davepeck.org

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 14:58:00 GMT

One of my favorite database design patterns is what I call the "mullet schema": business up front, party in the back, where every table in the database ends with a JSON column.

I even mentioned it on a recent episode of the Talk Python podcast:

This morning, I read David Crawshaw's excellent post, How I Program With Agents. In a sidebar, he completely blew my mullet-addled mind:

I learned an odd way of using SQL at Tailscale (from Brad and Maisem): make every table a JSON object. In particular, have only one “real” column and the rest generated from the JSON. So the typical table looks like:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS Cookie (
  Cookie   TEXT    NOT NULL AS (Data->>'cookie')  STORED UNIQUE, -- PK
  UserID   INTEGER NOT NULL AS (Data->>'user_id') STORED REFERENCES User (UserID),
  Created  INTEGER NOT NULL AS (unixepoch(Data->>'created')) STORED,
  LastUsed INTEGER AS (unixepoch(Data->>'last_used')) CHECK (LastUsed>0),
  Data     JSONB   NOT NULL
);

Now it's a party!

David mentions some of the tradeoffs and hints at a potential future blog post about the approach. In the meantime, I may need to rethink my mullet nomenclature!

Tue, 27 May 2025 15:26:00 GMT

I gave a lightning talk at PyCon introducing t-strings to a hall full of Pythonistas. At just under five minutes, the intro had to be a "whirlwind". I hope I managed to convey the basics in a fun way.

PS: right after I spoke, Sheena O'Connell gave a talk about Python in Africa that I found inspiring. It's worth a watch.

Wed, 21 May 2025 21:30:00 GMT

I just ran across* Will Vincent's delightful PyCon 2025 Recap, the first of many recaps I hope to read from folks I met at the conference.

* I'm old, so I "ran across" it in my RSS reader.

Mon, 19 May 2025 12:11:00 GMT

PyCon US has been a whirlwind of activity. One fun project: we stood up a simple but hopefully useful new t-strings help website.

Wed, 14 May 2025 15:53:00 GMT

Just in time for PyCon US, I had the pleasure of being a guest on the Talk Python podcast with Michael Kennedy. Along with Paul and Jim, two of my PEP 750 co-conspirators, we talked all about the new t-strings feature that will ship later this year with Python 3.14.

You can listen to the episode here.

Tue, 06 May 2025 15:34:00 GMT

LLMs are powerful levers for writing code. With time and plenty of experimentation, I've found tools and strategies that work well for me.

LLMs are also wildly flexible. To learn how others use them, I've started watching screencasts by expert engineers. Three I recommend:

Kevin Leneway is one of the most talented software developers I've had the pleasure of working with. He recently published a series on building a Cursor-like tool and has accumulated a number of interesting techniques for getting the most out of LLMs.
Mary Rose Cook is an expert in game development and is currently building a 2D tactical shooter with AI. Her approach strikes an interesting balance between being particular about architecture and requirements and letting LLMs do their thing.
Pamela Fox is a Cloud Advocate at Microsoft and is currently using LLMs to assist with complex backend tasks in Python.

All three have very different styles; I've learned quite a bit from each. Check out their channels and see what vibes with you.

Photo: Covel Creek Falls

Mon, 05 May 2025 18:36:00 GMT

The view from behind Covel Creek Falls, during a weekend campout in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 16:10:00 GMT

PEP 787, Safer subprocess usage using t-strings, is a newly proposed PEP that improves the safety of subprocess invocations in Python by building directly on the template strings features of PEP 750. I couldn't be more excited to see it! The proposal is open for feedback.

(PS: This new proposal was written by the two authors of PEP 501, which fed directly into the development of PEP 750. Nick Humrich offers a good perspective on the history in his recent HN posts.)

Python's new t-strings

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 15:31:00 GMT

Template strings, also known as t-strings, have been officially accepted as a feature in Python 3.14, which will ship in late 2025. 🎉

I'm excited; t-strings open the door to safer more flexible string processing in Python.

What's the big idea with t-strings?

Since they were introduced in Python 3.6, f-strings have become a very popular way to format strings. They are concise, readable, and powerful.

In fact, they're so delightful that many developers use f-strings for everything... even when they shouldn't!

Alas, f-strings are often dangerously (mis)used to format strings that contain user input. I've seen f-strings used for SQL (f"SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = '{user_name}'") and for HTML (f"<div>{user_name}</div>"). These are not safe! If user_name contains a malicious value, it can lead to SQL injection or cross-site scripting.

Template strings are a generalization of Python's f-strings. Whereas f-strings immediately become a string, t-strings evaluate to a new type, string.templatelib.Template:

from string.templatelib import Template
name = "World"
template: Template = t"Hello {name}!"

Importantly, Template instances are not strings. The Template type does not provide its own __str__() implementation, which is to say that calling str(my_template) does not return a useful value. Templates must be processed before they can be used; that processing code can be written by the developer or provided by a library and can safely escape the dynamic content.

