DEV Community: Laís Carvalho

EuroPython 2020 - my impressions as a first time volunteer

Laís Carvalho — Tue, 09 Aug 2022 14:21:21 +0000

NOTE: This blog post was written 2 years ago, when I first volunteered for EuroPython, back in 2020. I have a ~~bad~~ habit of writing things and never publishing them, diminishing the purpose of having a blog.
I have been meaning to correct such habit, hence the late publication.

EuroPython 2020 is over and I would like to share my experience.

First, a bit of context...

What is EuroPython?

EuroPython is the biggest Python conference in Europe. The 2020 edition was my first time participating.

How did I get into it?

I was invited by Cheuk Ho to help with the entertainment session of the website. The conference was going to happen in Dublin, my homeland for a good while now.
It was February, and I was helping with the organization of the regional PyCon Ireland in Limerick.

I had a full list of places to visit and things to do when COVID lockdown hit us all. After much discussion, it was then decided that although none of us had experience with running online events, EuroPython 2020 would be online.

What happened

I confess, I did not imagine the amount of work that organising an online event would be. You see, when you run a in-person event things like tracks and finding speakers are a little bit more straight-forward.
And after hours and hours of meetings, hundreds of pages of documentation and a lot of stress and setup hours, the conference finally happened. And it was a complete success!

Registration

Registration was handled quite nicely by a bot written by our queen Cheuk Ho. The fact that our first keynote speaker of the event was nowhere to be found brought stress levels up but we kept it tight and all else ran as smoothly as it could possibly be.

Me at EuroPython 2020

Throughout the four conference days I signed up to:
1) give a talk on coding best-practices for data scientists;
2) host my first mentored-sprint;
3) act as session chair and room manager, since our setup required 2 volunteers for each speaker.

The stress won the battle on the talk, and I decided to give up on it. I regret not pushing myself further and doing it, but that is a subject for another post.

I was there for the Kedro mentored sprint, which ended up being one of the most significant out of comfort-zone experiments I have ever done. I had participated in mentored sprints before, but never as a mentor.
The experience was challenging and I could have better prepared for it, but all went well. After all, encouraging people to contribute to Open Source and practicing teamwork and discussions are quite heart-filling. I truly recommend it!
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Finally, the session's hosting were a lot of fun! All the attendees were exceptionally nice and collaborative. The jokes were fun and I believe we managed to mimic the in-person event pretty well, given the circumstances.

The community

The final highlight goes to the thriving EuroPython Community, and how unbelievably kind and welcoming everyone is. It filled my heart with joy to see how things kind of felt into place and ran smoothly after so much work!

Fun tracks

Another attraction at the online event was the Word Peril game. Designed by our awesome Jason McDonald. The game was similar to Jeopardy only better because it was all Python-related.

We had a mate workshop-session taught by our Argentinian connoisseur Nicolás Demarchi, and a very heated tea discussion.
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goodbye_europython2020

A few of the faces that contributed to the amazing event!
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I am happy to have said yes to another challenge and to having had the opportunity to engage with such impressive and dedicated people. It is an honour to serve the community beside you all, EuroPython folks!

Now, let's all be safe and make sure that 2021 happens here in Dublin (SPOILER ALERT: it did not!). I had a whole entertainment session written (and more to come) on the perks of spending some solid summer days in Dublin.

Ubuntu SILENT! But not so silent O.o

Laís Carvalho — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 14:43:00 +0000

My laptop decided to not to have any sound. My fresh Ubuntu 20.04 installation still does not account for my Bluetooth headphones (any tips to connect Jabra devices to Linux? Seems like the saga has millions of followers).

On an attempt to add their MAC address to the sound configuration of the laptop (my personal way to scream "YOU WILL CONNECT BECAUSE I AM THE HUMAN AND I TELL YOU WHAT TO DO!" to my PC), I messed up the entire sound configuration and lost not only sound but video and audio devices. A total messy mess!

So here is the tutorial about how to undo your booboo if by any chance you edit more files than you bash knowledge can chew.

Keep an eye on your error logs, one of them told me there was an invalid command on my config file. Read, cd into the MOFO, and fix it! Error messages are there for something.

What brings me to...

DO NOT indiscriminately EDIT files from /etc/.... Keep in mind that if things go South, it might be required to reset your entire machine. If you happen to change a lot, try and keep notes on an editor describing your steps. Worst case scenario, they can become a blog post in the future, or not. The goal here is to learn to document your booboos.
If you happen to be in Ubuntu 20.04 and someone is telling you to edit /etc/asound.config run away from there because this file does not exist on your version. On 20.04 the equivalent is called /usr/share/alsa/pulse-alsa.config. I've 'edited' asound.config and broke it. Don't be like me!
If you also edited ~/.asoundrc and is currently staring at a Dummy Sound, which is ironically silent on your Settings window, come with me and let's fix this.

