Ivan Teoh

Cooking: Puffed Pastry Apple Tart

Sun, 16 Sep 2012 14:17:31 GMT

Nice shinning afternoon Sunday, we having some puffed pastry apply tart that freshly baked from a recipe from last night cooking show on Delicious Iceland by Chef Volli. You will notice the puffed pastry doesn't puff that much. That's because we get the ready-made pastry from Pampas.

Gallery

Python Web Templating Battle

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 11:40:34 GMT

This is my first presentation in Python conference Australia. It is held in Hobart, Tasmania on August 18 and 19, 2012. Below are the notes that I used for the presentation.

Thank you, Mark for introducing me and also thank you everyone here on interesting on this talk, Python web templating battle. This talk will be an introduction to python web templating in general.

This talk will start with an introduction for releasing my stress. After that, I will be covering five Python web templatings in brief, which will be including features, template syntax and template loader. Then, we will have 5 minutes discussion or question and answer section to end this talk.

Before I start, allowing me to spend a few seconds on introdution our current company, that I am working at, Pretaweb. The Python web templatings that we used in this company are Diazo, Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations or XSLT and Template Attribute Language or TAL. PretaWeb specialises in the provision and support of high availability, dedicated and SaaS CMS solutions for government.

Here, I want to disclaim that, the opinions expressed in this talk, are my own personal opinions, and do not represent my employer’s view in any way.

First, I will start with the definition of web template. What is web template? It is a tool used to separate content from presentation in web design, and for mass-production of web documents. It is a basic component of a web template system. Then what is web template system? It describes the software and methodologies used to produce web pages and for deployment on websites and delivery over the Internet. Such systems process web templates, using a template engine. It is a web publishing tool present in content management systems, software frameworks, HTML editors, and many other contexts.

Web templating involves the presentation of information in a form which is often (but not always) intended to be readable, even attractive, to a human audience. Frequently, templating solutions involve a document (the template) which may look somewhat like the final output but perhaps in a simplified or stylized form, along with some data which must be presented using that template; combining these two things produces the final output which in web templating is usually (but not always) a Web page of some kind.

There are many, many different HTML/XML templating packages and modules for Python that provide different feature sets and syntaxes. These libraries usually assume that you know how to write HTML or XML. But there are also many text based templating packages in Python. Here, I are going to discuss few of them.

These are the five templating packages that I am going to discuss today:

Django template language is for Django web framework. It is a text based template language.
Chameleon, which is a HTML or XML template package, used by Zope, Plone or Pyramid web framework.
Jinja2 is another text based template language that similar with Django template language but provides function or macro expressions in the template.
Diazo, is new feature in Plone 4.2. It defines a set of rules for merging Plone content with HTML wireframe from web designer and becoming Plone theme without touching the source code. It is also a HTML or XML template package.
Mako is also a text based language but it allow developer to embedded Python code in the template.

Just a quick show of hands, does anyone use all of the them? Four of the them? One of them? Good. At least most of the audience use at least one of the template language.

Django Template Language

Text based template language
Define variables and basic control logic
Used in Django web framework
Custom tag and filter in Python code

Django's template language is a text based template language. It designed to strike a balance between power and ease. It's designed to feel comfortable to those used to working with HTML. The Django template system provides tags which function similarly to some programming constructs - an if tag for boolean tests, a for tag for looping, etc. But these are not simply executed as the corresponding Python code, and the template system will not execute arbitrary Python expressions. Beside tags, filters and syntax that are provided by Django, you can add your own extensions to the template language as needed.

