Michael Kennedy's Thoughts on Technology

🔔 Update (June 30, 2026) Great news, the maintainer, Dhruv Bhanushali (@dhruvkb), saw this post and is fixing the PyPI confusion.

tl;dr; I cut 3.2 GB of memory usage from our Python web apps using five techniques: async workers, import isolation, the Raw+DC database pattern, local imports for heavy libraries, and disk-based caching.

TL;DR; After migrating three production Python web apps from MongoEngine to the Raw+DC database pattern, I measured nearly 2x the requests per second, 18% less memory, and gained native async support.

If you read my Fire and Forget (or Never) about Python and asynchronous programming, you could think it’s a super odd edge case.

TL;DR; I converted Python Bytes from Quart/Flask to the Rust-backed Robyn framework and benchmarked it with Locust.

TL;DR; Chameleon-robyn is a new Python package I created that brings Chameleon template support to the Robyn web framework.

TL;DR; Python’s asyncio.create_task() can silently garbage collect your fire-and-forget tasks starting in Python 3.12 - they may never run.

TL;DR; No - AI won’t kill open source, but it will reshape it.

Have you heard that the age of hyper-personal software is upon us?

Recently I have started going Raw+DC on my databases.

TL;DR: I built Command Book, a native macOS app that gives your long-running terminal commands a permanent home.

I’ve been bewildered by the wide range of experiences that software developers observe when working with AI.

TL;DR: You can’t stop people from using AI or put it back in the box.

TL;DR: Add this Zsh script to your .zshrc to automatically activate/deactivate venv or .venv as you navigate directories.

There are numbers every Python programmer should know.

TL;DR: Run pip-audit in an isolated Docker container before installing updated dependencies on your dev machine.

TL;DR: Wire pip-audit into your CI and unit tests to automatically block known vulnerable dependencies.

Here’s a first: My latest course, Agentic AI Programming for Python Devs, comes with a 5-track soundtrack!

TL;DR: Track your AI coding credits with AI Usage TUI.

I just published a brand new course over at Talk Python: Agentic AI Programming for Python Devs.

TL;DR: Replace your default ls with pls for icons, colors, human-readable sizes, and .gitignore-aware output.

I’ve been having some amazing successes with agentic AI and coding lately.

I’m thrilled to share that my first solo book is published: Talk Python in Production.

TL;DR: Used Cursor + Claude Sonnet 4 to migrate 164 Wordpress articles to Hugo in 2 hours.

If you enjoy quotes and you’re into software development, I think you’ll get a kick out of this.

Have you noticed a change in your search engine use?

I wrote an in-depth article covering my top trends for 2024 based on the PSF Developer Survey data.

Over at Talk Python, I just finished converting our existing web app from Pyramid to Quart and from synchronous to asynchronous web code.

I’ve found some Blue Skies!

TL;DR: I created chameleon-flask, a package that adds Chameleon template support to Flask.

From the Talk Python blog: After almost 10 years at Digital Ocean, we’ve moved our entire infrastructure to Hetzner’s US-based data center in Virginia.

TL;DR: The opposite of cloud-native isn’t “lift-and-shift” or building your own data center.

TL;DR: Add Talk Python and Python Bytes as custom search engines in your browser.

TL;DR: uWSGI is now in maintenance-only mode.

[Post updated Sept 30, 2024 based on lots of community conversations.]

TL;DR: Passkeys are great for security, but Apple/Google/Microsoft want to lock you in by syncing them only within their ecosystems.

TL;DR: Stop building Python from source in Docker (10+ minutes).

This is a short post.

TL;DR: Add custom search engines to your browser with short prefixes.

TL;DR: Firefox is dying from lack of focus.

I was letting my mind wander the other day and this thought hit me hard: How many cumulative programmer-hours have been utterly wasted on adding very mediocre AI features to every app imaginable which rarely actually helps you?

TL;DR: Use Warp terminal’s secret redaction feature to automatically hide IP addresses, emails, API keys, and other sensitive data when screen sharing or recording.

TL;DR: Skip browser-based ad blockers entirely.

GitHub has a whole repo full of ignores you can make use of.

TL;DR: Talk Python’s mobile apps have been rebuilt from scratch in Flutter, replacing the end-of-life Xamarin version.

TL;DR: Leave your laptop at home.

TL;DR: RSS is making a comeback as people tire of algorithmic feeds and walled gardens.

TL;DR: After 6+ months using Kagi, I’m still paying $10/month for search.

TL;DR: Not Invented Here syndrome gets a bad rap, but sometimes building it yourself pays off.

TL;DR: Use the jinja-partials package to add function-like reusability to your Jinja templates.