Fix

Delete the files that you know you've edited and are now troublesome. In my case, I had to delete ~/.asoundrc and /etc/asound.config. Both initially did not exist, but I thought I would create and edit them, just to make more difficult to debug later on. #sillyme

Once they have been deleted, go to your terminal and type:

systemctl --user mask pulseaudio.socket #restart pulse auto-starting
systemctl --user stop pulseaudio
pulseaudio -vvv

This will prompt the system to rebuild the config files. It should work! :)

In case your audio is still not alive after this, you could try the instructions in here, it gives some great suggestions.

That's all then, folks!

Good luck and stay safe! Most importantly, don't forget to KEEP AWAY FROM /etc/ files if you don't know your way.

I think I've learned my lesson for now :)

Quick-fix git - resources to debug commits

Laís Carvalho — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 13:21:46 +0000

If you have a dev account you probably know git. The most used Version Control System ever! Lab or Hub, raise your hand who never had a frustrating crisis while handling this bad-being (a gender-neutral reference to Bad Boys).

Recently, I had a 5 days fight with the system. Which culminated on Twitter breakdown, that later brought on TONS of good advice.

This post aims to reference the solid advice and add some more useful stuff I've learned while researching. You know, keeping it for posterity. In any case, here is the thread.

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Debug pushes

"Have you tried turning off and on again?"
The git equivalent to it is the HARD resetting, that rewinds your repo to a specified commit. You can also delete the local copy and start fresh from a new clone. You'd be surprised how many people have this as the go to solution. Think "the print statement of git debugging".

Source: xkcd.com
Compare/merge tool for easyly solving merge conflicts
macOS users can try Kaleidoscope and Linux ones might prefer Meld, which also works on Windows.
These tools help visualising the commit history of a repository and might be useful on debug cases. I have not tried just yet but the tip seems to be solid.
Git history on the go
I had no idea about the git log --graph command that shows your commit history on a graph. A bit of a confusing UI, so why not use a tool for it? Meet gitg, the GUI client for git repos. Worth a read.
When in doubt? RESEARCH!
It is silly to say this to you, fellow dev but when in doubt, Google it! Among the places with useful information I've found this blogpost on How to UNDO (almost) anything with git and the lifesaver Oh Shit, Git!?! that easily suggests code snippets to sort out your bellyache.

The golden rule

Finally, git will give you no white hairs (I found my first one 2 days ago, still on my 20s! #cry) if you learn that mofo inside out and back to front. How? Read the damn Pro Git book. Doubly recommended, it seems to be the basic milestone of git knowledge. You're welcome.

More learning resources?

Watch James Powell's talk at PyGotham on building a git client from scratch. Some lightning coding, for your delight.
Play with this visualy interactive website to learn git through a sandbox. A sort of virtual Golden Beads Montessori equivalent for learning commits effectivelly. Definetely a keeper!

Still struggling? Maybe a cry would help.

Got more suggestions? Drop them in the comment box below and let's have a chat!

Peace, yo!

New season! Mid Meet Py - Ep.1 - Interview with Laura Funderburk

Laís Carvalho — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 21:47:52 +0000

And we are back!
We missed you all very much and decided this was enough time away. Did you enjoy 2020? It was dreadful for us too, but we are glad to be back!

PyHall of Fame

To celebrate our return we had the wonderful Laura Gutierrez Funderburk, Data Scientist for @Calisto_Canada, Developer for @irepector_plus and organiser of @PyLadies Vancouver.

She and Cheuk had a chat about community, Pyjamas, Laura's programming experience and her tips for those who are starting on this career path.

PyChat

The episode also announced:

the host's participation on the Python DevRoom at FOSDEM 21
the call for proposals for PyConUS (ending on Feb 12th)
a new Irish Machine Learning group on Slack called ML Éire

PyCommendations

Finally, as part of the episode's recommendation is the Flask Mega Tutorial by Miguel Grimberg.

Watch full episode here

The next episode will be streamed live on Twitch on Feb 26th at 6pm UTC.

Come join us at this month's MidMeetPy!

New year, new me?! New OS for sure!

Laís Carvalho — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 22:17:23 +0000

This post is a bit late (was written and forgotten amongst the drafts) but it is still quite relevant

I made a bit of a fuss on Twitter on the last few days because well, I bought a new computer.