We can imagine a library that provides an html() function that takes a Template and returns a safely escaped string:

evil = "<script>alert('bad')</script>"
template = t"<p>{evil}</p>"
safe = html(template)
assert safe == "<p>&lt;script&gt;alert('bad')&lt;/script&gt;</p>"

Of course, t-strings are useful for more than just safety; they also allow for more flexible string processing. For example, that html() function could return a new type, HTMLElement. It could also accept all sorts of useful substitutions in the HTML itself:

attributes = {"src": "roquefort.jpg", "alt": "Yum"}
template = t"<img {attributes} />"
element = html(template)
assert str(element) == "<img src='roquefort.jpg' alt='Yum' />"

If you've worked with JavaScript, t-strings may feel familiar. They are the pythonic parallel to JavaScript's tagged templates.

How do I work with t-strings?

To support processing, Templates give developers access to the string and its interpolated values before they are combined into a final string.

The .strings and .values properties of a Template return tuples:

name = "World"
template = t"Hello {name}!"
assert template.strings == ("Hello ", "!")
assert template.values == (name,)

There is always one more (possibly empty) string than value. That is, t"".strings == ("",) and t"{name}".strings == ("", "").

As a shortcut, it's also possible to iterate over a Template:

name = "World"
template = t"Hello {name}!"
contents = list(template)
assert contents[0] == "Hello "
assert contents[1].value == name
assert contents[2] == "!"

Developers writing complex processing code can also access the gory details of each interpolation:

name = "World"
template = t"Hello {name!s:>8}!"
assert template.interpolations[0].value == name
assert template.interpolations[0].expression == "name"
assert template.interpolations[0].conversion == "s"
assert template.interpolations[0].format_spec == ">8"

In addition to supporting the literal (t"foo") form, Templates can also be instantiated directly:

from string.templatelib import Template, Interpolation
template = Template(
	"Hello ",
	Interpolation(value="World", expression="name"),
	"!"
)

Strings and interpolations can be provided to the Template constructor in any order.

A simple t-string example

Let's say we wanted to write code to convert all substituted words into pig latin. All it takes is a simple function:

def pig_latin(template: Template) -> str:
	"""Convert a Template to pig latin."""
	result = []
	for item in template:
		if isinstance(item, str):
			result.append(item)
		else:
			word = item.value
			if word and word[0] in "aeiou":
				result.append(word + "yay")
			else:
				result.append(word[1:] + word[0] + "ay")
	return "".join(result)

name = "world"
template = t"Hello {name}!"
assert pig_latin(template) == "Hello orldway!"

This is a goofy example; if you'd like to see some less silly examples, check out the PEP 750 examples repository.

What's next once t-strings ship?

T-strings are a powerful new feature that will make Python string processing safer and more flexible. I hope to see them used in all sorts of libraries and frameworks, especially those that deal with user input.

In addition, I hope that the tooling ecosystem will adapt to support t-strings. For instance, I'd love to see black and ruff format t-string contents, and vscode color those contents, if they're a common type like HTML or SQL.

It's been fun to get to know and work with Jim, Paul, Koudai, Lysandros, and Guido on this project and to interact with many more members of the Python community online without whose input PEP 750 simply wouldn't have come together. I can't wait to see what developers build with t-strings once they ship!

Sat, 08 Feb 2025 19:10:00 GMT

Antirez is back with a short list of how we're destroying software. A few excerpts:

We are destroying software with complex build systems.

We are destroying software pushing for rewrites of things that work.

We are destroying software trying to produce code as fast as possible, not as well designed as possible.

...

I dunno. It seems like it was ever thus. We've always layered on terrible leaky abstractions and built unfriendly brittle tools. We've always needlessly rewritten systems that work just fine. We've always rushed to get it out the door now, not out the door right.

But I do want to call this one out:

We are destroying software mistaking it for a purely engineering discipline.

So much this. People and politics and life are so much a part of software. The tools we build reflect our values and beliefs. They enable others to promote and entrench their values and beliefs, whether for good or for ill. Let's work to make it for good.

Link

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 17:10:00 GMT

Welp. He's back.

Yesterday, like all incoming presidents, Trump signed a barrage of executive orders. Unlike other incoming presidents, many of his actions were bizarre, unlawful, or outright unconstitutional. Lawfare remains my go-to source for both cautious analysis and original documents.

From where I sit, the one truly terrifying action Trump took yesterday was pardoning or commuting the terms of every January 6th insurrectionist. What better way to buy the loyalty of his most violent supporters? What better way to ensure future violence should such violence serve his needs?

Small tech in 2025

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 18:43:00 GMT

Big tech can fend for itself. For me, small tech — home to all manner of creative computer weirdos — is where the fun is at. Here are some trends I'm keeping an eye on:

The open social web

The open social web hit its stride in 2024. Idealists and software nerds got organized: the Social Web Foundation emerged to steward the ActivityPub ecosystem, Free Our Feeds started holding ATProto's feet to the decentralized fire, and A New Social began building bridges between open networks. Independent researchers brought focus to the challenges of decentralized governance while nonprofits developed new resources for federated moderation. And, in early 2025, Mastodon took big steps toward community ownership.

