Don’t Import requests From botocore.vendored

Hello! I've seen this anti-pattern scattered around plenty DevOps code, especially in AWS lambda functions: Vendoring libraries like requests into other libraries like botocore is arguably an anti-pattern in general, but reaching in to botocore and importing it in your own code is definitely one. Here are some of the reasons: The maintainers may un-vendor … Continue reading Don’t Import requests From botocore.vendored →

Python: Simple JSON Structured Logging

Hello! If you're setting up JSON logging in AWS lambda, check out this instead. You need some extra code to prevent duplicate log messages. Recently, I've been switching to logs structured as JSON. Using the sample command in my pattern for production-ready Python scripts, that means we replace delimited-strings like these: With JSON objects like … Continue reading Python: Simple JSON Structured Logging →

Simplifying Messy Conditions: Adaptive Models

Hello! Today we're getting into the thorns of programming. Beware cactus. 🌵 Years ago I found Martin Fowler's article on Adaptive Models. Adaptive models let you replace nests of conditions with a declaration of actions. That pattern has helped clean up my DevOps code a ton of times. Fowler is a better programmer than me. His … Continue reading Simplifying Messy Conditions: Adaptive Models →

Python DevOps Code Error Checking: Lint with Pyflakes

Hello! For those unfamiliar with linting (static analysis), read Dan Bader's introduction. There are several linters for Python, but when I'm doing DevOps I use Pyflakes. I love the opening sentence of its design principals: Pyflakes makes a simple promise: it will never complain about style, and it will try very, very hard to never … Continue reading Python DevOps Code Error Checking: Lint with Pyflakes →

Boto3 Best Practices: Assert to Stop Silent Failures

Good morning! Today's post covers a pattern I use to increase my confidence that my infrastructure code is working. It turns silent errors into loud ones. I've handled plenty of code that runs without errors but still ends up doing the wrong thing, so I'm never really sure if it's safe to go to sleep … Continue reading Boto3 Best Practices: Assert to Stop Silent Failures →