Using GraphQL in Django With Strawberry & Prototype Purgatory
Aug 2, 2024
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Christopher Trudeau, a Python web development expert and contributor to PyCoder’s Weekly, shares insights on integrating GraphQL into Django with the Strawberry library. He discusses pitfalls in software prototyping, highlighting common misunderstandings between developers and users. The conversation also includes a quirky project involving a flight's Wi-Fi, using HTMX with FastAPI, and innovative AI tools for summarizing conference talks. Plus, explore the fun of turning images into ASCII art for the terminal!
Integrating GraphQL into Django with Strawberry allows for efficient model definition and data manipulation through intuitive queries and mutations.
The cautionary discussion on prototypes highlights common pitfalls, emphasizing the importance of good communication between developers and end users to prevent production issues.
Deep dives
Integrating GraphQL with Django using Strawberry
GraphQL is increasingly being adopted as a flexible alternative to REST for building APIs, allowing developers to specify exactly what data they need. A tutorial explores how to create GraphQL APIs in Django utilizing the Python library Strawberry, which simplifies the process of defining models, queries, and mutations. Developers can set up a sample project with a book database, where they create a schema and configure queries to fetch and mutate data efficiently. The advantages of Strawberry over traditional methods are its agile syntax and typing support, making the API development process more straightforward and less verbose.
Avoiding Common Prototype Pitfalls
Prototypes can provide quick proofs of concept but are often messy and lack necessary documentation, tests, or proper design. An article highlights the dangers of moving prototypes directly into production, as they tend to be hard-coded and may not use the team's standard programming language. Common issues include overlooking edge cases, which can lead to system failures in real-world scenarios. The discussion emphasizes the need for clear communication between IT and business teams to understand the long-term implications of maintaining a prototype.
Exploring HTMX and FastAPI
HTMX is introduced as a lightweight solution for building modern web applications, facilitating AJAX calls, CSS transitions, and WebSocket functionality directly within HTML. A tutorial demonstrates combining HTMX with FastAPI to create a simplistic web application for managing tasks, offering an efficient way to build interactive interfaces without needing heavy front-end frameworks like React. HTMX's design allows for rapid development while keeping the technology stack lightweight, promoting a shift back to server-side rendered HTML in many applications. The practical implications suggest that HTMX can simplify development while enhancing user experiences by reducing client-side resource requirements.
Innovative Projects in the Python Community
Various engaging projects in the Python ecosystem are highlighted, showcasing innovative uses of the language. One project, Pi Sky Wi-Fi, illustrates a creative use of Python for messaging over in-flight Wi-Fi, enabling a playful exploration of network vulnerabilities. Another project, RichPixels, offers a way to display images in a terminal in a pixelated format, leveraging the capabilities of the Rich library. These projects reflect the community's spirit of experimentation and creativity, exemplifying how Python can be applied in diverse and entertaining contexts.
How do you integrate GraphQL into your Python web development? How about quickly building graph-based APIs inside Django’s battery-included framework? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.
Christopher shares a recent tutorial for building GraphQL APIs in Django using the Python library Strawberry. The tutorial digs into creating a project, defining models, and creating GraphQL queries and mutations using Strawberry.
We discuss a blog post from Nat Bennet titled “Why do prototypes suck?” We dig into the common pitfalls of building prototypes and the misconceptions between developers and end users.
We also share several other articles and projects from the Python community, including a news roundup, using HTMX with FastAPI, creating an unbelievably stupid airline Wi-Fi package, extracting wisdom from conference videos, writing pixel images to the terminal, and a macOS app for Jupyter Notebooks.
In this video course, you’ll build an app to create and manage shortened URLs. Your Python URL shortener can receive a full target URL and return a shortened URL. You’ll also use the automatically created documentation of FastAPI to try out your API endpoints.
Topics:
00:00:00 – Introduction
00:02:27 – Python 3.13.0 Beta 4 Released
00:03:15 – Using HTMX With FastAPI
00:09:51 – Free, Unbelievably Stupid Wi-Fi on Long-Haul Flights
00:13:37 – Sponsor: Mailtrap
00:14:13 – “Extracting Wisdom” From Conference Videos
00:22:34 – Developing GraphQL APIs in Django With Strawberry
00:30:01 – Video Course Spotlight
00:31:33 – Why do prototypes suck?
00:42:53 – Satyrn: macOS App for Jupyter Notebooks
00:46:41 – rich-pixels: A Rich-compatible library for writing pixel images
Using HTMX With FastAPI – This tutorial looks at how use HTMX with FastAPI by creating a simple todo web app and deploying it on Render.
Free, Unbelievably Stupid Wi-Fi on Long-Haul Flights – Deep in a need to procrastinate on a flight between London and San Francisco, Robert discovered that changing his name on an airline’s frequent flyer account was free over the plane’s WiFi. What’s a developer to do? Work on their tickets? No, create an entire TCP/IP protocol using this loophole. The result is the PySkyWiFi package.
“Extracting Wisdom” From Conference Videos – There are so many conferences and so many videos, you can’t possibly watch them all. This post shows you how to extract information to summarize a talk so you can quickly decide what you want to watch.