" is not the most helpful. What is this mythical batch file? Why do I need it? Where can I get ...

Implementing a code of conduct for all of our open source work

March 29, 2016 Mar 29, 2016 03/29/16

Brett Cannon

When working in the open source world it is very important that everyone feels welcome and safe. External contributors to a project need to feel welcome so that they want to contribute to the project. Since contributing to open source is an inherently social event due to the fact that there will be interactions through issues, code reviews, ...

Azure Python SDK 2.0.0rc2 is out! Why it’s a major step for Azure with Python.

March 29, 2016 Mar 29, 2016 03/29/16

lmazuel

My name is Laurent and I recently moved from France to join the Python team at Microsoft. Along with the rest of our team, I am responsible for maintaining the Azure Python SDK, and we are glad to announce the 2.0.0 RC2 version! This is a major step for Python on Azure and the product of several teams collaborating in Microsoft to establish a...