Django - Template Syntax

A template is a text document, or a normal Python string, that is marked-up using the Django template language. A template can contain block tags or variables:

{% extends "base_generic.html" %}

{% block title %}{{ section.title }}{% endblock %}

{% block content %}
<h1>{{ section.title }}</h1>

{% for story in story_list %}
<h2>
  <a href="{{ story.get_absolute_url }}">
    {{ story.headline|upper }}
  </a>
</h2>
<p>{{ story.tease|truncatewords:"100" }}</p>
{% endfor %}
{% endblock %}

A block tag is a symbol within a template that does something. For example, a block tag can output content, serve as a control structure (an "if" statement or "for" loop), grab content from a database or enable access to other template tags. Block tags are surrounded by "{%" and "%}". Example template with block tags:

{% if is_logged_in %}Thanks for logging in!{% else %}Please log in.{% endif %}

A variable is a symbol within a template that outputs a value. Variable tags are surrounded by "{{" and "}}". Example template with variables: My first name is {{ first_name }}. My last name is {{ last_name }}. A context is a "variable name" -> "variable value" mapping that is passed to a template. A template renders a context by replacing the variable "holes" with values from the context and executing all block tags.

You can modify variables for display by using filters. Filters look like this: {{ name|lower }}. This displays the value of the {{ name }} variable after being filtered through the lower filter, which converts text to lowercase. Use a pipe symbol (|) to apply a filter. Some filters take arguments. A filter argument looks like this: {{ bio|truncatewords:30 }}. This will display the first 30 words of the bio variable. Filter arguments that contain spaces must be quoted; for example, to join a list with commas and spaced you'd use {{ list|join:", " }}.

Django - Custom Filter

Django's template system comes with a wide variety of built-in tags and filters designed to address the presentation logic needs of your application. Nevertheless, you may find yourself needing functionality that is not covered by the core set of template primitives. You can extend the template engine by defining custom tags and filters using Python, and then make them available to your templates using the {% load %} tag.

Custom filters are just Python functions that take one or two arguments:

The value of the variable (input) - not necessarily a string.
The value of the argument - this can have a default value, or be left out altogether.

For example, in the filter {{ var|foo:"bar" }}, the filter foo would be passed the variable var and the argument "bar".

Filter functions should always return something. They shouldn't raise exceptions. They should fail silently. In case of error, they should return either the original input or an empty string - whichever makes more sense.

Here's an example filter definition:

def lower(value): # Only one argument.
    """Converts a string into all lowercase"""
    return value.lower()

register.filter('lower', lower)

And here's an example of how that filter would be used:

{{ somevariable|lower }}

Django - Template loader

There are few ways to load django template. One of the them is using 'django.template.Template' class. When using this class, you compile the raw template code into a Template object first. Then call the render() method of the Template object with a given context:

from django.template import Context, Template
t = Template("My name is {{ my_name }}.")
c = Context({"my_name": "Ivan"})
t.render(c)

If you're using Django's render_to_response() shortcut to populate a template with the contents of a dictionary, your template will be passed a Context instance by default (not a RequestContext). To use a RequestContext in your template rendering, pass an optional third argument to render_to_response(): a RequestContext instance. Your code might look like this:

def some_view(request):
    # ...
    return render_to_response('my_template.html',
                              my_data_dictionary,
                              context_instance=RequestContext(request))

Chameleon

HTML/XML template engine
Compiles into Python bytecode
The language used is page templates, originally a Zope invention
Uses Python as the default expression language
Embedded Python code
Used by Pyramid, Zope, Plone and Grok projects

Chameleon is an HTML/XML template engine for Python. It's designed to generate the document output of a web application, typically HTML markup or XML. The language used is page templates, originally a Zope invention, but available here as a standalone library that you can use in any script or application running Python 2.5 and up (including 3.x and pypy). The template engine compiles templates into Python byte-code and is optimized for speed.

The template language specifications and API for the Page Templates engine are based on Zope Page Templates, zope.pagetemplate. However, the Chameleon compiler and Page Templates engine is an entirely new codebase, packaged as a standalone distribution. It does require a Zope software environment. We can use Chameleon in Pyramid, Zope, Plone and Grok projects.

Chameleon - Template Syntax

The page templates language is used within your document structure as special element attributes and text markup. Using a set of simple language constructs, you control the document flow, element repetition, text replacement and translation.

