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Datasette Desktop 0.2.0: The annotated release notes
Datasette Desktop is a new macOS desktop application version of Datasette, an “open source multi-tool for exploring and publishing data” built on top of SQLite. I released the first version last week—I’ve just released version 0.2.0 (and a 0.2.1 bug fix) with a whole bunch of critical improvements.
[... 2,208 words]Datasette Desktop—a macOS desktop application for Datasette
I just released version 0.1.0 of the new Datasette macOS desktop application, the first version that end-users can easily install. I would very much appreciate your help testing it out!
[... 1,761 words]Building a desktop application for Datasette (and weeknotes)
This week I started experimenting with a desktop application version of Datasette—with the goal of providing people who aren’t comfortable with the command-line the ability to get Datasette up and running on their own personal computers.
[... 1,423 words]Dynamic content for GitHub repository templates using cookiecutter and GitHub Actions
GitHub repository templates were introduced a couple of years ago to provide a mechanism for creating a brand new GitHub repository starting with an initial set of files.
[... 1,413 words]Weeknotes: Getting my personal Dogsheep up and running again
I gave a talk about Dogsheep at Noisebridge’s Five Minutes of Fame on Thursday. Just one problem: my regular Dogsheep demo was broken, so I ended up building it from scratch again. In doing so I fixed a few bugs in some Dogsheep tools.
[... 1,311 words]Datasette on Codespaces, sqlite-utils API reference documentation and other weeknotes
This week I broke my streak of not sending out the Datasette newsletter, figured out how to use Sphinx for Python class documentation, worked out how to run Datasette on GitHub Codespaces, implemented Datasette column metadata and got tantalizingly close to a solution for an elusive Datasette feature.
[... 2,164 words]Apply conversion functions to data in SQLite columns with the sqlite-utils CLI tool
Earlier this week I released sqlite-utils 3.14 with a powerful new command-line tool: sqlite-utils convert, which applies a conversion function to data stored in a SQLite column.
Exploring the SameSite cookie attribute for preventing CSRF
In reading Yan Zhu’s excellent write-up of the JSON CSRF vulnerability she found in OkCupid one thing puzzled me: I was under the impression that browsers these days default to treating cookies as SameSite=Lax, so I would expect attacks like the one Yan described not to work in modern browsers.
Weeknotes: datasette-remote-metadata, sqlite-transform --multi
I mentioned Project Pelican (still a codename until the end of the embargo) last week. This week it inspired a new plugin, datasette-remote-metadata.
[... 595 words]The Baked Data architectural pattern
I’ve been exploring an architectural pattern for publishing websites over the past few years that I call the “Baked Data” pattern. It provides many of the advantages of static site generators while avoiding most of their limitations. I think it deserves to be used more widely.
[... 1,896 words]Datasette—an ecosystem of tools for working with small data
This is the transcript and video from a talk I gave at PyGotham 2020 about using SQLite, Datasette and Dogsheep to work with small data.
[... 4,655 words]Weeknotes: sqlite-transform 1.1, Datasette 0.58.1, datasette-graphql 1.5
Work on Project Pelican inspires new features and improvements across a number of different projects.
[... 1,419 words]It doesn’t take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate
I’ve spent nearly twenty years blogging, giving talks and releasing open source code. It’s been fantastic for my career, and a huge amount of work. But here’s a useful secret: you don’t have to put very much work at all into public creativity in order to stand out as a job candidate.
[... 495 words]Datasette 0.58: The annotated release notes
I released Datasette 0.58 last night, with new plugin hooks, Unix domain socket support, a major faceting performance fix and a few other improvements. Here are the annotated release notes.
[... 1,062 words]Weeknotes: Fun with Unix domain sockets
A small enhancement to Datasette this week: I’ve added support for proxying via Unix domain sockets.
[... 809 words]Django SQL Dashboard 1.0
Earlier this week I released Django SQL Dashboard 1.0. I also just released 1.0.1, with a bug fix for PostgreSQL 10 contributed by Ryan Cheley.
[... 629 words]PAGNIs: Probably Are Gonna Need Its
Luke Page has a great post up with his list of YAGNI exceptions.
[... 1,289 words]Weeknotes: sqlite-utils updates, Datasette and asgi-csrf, open-sourcing VIAL
Some work on sqlite-utils, asgi-csrf, a Datasette alpha and we open-sourced VIAL.
Notes on streaming large API responses
I started a Twitter conversation last week about API endpoints that stream large amounts of data as an alternative to APIs that return 100 results at a time and require clients to paginate through all of the pages in order to retrieve all of the data:
[... 1,692 words]Joining CSV and JSON data with an in-memory SQLite database
The new sqlite-utils memory command can import CSV and JSON data directly into an in-memory SQLite database, combine and query it using SQL and output the results as CSV, JSON or various other formats of plain text tables.
Weeknotes: New releases across nine different projects
A new release and security patch for Datasette, plus releases of sqlite-utils, datasette-auth-passwords, django-sql-dashboard, datasette-upload-csvs, xml-analyser, datasette-placekey, datasette-mask-columns and db-to-sqlite.
[... 861 words]Weeknotes: Docker architectures, sqlite-utils 3.7, nearly there with Datasette 0.57
This week I learned a whole bunch about using Docker to emulate different architectures, released sqlite-utils 3.7 and made a ton of progress towards the almost-ready-to-ship Datasette 0.57.
[... 1,081 words]Weeknotes: Spinning back up on Datasette
I’ve been somewhat distracted from Datasette for the past couple of months, thanks to my work on VIAL and the accompanying open source project django-sql-dashboard. This week I scraped back some time to work on Datasette.
[... 401 words]Weeknotes: Velma, more Django SQL Dashboard
Matching locations for Vaccinate The States, fun with GeoJSON and more improvements to Django SQL Dashboard.
[... 555 words]Django SQL Dashboard
I’ve released the first non-alpha version of Django SQL Dashboard, which provides an interface for running arbitrary read-only SQL queries directly against a PostgreSQL database, protected by the Django authentication scheme. It can also be used to create saved dashboards that can be published or shared internally.
[... 2,171 words]Adding GeoDjango to an existing Django project
Work on VIAL for Vaccinate The States continues.
[... 1,503 words]One year of TILs
Just over a year ago I started tracking TILs, inspired by Josh Branchaud’s collection. I’ve since published 148 TILs across 43 different topics. It’s a great format!
[... 224 words]A CSV export, JSON import workflow for bulk updating our data
I just added missing counties to around 1200 of our locations using a combination of tricks, and I thought they’d make a good blog post.
[... 1,429 words]Weeknotes: Vaccinate The States, and how I learned that returning dozens of MB of JSON works just fine these days
On Friday VaccinateCA grew in scope, a lot: we launched a new website called Vaccinate The States. Patrick McKenzie wrote more about the project here—the short version is that we’re building the most comprehensive possible dataset of vaccine availability in the USA, using a combination of data collation, online research and continuing to make a huge number of phone calls.
[... 1,109 words]