DEV Community: William Lake

Taming PgAdmin's SQL Formatting

William Lake — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 13:10:55 +0000

The example query I'm using came from here.

Qualifiers

I really appreciate PgAdmin and everyone who's built it.

Who knows what I'd be doing without their hard work.

More Qualifiers

I haven't read every line of their documentation. Maybe their setup instructions include this on the very first page. Maybe they've surrounded it with exclamation points and made it bold & red. The point is, if they did- I missed it. If you find this helpful- great! If not, that's ok too. Take what works and leave the rest. Or don't, I'm not the cops.

Getting to the Point

Click inside your Query Editor and use this keyboard shortcut to format your SQL: Ctrl + Shift + k
- You'll need to do this after any change to these preferences in order to see the effects.
From the top-most "File" menu:
- File -> Preferences
- Query Tool -> SQL formatting
- Set these options for very compact SQL.
- Set these options for less compact, but easier to read SQL.

Very Compact SQL

Option	Value
Re-indent aligned?	True
Re-indent?	False
Spaces around operators?	False
Tab size	2
Use spaces?	True

Less Compact Easier to Read

Option	Value
Re-indent aligned?	True
Re-indent?	True
Spaces around operators?	False
Tab size	2
Use spaces?	True

Quick Poll: Fav/Most Used Python Virtual Environment manager?

William Lake — Sat, 05 Feb 2022 04:31:13 +0000

Hi All,

I've used Anaconda, Minicoda, venv, and pipenv. I'm (mostly) indifferent about which is "better". Now I want to get a point of reference of what other python devs are using and/or prefer.

Is there one you like or use the most?

Is there one your work enforces explicitly?

Is there one outside of this list you prefer or use a lot? If so, what is it and why do you prefer it over the others?

Thanks for helping me learn something new ya'll, I hope your week has gone well!

You're formally invited to a party on Mount Stupid.

William Lake — Sat, 07 Aug 2021 01:58:35 +0000

Wait, you're already a dev?

Then you must have a vacation home here already.

Anyway, you ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect?

It's a tem used to describe your annoying co-worker who skims the documentation of a new framework for five minutes, and then corrects you on its usage for the next week.

To be more specific:

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a hypothetical cognitive bias stating that people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability.
Source

Translation: Someone who knows just enough to feel like they're an expert, but not enough to know they're really not.

Being in such a state is known as being on "Mount Stupid" and as devs, we all have vacation homes there.

"How?" you might be asking, "I'm the team lead!"

"Shut up" I respond, "This is an article, I can't hear you."

As we all know this field is fluctuating, constantly. It goes without saying that even the best of us cannot know everything at all times. Although it's important to know what we bring to the table, over-estimating our talents can be a great way to unintentionally mislead ourselves and our customers. The Dunning-Kruger Effect helps us remember to re-evaluate once in a while, ensuring what we offer is more than bluster.

So- consider this a formal invitation to my private villa on Mount Stupid. There's a pool and everything.

Bash Functions for Miniconda

William Lake — Thu, 07 Nov 2019 13:50:11 +0000

Qualifier: These instructions were made with Ubuntu 18.04 in mind. Your mileage may vary.

A little under 2 years ago a friend introduced me to miniconda and I've loved it ever since. I know there's other ways manage python virtual environments (I use pipenv at work and there's always venv,) but I've stuck with miniconda in my personal projects out of habit. If you use miniconda on Ubuntu, hopefully you'll find this helpful.

Short & Sweet

Add the following functions to your ~/.bashrc file. Don't forget to reload your .bashrc before using them! (Reload via source .bashrc)

newconda

Creates a new python conda environment and installs the listed modules.

NOTE: This function doesn't ask for confirmation! This is personal preference, but if you'd like to change it remove the y in -yn (E.g. conda create -n "$1" python="$2"

# Creates a new python conda environment and installs the listed modules.
# $1 : Environment Name (E.g. test_env)
# $2 : Python Version (E.g. 3)
# $3...$n+1 : A list of modules to install.
# 
# E.g.
#       newconda test_env 3 numpy pandas
#       newconda test_env 3.6 tensorflow tensorflow-hub tensorflow-datasets
newconda() {

        # Create the env with the given name and python version.
        # Note: -y forces yes, you won't be asked for confirmation.
        conda create -yn "$1" python="$2"

        # Activate the environment.
        conda activate "$1"

        # Loop through the remaining arguments, installing them as python modules.
        for i in "${@:3}"
                do pip install "$i"
        done
}

remconda

Removes the listed conda environment.