If you've used page templates in a Zope environment previously, note that Chameleon uses Python as the default expression language (instead of path expressions). The basic language (known as the template attribute language or TAL) is simple enough to grasp from an example:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<body>
    <!--! This comment will be dropped from output -->
    <div tal:repeat="item range(10)">
        <p tal:condition="repeat.item.even">Even</p>
        <p tal:condition="repeat.item.odd">Odd</p>
    </div>
    <!--? This comment will be included verbatim -->
    <div>
        <?python import pdb; pdb.set_trace() ?>
        <ul tal:switch="len(items) % 2">
            <li tal:case="True">odd</li>
            <li tal:case="False">even</li>
        </ul>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

Chameleon - Attribute Language

An attribute language is a programming language designed to render documents written in XML or HTML markup. The statements of the language are document tags with special attributes, and look like this:

<p namespace-prefix:command="argument"> ... </p>

In the above example, the attribute namespace-prefix:command="argument" is the statement, and the entire paragraph tag is the statement's element. The statement's element is the portion of the document on which this statement operates.

Chameleon - Namespace Prefixes

The namespace prefixes are typically declared once, at the top of a template (note that prefix declarations for the template language namespaces are omitted from the template output):

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
      xmlns:tal="http://xml.zope.org/namespaces/tal"
      xmlns:metal="http://xml.zope.org/namespaces/metal"
      xmlns:i18n="http://xml.zope.org/namespaces/i18n">
  ...
</html>

Chameleon sets up defaults for tal, metal and i18n as well. Default prefixes are a special feature of Chameleon:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  ...
</html>

Chameleon - Switch and Case

The switch and case construct is a short-hand syntax for evaluating a set of expressions against a parent value. The tal:switch statement is used to set a new parent value and the tal:case statement works like a condition and only allows content if the expression matches the value. These statements are only available in Chameleon 2.x and not part of the ZPT specification:

<ul tal:switch="len(items) % 2">
    <li tal:case="True">odd</li>
    <li tal:case="False">even</li>
</ul>

Chameleon - Repeat

The tal:repeat statement replicates a sub-tree of your document once for each item in a sequence. The expression should evaluate to a sequence. If the sequence is empty, then the statement element is deleted, otherwise it is repeated for each value in the sequence. If the expression is default, then the element is left unchanged, and no new variables are defined. The variable_name is used to define a local variable and a repeat variable. For each repetition, the local variable is set to the current sequence element, and the repeat variable is set to an iteration object. Both even and odd are repeat variables. Even is True when even-indexed repetitions (0, 2, 4, ...). And odd is True when odd-indexed repetitions (1, 3, 5, ...):

<div tal:repeat="item range(10)">
    <p tal:condition="repeat.item.even">Even</p>
    <p tal:condition="repeat.item.odd">Odd</p>
</div>

Chameleon - Expression Type

The default expression type is Python. The Zope reference engine defaults to a path expression type, which is closely tied to the Zope framework. This expression is not implemented in Chameleon (but it’s available in a Zope framework compatibility package). Python expressions are executed natively within the translated template source code. There is no built-in security apparatus:

<div tal:repeat="item range(10)">
    ...
</div>

Chameleon - Embedded Python Code

The <?python ... ?> notation allows you to embed Python code in templates. The scope of name assignments is up to the nearest macro definition, or the template, if macros are not used. Note that code blocks can span multiple line and start on the next line of where the processing instruction begins:

<?python import pdb; pdb.set_trace() ?>

Chameleon - Comment statement

You can apply the "!" and "?" modifiers to change how comments are processed:

<!--! This comment will be dropped from output -->
<!--? This comment will be included verbatim -->

Chameleon - Extension

You can extend the language through the expression engine by writing your own expression compiler.

Let's try and write an expression compiler for an expression type that will simply uppercase the supplied value. We'll call it upper.

