I'm a full-stack software developer working on platforms that reduce energy use. My favorite tech stack includes Python, Django, PostgreSQL, and a smattering of JavaScript and CSS. I'm a fan of typed-languages, easy-to-read documentation, intentional user experience, and focused unit tests.
When I'm not writing code, you can find me listening to Paul Simon, playing Wingspan, or doing something active to post on Strava.
Moving the Blog to Zola
Back in 2021, I built this blog using a custom Python script that generated static pages from a series of Markdown files. After running the script to generate the new public folder (full of JS, CSS, images, and HTML pages) I would publish them to a Firebase hosted static site.
Render Markdown HTML in Python with Jinja2
By now, we can use Jinja to render HTML templates in Python. You can check out that post here. Now, I want a way to write code blocks with syntax highlighting on my HTML pages. Let's turn to Markdown.
Write HTML in Python with Jinja2
When building this blog, I knew I wanted to stay away from the overhead of working with a database. That meant I'd need to generate all my pages as static HTML pages which could be returned from the server.
Using .exclude(boolean_field=True) in Django and Postgres
A common Postgres “gotcha” I’ve run into before is the handling of NULL values. Equality comparisons in Postgres to NULL are neither true nor false.
What I Read in 2021
I like to read. Growing up, I read nearly constantly. In high school and at university, I found myself with almost no energy to read in my free time.
Now that I'm finally finished with school (for now?), I've been trying to get back into reading. That has taken the form of revisiting some favorites from my childhood and also reading some new books.
Here's what I've been reading in 2021...