#418 I'm a tea pot

Python Bytes

Topics covered in this episode:

• In memoriam: Michael Foord 1974-2025
• Valkey (Redis Replacement)
• 30 best practices for software development and testing
• mimetype.io
• Extras
• Joke

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Brian #1: In memoriam: Michael Foord 1974-2025

• Guido van Rossum and others
• We’ve just lost Michael Foord this last weekend.
• From Guido:
  • “Michael, an original thinker if there ever was one, started the tradition of having Language Summit events at PyCon, IIRC together with Barry Warsaw. He also wrote and contributed the influential mock library. … “
  • “PS. Feel free to post your own (positive) memories of meeting Michael – perhaps his children (10 and 13) will read them when they’re older and this thread might help them remember their father.”
• I’ve added my memories. I think this is a great (and small) way to honor him.
• My friend Michael - Nicholas Tolervey
• After 5 years of trying, I did get an interview with Michael. I wish I’d have gotten that followup.
  • Test & Code episode with Michael, ep 145, “For those about to mock”

Michael #2: Valkey (Redis Replacement)

• Thanks Calvin HP
• An open source (BSD) high-performance key/value datastore that supports a variety of workloads such as caching, message queues.
• Can act as a primary database.
• Valkey can run as either a standalone daemon or in a cluster, with options for replication and high availability.
• Valkey natively supports a rich collection of datatypes, including strings, numbers, hashes, lists, sets, sorted sets, bitmaps, hyperloglogs and more.
• You can operate on data structures in-place with an expressive collection of commands.

Brian #3: 30 best practices for software development and testing

• Michael Foord (from 2017)
• Some gems
  • 1 - YAGNI
  • 6 - Unit tests test to the unit of behavior, not the unit of implementation.
  • 8 - Code is the enemy: It can go wrong, and it needs maintenance. Write less code. Delete code. Don’t write code you don’t need.
  • 15 - The more you have to mock out to test your code, the worse your code is.
  • and so many more …

Michael #4: mimetype.io

• I’m always forgetting content types!
• Also, shout out to httpstatuses.io

Extras

Brian:

• Python 1.0.0 released 31 years ago

Michael:

• Python 3.14.0 alpha 4 is out

Joke: Tea Time