You can write such a compiler as a closure:

import ast

def uppercase_expression(string):
    def compiler(target, engine):
        uppercased = self.string.uppercase()
        value = ast.Str(uppercased)
        return [ast.Assign(targets=[target], value=value)]
    return compiler

To make it available under a certain prefix, we'll add it to the expression types dictionary:

from chameleon import PageTemplate
PageTemplate.expression_types['upper'] = uppercase_expression

Alternatively, you could subclass the template class and set the attribute expression_types to a dictionary that includes your expression:

from chameleon import PageTemplateFile
from chameleon.tales import PythonExpr

class MyPageTemplateFile(PageTemplateFile):
    expression_types = {
        'python': PythonExpr,
        'upper': uppercase_expression
        }

You can now uppercase strings natively in your templates:

<div tal:content="upper: hello, world" />

It’s probably best to stick with a Python expression:

<div tal:content="'hello, world'.upper()" />

Chameleon - Template loader

There are several template constructor classes available, one for each of the combinations text or xml, and string or file.

The file-based constructor requires an absolute path. To set up a templates directory once, use the template loader class:

import os

path = os.path.dirname(__file__)

from chameleon import PageTemplateLoader
templates = PageTemplateLoader(os.path.join(path, "templates"))

Then, to load a template relative to the provided path, use dictionary syntax:

template = templates['hello.pt']

Alternatively, use the appropriate template class directly. Let’s try with a string input:

from chameleon import PageTemplate
template = PageTemplate("<div>Hello, ${name}.</div>")

All template instances are callable. Provide variables by keyword argument:

>>> template(name='John')
'<div>Hello, John.</div>'

Jinja2

Function/macros
Text based template language
Compiles down to the python bytecode
Heavily inspired by Django and Python
General purpose template language

Jinga2 is a text based template language. The template syntax is heavily inspired by Django and Python. It also compiles down to the python bytecode. A template is simply a text file. It can generate any text-based format (HTML, XML, CSV, LaTeX, etc.). It doesn’t have a specific extension, .html or .xml are just fine. A template contains variables or expressions, which get replaced with values when the template is evaluated, and tags, which control the logic of the template.

Jinja2 - Template Syntax

This covers the default settings. The application developer might have changed the syntax from {% foo %} to <% foo %> or something similar:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
<html lang="en">
    <head>
        <title>My Webpage</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <ul id="navigation">
        {% for user in users if not user.hidden %}
            <li>{{ user.username|e }}</li>
        {% endfor %}
        </ul>
        {# this is comment #}
        <h1>My Webpage</h1>
        {{ my_variable }}
    </body>
</html>

There are two kinds of delimiters. {% ... %} and {{ ... }}. The first one is used to execute statements such as for-loops or assign values, the latter prints the result of the expression to the template.

Jinja2 - Variables

The application passes variables to the templates you can mess around in the template. Variables may have attributes or elements on them you can access too:

{{ my_variable }}

Jinja2 - Filters

Variables can be modified by filters. Filters are separated from the variable by a pipe symbol (|) and may have optional arguments in parentheses. Multiple filters can be chained. The output of one filter is applied to the next. {{ name|striptags|title }} for example will remove all HTML Tags from the name and title-cases it. Filters that accept arguments have parentheses around the arguments, like a function call. This example will join a list by commas: {{ list|join(’,’) }}:

{{ user.username|e }}

Jinja2 - Comments

To comment-out part of a line in a template, use the comment syntax which is by default set to {# ... #}. This is useful to comment out parts of the template for debugging or to add information for other template designers or yourself:

{# this is comment #}

Jinja2 - Control Structures

A control structure refers to all those things that control the flow of a program - conditionals (i.e. if/elif/else), for-loops, as well as things like macros and blocks. Control structures appear inside {% ... %} blocks in the default syntax. For example, for, it loops over each item in a sequence:

{% for user in users if not user.hidden %}
    <li>{{ user.username|e }}</li>
{% endfor %}

Jinja2 - Call

Macros are comparable with functions in regular programming languages. They are useful to put often used idioms into reusable functions to not repeat yourself. In some cases, it can be useful to pass a macro to another macro. For this purpose, you can use the special call block. The following example shows a macro that takes advantage of the call functionality and how it can be used:

