Use Dot Notation to Build Django Contexts
One thing about Django views that I personally find a bit annoying is using dictionary notation when building the context to pass to my templates. I don't find this a big deal for smaller views, but sometimes I have quite a bit of variables to pass back to my template. Organization, readability and maintainability often do not come in the syntactic form of a large dictionary of random objects.
Multiple Arguments in a Django Filter
Custom Django filters are an awesome thing. One downside however is they don't easily allow multiple arguments passed through. I am finding in my time with Django I am wanting multiple arguments more and more. For example, lets look at the simple replace filter below.
Django Decorator to Print SQL Queries
Django's ORM is great for fast development, but it is sometimes all too easy to write inefficient queries in the language. There are a few options to help find rogue queries sucking all that process time. My favorite is of course Django Debug Toolbar. However, sometimes this is not a viable option, such as when writing AJAX processors, or for some reason DDTB is not available to you.
This simple decorator may help you alleviate some pain. It also becomes a useful tool to copy and paste the queries into an external query browser. My favorite for Linux is CrunchyFrog.
Fun with Simple Encryption
Every programmer loves thinking they can come up with some crafty way to encrypt a string. Having no background in encryption, of course I think the same thing. The hard part is coming up with something that is also easily decryptable, but clever enough that the average joe can't figure it out. Here is my attempt.
Setup Dynamic DNS using Linode
Being a fan and veteran of both DNS services dyndns.org and no-ip.org I was always very slightly annoyed that I could not do this with my personal domain name. The annoyance went up a little more when DynDNS started forcing me to log in every 3 months just to let them know I am still alive.
Since moving to Linode this weekend, I setup my own short DNS updating script. Update the variables APIKEY, DOMAIN, and RECORD to your desired settings and let her rip. Here are my settings for reference. This way when I hit home.pushingkarma.com, it routes to my home network.
Michael Shepanski
I've been creating websites for over 12 years, using Python since 2004 & Django since early 2009. Web development used to be a hobby to me. As web applications started becoming more complex and the demand so high, it turned into a full-time job. My passion is finding simple and elegant ways to display complex information.