Laís Carvalho

@lais_bsc

I have a new buddy!!! 🎉🦄🎉

I know I'm losing it, but it's 2020 🤷🏽‍♀️

14:16 PM - 09 Dec 2020

The new baby** is an XPS 9300 with 32Gb of RAM and 1Tb of memory. 💥💥💥

** I know, it is ridiculous to call a laptop a 'baby' but computers are less disappointing than humans so I tend to keep them closer.
Judge me, I don't really care. :)

I have never bought a new baby and thought it was time to do so. Welcome to the life of a grownup! #mixedfeelings

What is this post about, though?

No, I have not completely lost it, I promise! The goal of this post is to make notes on the steps I should watch for the next time I decide to install a Linux-based OS on a laptop.

For official info on how to install any ArchLinux OS, check out the detailed installation guide.

The Distro choice

As the good newbie that I am, Ubuntu seemed to be the way to go. But then, speaking to some uber-pro devs (thanks @Melissa and @eumiro) it seems like ArchLinux is the way to go. The issue is: ArchLinux has no GUI. 👀 It is basically a naked Kernel running on the machine. That seemed too much for me. Apologies to my OS lecturer but "HELL, NO!"

More info? Check out this article comparing ArchLinux and Ubuntu

The solution? Manjaro! An ArchLinux-based OS with super speed and a lovely GUI. Check it out the list of editions here.

Steps for a secure install:

1. Find the ArchLinux Distro for your machine

Search for "archlinux 'computer_brand_and_model'", this will return a nice wiki page with the best practice for installation of your new OS. Read that page with all your love (and attention).

In my case, this is the returned page (screenshot below).

Under the tab 'Discussions' it is possible to see solutions for different problems users have had with the specified combo OS + hardware.
We are standing on the shoulders of giants, don't forget to take advantage of it, folks.

2. Before editing BIOS config, make a live-system USB and test it!

This is the golden advice Melissa gave me. Apparently, doing a dry-run is better than messing up everything. And if all run smoothly, we are good to go!

To make a live-system USB, follow these steps.

For the record: I used Rufus and Manjaro XFCE 20.2.

Then, plug the pen drive, and keep pressing F12. When you see the BIOS UEFI, set the laptop to start with the media inserted and exit. If it runs (and you're NOT doing dual boot) then we have a winner. Open the installer and follow the instructions on this video.

Congrats, you must have a working Manjaro on your machine now!

If that did not work, then you need to follow the instructions on the wiki link.

Notes

A few things I'd like to keep registered for posterity.

When setting up a storage device, the option 'Erase disk: Swap with hibernate' allows for the system to come back up to work after is powered off more efficiently.

"When you put the computer to Hibernate, the session content from the RAM are moved to hard disk swap space, and after that, the system is powered off. When waked up from Hibernation, the session contents from swap gets copied back to RAM, and so it takes more time than sleep to get the PC into a working state." (source).

Your click on touchpad needs to be enabled.
If your time is not working, try the stuff below:

sudo hwclock --show --verbose

timedatectl status

timedatectl set-local-rtc 0

timedatectl list-timezones

timedatectl set-timezone 'your/timezone'

timedatectl set-time '2019-11-11 08:10:40'

timedatectl set-ntp true

date

That will change your timezone setup and fix your date.

There you go!

By default, Manjaro comes with Firefox out-of-the-box. Which means, happy days!

Go and play with your terminal now, you deserve it!

How do you deal with Q&A web platform's trolls? (e. g., Stack Overflow, Quora, etc.)

Laís Carvalho — Sun, 09 Aug 2020 17:44:29 +0000

We all run into bugs. The confusing error messages, the debugger which takes too long/doesn't work, Google not helping, you name it!

For most of it, we are just desperate and really need some help from an outsider/specialist. It is at that moment that we tend to turn to Stack Overflow, Quora, Yahoo! Answers, etc. and poor our ~~hearts~~ questions out.

Occasionally, the feedback we receive on those questions can be rather shameful.

Cheuk Ting Ho

@cheukting_ho

It's difficult to ask technical questions on #Stackoverflow (or platforms alike)... people judge you before trying to help you. Our community should do better than this. We need a platform that has a CoC and people feel safe to seek help. #tech #inclusion

16:03 PM - 04 Aug 2020

Which made me curious about your personal experience with those platforms.

Let's discuss:

Have you been publicly shamed for publishing a question? What language/platform was it referring to? How did you react to it?

The word on the streets is that the Java and Linux communities are not really nice and welcoming of "newbies stupid questions" - which I don't think are stupid, by the way, but helps to reinforce the point.

Let me know how your experiences have been and if you hold any language-grudge for such reason. I want to know about good and bad experiences.

May Our Lady of Clear Code bless us all.