{% macro render_dialog(title, class=’dialog’) -%}
<div class="{{ class }}">
    <h2>{{ title }}</h2>
    <div class="contents">
        {{ caller() }}
    </div>
</div>
{%- endmacro %}

{% call render_dialog(’Hello World’) %}
    This is a simple dialog rendered by using a macro and
    a call block.
{% endcall %}

Jinja2 - Template Loader

Jinja2 uses a central object called the template Environment. Instances of this class are used to store the configuration, global objects and are used to load templates from the file system or other locations. The simplest way to configure Jinja2 to load templates for your application looks roughly like this:

from jinja2 import Environment, PackageLoader
env = Environment(loader=PackageLoader('yourapplication', 'templates'))
template = env.get_template('mytemplate.html')
print template.render(the='variables', go='here')

This will create a template environment with the default settings and a loader that looks up the templates in the templates folder inside the 'yourapplication' python package. To load a template from this environment you just have to call the get_template() method which then returns the loaded Template. To render it with some variables, just call the render() method.

Diazo and XSLT

Diazo allows you to apply a theme contained in a static HTML web page to a dynamic website created using any server-side technology. With Diazo, you can take an HTML wireframe created by a web designer and turn it into a theme for your favourite CMS, redesign the user interface of a legacy web application without even having access to the original source code, or build a unified user experience across multiple disparate systems, all in a matter of hours, not weeks. When using Diazo, you will work with syntax and concepts familiar from working with HTML and CSS. And by allowing you seamlessly integrate XSLT into your rule files, Diazo makes common cases simple and complex requirements possible:

Diazo - Template Syntax

Inside the diazo folder, you will need at least two files, theme.xml and rules.html.

The theme.html is a static HTML design from web designer. It might come with placeholder content and images, stylesheets and JavaScript resources included via relative links. You would normally be able to test the theme by opening it with web browser:

<html>
    <head>
        <title>My own Diazo</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <h1 id="title">My own Diazo home page</h1>
        <div id="content">
            <!-- Placeholder -->
            Lorem ipsum ...
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

The rules.xml is Diazo rule file. It contains the Diazo directives that merge the content (the thing we are applying the theme to) into the theme, replacing placeholders with real content. I will explain later what are drop and replace directive statements mean:

<rules
    xmlns="http://namespaces.plone.org/diazo"
    xmlns:css="http://namespaces.plone.org/diazo/css"
    xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

    <theme href="theme.html" />

    <drop theme="/html/head/title" />
    <drop css:theme="#title" css:if-content="#content.wide" />
    <replace css:theme-children="#content" css:content-children=".content" />

</rules>

The rules file contains an XML document that is is rooted in a tag called <rules />. Here we have defined three namespaces: the default namespace is used for rules and XPath selectors. The css namespace is used for CSS3 selectors. These are functionally equivalent to the XPath selectors. In fact, CSS selectors are replaced by the equivalent XPath selector during the pre-processing step of the compiler. Thus, they have no performance impact. The xsl namespace is used if you want to add inline XSLT directives for fine-grained control.

Diazo - Directives

The following directives are allowed inside the <rules /> element in the rules file:

<theme />
<notheme />
<replace />
<before />
<after />
<drop />
<strip />
<merge />
<copy />

Here, we will be discussing three directives, theme, drop and replace.

The <theme /> is used to specify the theme file.

The <replace /> is used to replace an element in the theme entirely with an element in the content.

The <drop /> is used to drop elements from the theme or the content. This is the only element that accepts either theme or content attributes (or their css: and -children equivalents), but not both.

Diazo - Attributes

theme or theme-children or css:theme or css:theme-children - Used to specify the node(s) in the theme that is to be replaced. When using theme-children, all elements inside the tag that matches the XPath or CSS expression will be replaced, but the matched tag itself will remain intact.

content or content-children or css:content or css:content-children - Used to specify the node in the content that is to replace the matched node(s) in the theme. When using content-children, all elements inside the tag that matches the XPath or CSS expression will be used, but the matched tag itself will be left out.