Creative tinkerers have leveraged the social web's openness to build interesting indie businesses. Surf.social ships an innovative UI for exploring open social content. Murmel sends top stories from your feed directly to your inbox. Mastohost makes it easy to self-host Mastodon. And Micro.blog continues to thoughtfully explore new directions.

Novel use of large language models

While big tech spins its wheels on "agentic" AI hype, small tech is discovering creative and force-multiplying new uses for LLMs.

Researchers like Amelia Wattenberger, Linus Lee, Tony Beltramelli, Maggie Appleton, and Shawn Wang are all exploring LLM-powered user experiences built on tight feedback loops. My favorite of these interface prototypes avoid chat-like interactions entirely, instead hiding LLMs gently in the background. Gestures lead to LLM invocations, which lead to the further evolution of the interface.

Meanwhile, services like CityMeetings.nyc show the potential for LLMs to transmute piles of unstructured content into actionable insight. CityMeetings breaks down every New York City Council meeting into easily readable and linkable digests. It has become an essential tool for local journalists. Impressively, CityMeetings is a one-person project!

Small tech is (of course!) full of indie devs, who naturally experiment with LLMs for their own software development. AI code assistants like GitHub Copilot are now omnipresent, and editor workflow innovations from Cursor and Windsurf AI, along with chat UX features like Anthropic's Artifacts, suggest where tools might go next. Small tech startups like Val Town have learned from these patterns and introduced their own bespoke AI tools for developers.

Experiments in local-first

The small tech community has a long history of building tools that prioritize user agency and privacy. That's why, when Martin Kleppmann and Adam Wiggins introduced the idea of "local-first software" architecture, the community paid attention. Local-first applications store data locally, work offline, and sync with other devices when possible — aligning nicely with the ethos of small tech and the open social web.

In his fun-to-read predictions for 2025, Tom MacWright anticipates that "local-first will have a breakthrough moment". The technical challenges — building sync engines, resolving conflicts, and managing schema migrations — remain substantial, so I don't expect to see a true market breakthrough. That said, new frameworks like Zero, Electric, and Jazz show that indie devs will keep pushing the envelope.

Sustainable and small

I'm always drawn to indie software shops that eschew "traditional" VC financing in favor of a focus on sustainable growth and personal independence. I'm delighted by the sheer amount of technical depth, art, whimsy, and nerdy joy I'm seeing from today's crop of small tech startups. Creative experimentation is alive and well. While big tech keeps embiggening, small tech is quietly shaping a more humane and thoughtful future.

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 18:31:00 GMT

This is an audio post. You can listen to the audio here: Severance theme song: Defiant Piano Jazz

It's 2025 and I'm apparently unreasonably excited about the upcoming second season of Severance. It's the TV show with the most Being John Malkovich energy since, well, Malkovich.

The opening theme song was stuck in my head all vacation; I couldn't resist noodling with it on the keys. So here's my defiant piano jazz jam:

Sat, 16 Nov 2024 16:43:00 GMT

Bluesky has been a veritable party since the election.

Since I self-host my own Mastodon instance I figured I'd give self-hosting a Bluesky PDS a shot, too.

The upshot: you can find me on Bluesky as @davepeck.org.

I installed my Bluesky PDS on a tiny server using Dokku, a "personal" Heroku clone. You can read my notes on how to self-host a Bluesky PDS with Dokku if you're interested in the gory details.

Decompression

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 04:26:00 GMT

It was unexpectedly sunny in Seattle today. The trails and parks were full. Perhaps we were all decompressing.

Even with the ample sun and fresh air, it was impossible not to dwell:

We can say it was about the economy. We can say it was (sigh) about immigrants taking jobs and importing crime. We can say it was about misogyny and racism.

It was about these things, to some degree.

But I think they also miss the mark. As I write, the GOP looks poised to sweep it all: the popular vote, both houses of Congress, everything.

I see this election as a resounding affirmative vote for Trump and Trumpism. I see it as a strident repudiation of much that came before, the political order of America since at least the Reagan administration. I see it as a statement that our norms and our mores and our rule of law no longer matter except to a minority of us.

America is changed. Mending it will require the work not of another election, but of an entire generation.

Photo: Lit

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 23:30:00 GMT

Lit. 🤞

Mon, 04 Nov 2024 18:42:00 GMT

If you're a U.S. citizen: vote for Kamala Harris.

I don't think I need to say more. Just vote.

Fri, 18 Oct 2024 20:31:00 GMT

PEP 750: Template Strings proposes a new addition to the Python programming language that generalizes f-strings. Unlike f-strings, t-strings evaluate to a new type, Template, that provides access to the string and its interpolated values before they are combined:

name = "World"
template: Template = t"Hello {name}"
assert template.args[0] == "Hello "
assert template.args[1].value == "World"

This opens the door to a variety of new use cases. The proposal is currently in the draft stage and open for feedback.

Mon, 07 Oct 2024 21:15:00 GMT

Took a four-day trip to Iceland. What a beautiful place. A quick photo summary:

Mon, 16 Sep 2024 16:20:00 GMT

How to Monetize a Blog seems a bit bland at first. I'm guessing most visitors quickly bounce away.

Don't. Keep reading. Becōme.

Link