How is your experience with Youtube Live? Have you been banned during the pandemic?

Laís Carvalho — Thu, 14 May 2020 19:43:56 +0000

In times of ~~desperation~~ Covid-19, most of us turned to Youtube as the main live stream channel for everything. Recently, I heard about some unusual bans happening around the platform (Hi there, Remote Python Pizza!). Until last night, when I got banned for no apparent reason since all was marked as "not for kids".

What brings me to wonder: has this ever happened to you?

Share your stories and let's see if we find out why their AI model is broken.

Maybe I just want to know why their #AI failed 🙊
— Cheuk Ting Ho #StaytheFHome (@cheukting_ho) May 14, 2020

Deploying your Node.js application using Heroku & GitPod

Laís Carvalho — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 23:01:06 +0000

I came up with a simple interactive web application, built using Node.js and JavaScript. I chose to do build a web app for a BookStore. The data for the books-list was stored in XML and all the code was written in GitPod, an online IDE for GitHub inspired on VSCode. I know right... super cool! Perfect for those occasions when an online IDE is the answer but Repl.it isn't enough. The best thing is that GitPod is also integrated with GitHub, so in case you fancy running a GitHub repo straight from the browser, simply add gitpod.io# on the beginning of URL, right before the https:// and VOILA! Next thing is you have a virtual machine running with the git repo that lives on that URL on a VisualStudioCode-like environment. Good stuff!

Later on, we were required to deploy that application to a webpage using Heroku. I decided then to write this very simple post, just as a reminder of the easiest way to deploy Github applications to Heroku. So let's start already!

So, for starters, we are going to use this link
https://gitpod.io#https://github.com/Code-Institute-Org/gitpod-heroku-install
Which opens a Heroku template page on GitPod. [Note the gitpod.io# inserted on the start of the URL as mentioned before.]

When the virtual environment on GitPod page is ready, type

heroku -v

on the terminal to check Heroku's installed version on the template.

That command should return something like this:

The next step then is to select your Node.js application on GitHub and clone it to your Heroku template. On GitPod's terminal type

git clone git@github.com:laisbsc/BlackBooksBookstore.git

NOTE: If copied from SSH, GitPod won't clone your repo due to access rights. Make sure to use 'Clone with HTTPS' in this case. More on the topic here.

Now, you're repository must be looking something like this

Drag all the files out of the application folder and delete the (now) empty folder from the workspace. Your files should be looking somehow like this now:

Once that is done, go back to terminal and type

$npm init

After saying "yes to all".

That will create a package.json file on the workspace. Which should be looking like this:

Inside that file, on the first JSON block statement, you will erase the line that reads

test

and replace it by

"start": "node app.js"

That will tell Heroku the default language for the application that is being deployed.

Next step is to install all modules declared at the start of the app.js file. Basically all that appends the 'require' key-word. On terminal, type

npm i <list of required modules>

For me this list looked like this:

Now that's done, it's... DEPLOYMENT TIME!!! \o/ \o/ \o/

1st step into deployment is quite complex [sic]. Go to terminal and type

'heroku login'

I know, complexity level 1000! #sarcasm ¬¬'

If you have a Heroku account, GitPod will open an in-loco browser window and tell you when you're logged in. In case you don't have a Heroku account, just go ahead and make one. I will wait here. Now, email to confirm you are actually yourself, go back to the terminal and you should be all logged in now.
NOTE: in case your browser starts acting out [Chrome trolled me for a bit on this step], try a new window and be patient, my little Padawan! We're almost there.
When you see your email on green lettering written at the terminal, it's time to open a smile.

Next command:

heroku create

Which creates the app (as well as the git remote) and assigns a random generated URL to it. That will be the URL for your deployed app.
Now, go ahead and do the git magic in there:

git add *
git commit -am "first commit Heroku app"
git push heroku master (or whichever branch name you'd like to give)

And BOOM! 💥💥💥
WE GOT OURSELVES A DEPLOYED APPLICATION ON HEROKU!!!

For this specific case, this is how it's looking now.

And this is the link for the original Git repo if you're interested. It's not really tidy so check it at your own risk.

laisbsc / bookshopWebApps

CA1 Interactive Web Apps - bookshop catalog on XML

Finally, if you would like to have a look what came out of the makings of this post, have a look in here, it's my randomly-generated Heroku link.

I hope this post could help anyone who is deploying a GitHub app to a webpage using Heroku and GitPod.
If you have any questions, feedback or anything you'd just like to tell me, leave a comment or ping me on @laisbsc. If you're running this tutorial and got stuck, message me! I'm more than happy to [try and] help.

Good luck. And happy coding 🖥️