Diazo - Conditional Rules

Sometimes, it is useful to apply a rule only if a given element appears or does not appear in the markup. The if, if-content and if-path attributes can be used with any rule, as well as the <theme /> and <notheme /> directives. if-content should be set to an XPath expression. You can also use css:if-content with a CSS3 expression. If the expression matches a node in the content, the rule will be applied.

Diazo - XSLT

There is no loop logic in Diazo? Wait!

<replace css:theme="#details">
    <dl id="details">
        <xsl:for-each css:select="ul#details > li">
            <dt><xsl:copy-of select="a" /></dt>
            <dd><xsl:copy-of select="img" /></dd>
        </xsl:for-each>
    </dl>
</replace>

Here come the mix of XSLT with Diazo. It is possible to insert XSLT instructions into the compiled theme in this manner. This code is looping <li> in <ul id=”details”> of the content. And then copy anchor element (<a>) in definition term element (<dt>) and image element (<img>) in definition description element (<dd>).

Diazo - Compilation

Once you have written your rules file, you need to compile it to an XSLT for deployment. In some cases, you may have an application server that does this on the fly, e.g. if you are using the plone.app.theming package with Plone. For deployment to a web server like Apache or Nginx, however, you will need to perform this step manually.

The easiest way to invoke the Diazo compiler is via the diazocompiler command line script which is installed with the diazo egg.

This will print the compiled XSLT file to the standard output. You can save it to a file instead using:

$ bin/diazocompiler -o theme.xsl -r rules.xml

Diazo - Test Run

To test the compiled theme, you can apply it to a static file representing the content. The easiest way to do this is via the diazorun script:

$ bin/diazorun -o output.html -r rules.xml content.html

Diazo - Template Loader

We can use Diazo in few ways. One of them is in Plone. When using in Plone, we have to include plone.app.theming package in Plone buildout configuration file. Then register Diazo folder in configure.zcml file.

<configure
    xmlns="http://namespaces.zope.org/zope"
    xmlns:i18n="http://namespaces.zope.org/i18n"
    xmlns:plone="http://namespaces.plone.org/plone"
    i18n_domain="plonetheme.custom">

   <!-- Register the /++theme++plonetheme.custom/ static resource directory -->
    <plone:static directory="static" type="theme" />

</configure>

Mako

is an embedded Python (i.e. Python Server Page) language
text based template language
compiles down to the python bytecode
function/macros
control structures constructed from real Python code (i.e. loops, conditionals)
straight Python blocks, inline or at the module-level

Mako - Template Syntax

<%inherit file="base.html"/>
<%
    rows = [[v for v in range(0,10)] for row in range(0,10)]
%>
<table>
    % for row in rows:
        ${makerow(row)}
    % endfor
</table>
## this is a comment.
<%def name="makerow(row)">
    <tr>
    % for name in row:
        <td>${name}</td>
    % endfor
    </tr>
</%def>

Mako - Control Structures

A control structure refers to all those things that control the flow of a program – conditionals (i.e. if/else), loops (like while and for), as well as things like try/except. In Mako, control structures are written using the % marker followed by a regular Python control expression, and are “closed” by using another % marker with the tag “end<name>”, where “<name>” is the keyword of the expression

Mako - Def Tag

The %def tag defines a Python function which contains a set of content, that can be called at some other point in the template. The %def tag is a lot more powerful than a plain Python def, as the Mako compiler provides many extra services with %def that you wouldn’t normally have, such as the ability to export defs as template “methods”, automatic propagation of the current Context, buffering / filtering / caching flags, and def calls with content, which enable packages of defs to be sent as arguments to other def calls (not as hard as it sounds).

Mako - Inherit Tag

Inherit allows templates to arrange themselves in inheritance chains. This is a concept familiar in many other template languages. When using the %inherit tag, control is passed to the topmost inherited template first, which then decides how to handle calling areas of content from its inheriting templates. Mako offers a lot of flexibility in this area, including dynamic inheritance, content wrapping, and polymorphic method calls.