NOTE: This function doesn't ask for confirmation! This is personal preference, but if you'd like to change it remove the y in -yn (E.g. conda env remove -n "$1")

# Removes the listed conda environment.
# $1 : The name of the environment to remove.
#
# E.g. 
#       remconda test_env
remconda() {
        # Deactivate the current environment.
        # (In case you're in the target environment.)
        conda deactivate

        # Remove the environment.
        # Note: -y forces yes, you won't be asked for confirmation.
        conda env remove -yn "$1"
}

QuickTip: Add the Eclipse Integrated Terminal

William Lake — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 14:07:07 +0000

Did you know Eclipse has an integrated terminal? It's such a useful feature in VSCode, I was thrilled when a co-worker pointed out the same functionality in Eclipse.

Adding the View

Navigate to the top most menu and select:

Window
- Show View
  - Terminal

(If for some reason Terminal isn't an option, select Other... and search for "Terminal" by typing it into the resulting dialog.)

Opening a New Terminal

Locate your Terminal View (usually opens at the botom) and click the Open a Terminal button:
In the resulting dialog, select your desired options (go with the defaults if you're unsure) and click OK.
- Note the Choose Terminal drop-down also provides SSH and Telnet variants- handy!
In the new terminal, cd to your project's working directory.

Side Notes

Eclipse doesn't always auto-detect file system changes made from the integrated terminal. You can manually refresh your project by right clicking its root node in the Project Explorer and selecting Refresh.
You can exit/close a terminal by first entering the exit command, then closing the tab.

Create a linux alias to list all available commands

William Lake — Sun, 03 Nov 2019 13:42:17 +0000

Infomercial-style qualifier: These instructions were created on Ubuntu 18.04. Your mileage may vary.

I find myself constantly Googling Linux commands and then promptly forgetting them. This morning I decided to find a better way, and after creating my own process I thought I'd share. Hopefully it's useful to someone in the future.

Bonus: Found something useful along the way: https://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse

How To

Create an alias named allcomm and save it in your .bashrc.
echo "alias allcomm=\"compgen -A function -abck\"" >> ~/.bashrc

Reload your .bashrc so the changes will take effect.
source ~/.bashrc

Usage

Searching results:
allcomm search_string_here

E.g.

allcomm zip

zip
zipnote
zipcloak
zipgrep
zipinfo
zipsplit
zipdetails

Searching via grep:
allcomm | grep search_string_here

E.g.

allcomm | grep zip

zip
preunzip
unzip
zipnote
unzipsfx
zipcloak
zipgrep
zipinfo
funzip
prezip-bin
mzip
zipsplit
zipdetails
gpg-zip
prezip
bzip2recover
bunzip2
gunzip
gzip
bzip2

Source: https://stackoverflow.com/a/949006

Quick & Dirty Django Drag & Drop Bootstrap Build with Layoutit.com

William Lake — Sat, 26 Oct 2019 11:56:41 +0000

Yay Alliteration

Things you should know.

I'm new to Django, I.e. not an expert.
These are instructions for a brand new Django project. I'm making a tutorial re: adding views to an existing project with this method, but I'm not there yet. In the meantime- get clever, I believe in you.
Re: static files, if you're going to deploy this project to production the DjangoProject says "This method is grossly inefficient and probably insecure, so it is unsuitable for production." SO. See here for resolution.
Probably doesn't need to be said, but just in case: name_of_project/name_of_app show up repeatedly and need to be replaced with your own deeply creative alternatives.
Django 2+
Bootstrap 4+

Helpful Sites

Getting to the Point Already

Virtual Environment (I recommend this, but I'm not the cops- do what you like.)
pip install django django-bootstrap4
django-admin startproject name_of_project
cd name_of_project
python manage.py startapp name_of_app
Create name_of_app/templates/name_of_app
Create name_of_app/static/name_of_app
Make required changes to name_of_app/settings.py
- Add entry to INSTALLED_APPS: 'name_of_app.apps.NameOfAppConfig',
- Add entry to TEMPLATE's OPTIONS dict, using content in related section below.
Make optional changes to name_of_app/settings.py
- DATABASES
- TIME_ZONE
python manage.py migrate
Build layout at Layoutit, download, and unzip.
Copy layoutit_dir/layout/src/index.html to name_of_project/name_of_app/templates/name_of_app.
Copy the css/fonts/js dirs in layoutit_dir/layout/src to name_of_project/name_of_app/static/name_of_app.
Create base.html in name_of_app/templates/name_of_app, fill w/ content from related section below.
Open name_of_app/templates/name_of_app/index.html, make replacements in related section below.
Open name_of_app/views.py and add a view using content from related section below.
Create name_of_app/urls.py and fill with content from related section below.
Open name_of_project/urls.py and:
- Add include to the django.urls import (E.g. from django.urls import include, path)
- Add import from name_of_app import views
- Add path to urlpatterns list: path('name_of_app/',include('name_of_app.urls'))
python manage.py runserver
Open browser to http://localhost:8000/name_of_app/

8. [`TEMPLATE`][`OPTIONS`] Entry

            'builtins': [
                'django.contrib.staticfiles.templatetags.staticfiles',
            ],

I.e.