Mako - Python Blocks

Any arbitrary block of python can be dropped in using the <% %> tags. Within <% %>, you’re writing a regular block of Python code. While the code can appear with an arbitrary level of preceding whitespace, it has to be consistently formatted with itself. Mako’s compiler will adjust the block of Python to be consistent with the surrounding generated Python code.

Mako - Module-level Blocks

<%!
    import mylib
    import re

    def filter(text):
        return re.sub(r'^@', '', text)
%>

A variant on <% %> is the module-level code block, denoted by <%! %>. Code within these tags is executed at the module level of the template, and not within the rendering function of the template. Therefore, this code does not have access to the template’s context and is only executed when the template is loaded into memory (which can be only once per application, or more, depending on the runtime environment). Use the <%! %> tags to declare your template’s imports, as well as any pure-Python functions you might want to declare:

Any number of <%! %> blocks can be declared anywhere in a template; they will be rendered in the resulting module in a single contiguous block above all render callables, in the order in which they appear in the source template.

Mako - Template Loader

A Template can also load its template source code from a file, using the filename keyword argument:

from mako.template import Template
mytemplate = Template(filename='/docs/mytmpl.txt')
print mytemplate.render()

For improved performance, a Template which is loaded from a file can also cache the source code to its generated module on the filesystem as a regular Python module file (i.e. a .py file). To do this, just add the module_directory argument to the template:

from mako.template import Template
mytemplate = Template(filename='/docs/mytmpl.txt', module_directory='/tmp/mako_modules')
print mytemplate.render()

When the above code is rendered, a file /tmp/mako_modules/docs/mytmpl.txt.py is created containing the source code for the module. The next time a Template with the same arguments is created, this module file will be automatically re-used.

Summary

I would like to apologize that the title is a bit misleading. There is no battle in the round that one of web template will win. Everyone is a winner I believe every single web templates have their own place in this market. They have their own unique feature that stand out from the rest. Some influence from other templates. Everyone learn from each other. After all, all is open source. Do you think they should combine into one standard Python web templating? We can see there are lots of similarity of each of them. Some web frameworks are supporting to have more than one web templating?

Discussion / Question and Answer

Any questions from the floor? Do you guys have any bad experience on any of the web templating to share?

Thank You

Thank you everyone that are coming to this talk.

Reference

Setup Python Development Environment on Mountain Lion

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 20:41:33 GMT

By default, Mac OS X Mountain Lion comes with Python 2.7 same as Mac OS X Lion. So far, I am facing some glitches on setup Python development environment on Mac OS X Mountain Lion as below:

Running 'brew doctor' warns us that 'X11 is not installed', when I was using Homebew. Mac OS X Mountain Lion is not supporting X11 app and Xgrid.
Need to install 'Command line tools for Xcode' from Apple Developer after Xcode installed. Installing 'Command line tools' from Xcode preference does not work for me. I was facing this problem while running virtualenv.

Upgrading to Mountain Lion Experience

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 22:20:25 GMT

It wasn't good experience on upgrading Mac OS X to Mountain Lion comparing to upgrading to Lion. After downloading the operating system, double clicking the installer, 'Install OS X Mountain Lion', and waiting for restarting the system, the error message occurred. Upgrading failed. I also tried the clean installation. It also failed. 'There was a problem installing Mac OS X. Try reinstalling.' was the last error message. The final solution that works for me is resetting my Mac's PRAM and NVRAM.

References

Cooking: Vegetarian Miso Noodle Soup

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 20:19:06 GMT

Overdose with miso. We are having something light tonight, vegetarian miso noodle soup.

Ingredients:

tofu
button mushroom
wakame Seaweed
baby bok choy
fish stock or dashi soup stock
red or white miso paste
noodle

Method:

Bring the water to boil.
Add in all the vegetables into the water.
Add fish stock or dashi soup stock.
Add miso paste and dissolve well.
Turn off the heat just before water begins to boil again.
Serve with noodle.

Gallery

References

Nexus 7: Unlock Screen Rotation

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 06:11:47 GMT

Screen rotation is locked by default in Nexus 7. It took a night to notice the icon. Well, I am still new to Google Android. I am not sure whether it is Android 4.1, Jelly Bean default behaviour. After swiping the screen from top, you will see the tiny rotate icon with a lock next the time / date. Clicking that icon will toggle between lock screen rotation or auto screen rotation.

Gallery

References

Cooking: Stir-fried Eggplant with Miso

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 21:23:42 GMT

Maruyu Yumehiroba or Maruyu City Supermarket is my favourite Japanese shop in Sydney. Ground floor is Japanese food section. On the other hand, everything is AU$2.50 at first shop. Mainly are household, gift and toiletries. It is small but full of gems. One of them is free Japanese food recipe. I got few of them few days ago. Today I decided to try stir-fried eggplant with miso.

Ingredients (4 Serve):

3 small eggplants (750g total)
3 tablespoons of miso paste
1 1/2 tablespoon of mirin
1 1/2 tablespoon of sugar
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Method:

Cut eggplants into bites size and soak them in a bowl of water for 10 mins and drain. Dried with paper towels.
Mix miso, mirin, and sugar in a small bowl and set aside. (I use red miso).
Heat oil in a medium skillet and fried eggplant on medium heat until softened, then turn down the heat to low.
Add miso mixture and stir with the ingredient quickly then turn off the heat.

It tastes nice. Go and check out both the recipes and shop.

Gallery

References

Maruyu Yumehiroba

My First Tablet: Nexus 7

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:30:00 GMT

No embarrassing unboxing video. Just my thought on my first tablet - Nexus 7. I got an notice the device is shipped on 17 July and expected to arrive on 19 July, which is today. I got it this afternoon. It comes with a very tight cover box. It took me awhile to see what is inside the box.

What’s in the box:

nexus 7
warranty booklet
quick start guide
usb charging unit with Australian plug
micro usb cable

Beside AU$25, it comes with preloaded contents in my library:

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (movie)
Nexus 7 Guidebook by Google Inc. (ebook)
Wonderful Stories for Children by Hans Christian Andersen (ebook)
Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (ebook)
Bleak House by Charles Dickens (ebook)
The Drop by Michael Connelly (ebook)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (ebook)

Most of the reviews, that I read, commented that this tablet is super fast and best value among all the 7 inch tablet in the market right now. 16G version costs me AU$299 plus AU$19.99 shipping cost. I can see the animation transition is smooth, with very bright screen. All the google products work really well on this device. I particularly like the voice search. Yet to try the NFC feature.

Excitement didn’t last long. It is much heavier than I thought. For this price, I am not complain when the device only have 1.2MP front-facing camera, support wifi and bluetooth. After entering Google Play, most of the time I see this message, ‘Your device isn’t compatible with this version.’, which means I can’t install most of the Android applications yet on this device. I am frustrated that I can’t rotate Google Chrome. No landscape for Google Chrome.

Summary, this device will become my needy toys when I need to check something quickly on internet, by talking to him.

Gallery

References

Nexus 7

Updates: 20 Jul 2012

I was wrong. I can rotate Google Chrome, by unlock the screen rotation.

Back to Basic

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 21:55:51 GMT

WordPress, to static website using site generator, Nikola almost comes to the end. Just a few things for tidying up. Not say that WordPress not good. It always my first choice of blogging platform that used Php. Now, I want something really simple and using language that I using daily basic, Python. Nikola is written in Python and has features that I need. If you like this site, give it a try.

In Progress

Sun, 17 Jun 2012 18:23:01 GMT

I am working on converting my personal site from WordPress to static website using Nikola, static website and blog generator in Python.

Meanwhile, you still can visit old site that still using WordPress until the completion of conversion.

Updates: 18 Jul 2012

Conversion completed. Now, the old site is closed.