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [],
        'APP_DIRS': True,
        'OPTIONS': {
            'context_processors': [
                'django.template.context_processors.debug',
                'django.template.context_processors.request',
                'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
                'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
            ],
            'builtins': [ ### NEW ENTRY ###
                'django.contrib.staticfiles.templatetags.staticfiles',
            ],
        },
    },
]

14. `base.html`

{% load static %}

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">

<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title></title>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, shrink-to-fit=no">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{% static 'name_of_app/css/style.css' %}" type="text/css">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{% static 'name_of_app/css/bootstrap.min.css' %}" type="text/css">
</head>

<body>
    {% block content %}{% endblock %}
</body>

</html>

15. `index.html` Replacements

Replace

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">

    <title>Bootstrap 4, from LayoutIt!</title>

    <meta name="description" content="Source code generated using layoutit.com">
    <meta name="author" content="LayoutIt!">

    <link href="css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
    <link href="css/style.css" rel="stylesheet">

  </head>
  <body>

With

{% extends 'name_of_app/base.html' %}

{% block content %}

Then Replace

    <script src="js/jquery.min.js"></script>
    <script src="js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>
    <script src="js/scripts.js"></script>
  </body>
</html>

With


<script src="{% static 'name_of_app/js/jquery.min.js' %}"></script>
<script src="{% static 'name_of_app/js/bootstrap.min.js' %}"></script>
<script src="{% static 'name_of_app/js/scripts.js' %}"></script>
{% endblock %}

16. `views.py` Method

from django.shortcuts import render

def index(request):
    # gather data
    # model_class = Model.objects....

    # create context
    context = {}

    return render(request,'name_of_app/index.html',context)

17. `urls.py`

from django.urls import path

from . import views

app_name = 'name_of_app'
urlpatterns = [
    path('',views.index,name='index')
]

Importing Stored Procedures in Apache Cayenne

William Lake — Thu, 10 Oct 2019 13:02:27 +0000

Executive Summary

Add to the cayenne plugin's dbImport section in your pom.xml:

<includeProcedure>Procedure_Name</includeProcedure>

Run your maven commands:

mvn cayenne:cdbimport
mvn cayenne:cgen

The second should result in:

Add procedure Procedure_Name

You can use your procedure via:

// Returns a ProcedureResult
ProcedureCall
.query("Procedure_Name")
.param("param_name", param_value)
.call(context); // The previously created context.

To return a particular class:

ProcedureCall
.query("Procedure_Name",ModelClass.class)
.param("param_name", param_value)
.call(context); // The previously created context.

To return a List of your particular class:

ProcedureCall
.query("Procedure_Name",ModelClass.class)
.param("param_name", param_value)
.call(context) // The previously created context.
.firstList();

Backstory

I'm currently using Apache Cayenne for a project I'm working on for a friend. It's been really useful so far, but a couple days ago I realized it wasn't automatically importing my new stored procedure. Although there's code for calling procedures, I was having a hard time ensuring my procedure was imported when I ran the cdbimport/cdbgen commands. Additionally, I was having a really hard time finding resources/examples.

In the end I ended up using "ol' reliable"- ctrl + space. After stepping through the sub-sections in pom.xml's cayenne plugin section I found one tag named <includeProcedure>. Adding it to the <dbImport> section is what finally did the trick:

<build>
    <plugins>
            <!-- Other entries... -->
        <plugin>
             <groupId>org.apache.cayenne.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>cayenne-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>${cayenne.version}</version>
            <configuration>
                <!-- Other entries... -->
                <dbImport>
                    <defaultPackage>com.example</defaultPackage>
                    <includeProcedure>Procedure_Name</includeProcedure>
                </dbImport>
            </configuration>
                    <!-- Other entries... -->
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

After making this change, run your cayenne cdbimport/cgen commands again and you will be able to use the Procedure like so:

ProcedureCall
.query("Procedure_Name")
.param("param_name", param_value)
.call(context); // The previously created context.

There's more to the ProcedureCall than just this example, so be sure to check out the Executive Summary above and its Javadoc.

Hopefully this will save someone some time in the future.