Matt Harrison, author of many Python books, is putting together a course, Effective Book Authoring, to help other people write and publish books.

As part of this course, he's including interviews with people who have already written books, including me. This is that interview.

We discuss:


Why I wrote "Python Testing with pytest"
Self publishing vs working with a publisher
The writing, editing, and publishing process
Writing format
Book promotion
Advice to other writers
Special Guest: Matt Harrison. Links:Effective Book Authoring — Matt's coursePython Testing with pytest - Simple, Rapid, Effective, and Scalable

137: Become an Author - Matt Harrison interviews Brian Okken

Practical automated testing for software engineers using Python.
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Nicole is a software engineer and writer, and recently wrote about the trade-offs we make when deciding which tests to write and how much testing is enough. We talk about:Balancing schedule vs testingHow much testing is the right about of testingShould code coverage be measured and trackedGood refactoring can reduce code coverageIs it worth testing error conditions?Are rare error codes ok to just monitor?API drift and autospecMitigating riskDeciding what to test and what not to testFocus testing on key money-making features If there's a bug in this part of the code, how much business impact is there?Performance testing needs to approximately match real world workloadsCost of a service breaking vs the cost of creating, maintaining, and running testsKeeping test suites quick to minimize getting distracted
 Links:Too much of a good thing: the trade-off we make with tests Load testing is hard, and the tools are... not great. But why?Yet Another Rust Resource (YARR!)Goodhart's law - "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"

Sponsored by Mailtrap.ioAn Email Delivery Platform that developers love. An email-sending solution with industry-best analytics, SMTP, and email API, SDKs for major programming languages, and 24/7 human support. Try for Free at MAILTRAP.IOSponsored by PyCharm ProUse code PYTEST for 20% off PyCharm Professional at jetbrains.com/pycharmNow with Full Line Code CompletionSee how easy it is to run pytest from PyCharm at pythontest.com/pycharmThe Complete pytest CourseFor the fastest way to learn pytest, go to courses.pythontest.comWhether your new to testing or pytest, or just want to maximize your efficiency and effectiveness when testing.

218: Balancing test coverage with test costs -  Nicole Tietz-Sokolskaya

If you've ever thought about starting a podcast or a SaaS project, you'll want to listen to this episode.
 
Justin is one of the people who motivated me to get started podcasting. 
He's also running a successful SaaS company, transistor.fm, which hosts this podcast. Topics:PodcastingBuilding new SaaS (software as a service) productsBalancing work, side hustle, and familyGreat places to snowboard in British ColumbiaBTW. This episode was recorded last summer before I switched to transistor.fm.
I'm now on Transistor for most of a year now, and I love it. Links from the show:Transistor.fm - excellent podcast hosting, Justin is a co-founderHow to start a podcast in 2024Podcasts from JustinBuild your SaaS - currentBuild & Launch - an older one, but greatMegaMaker - from 2021 / 2022

Sponsored by Mailtrap.ioAn Email Delivery Platform that developers love. An email-sending solution with industry-best analytics, SMTP, and email API, SDKs for major programming languages, and 24/7 human support. Try for Free at MAILTRAP.IOSponsored by PyCharm ProUse code PYTEST for 20% off PyCharm Professional at jetbrains.com/pycharmNow with Full Line Code CompletionSee how easy it is to run pytest from PyCharm at pythontest.com/pycharmThe Complete pytest CourseFor the fastest way to learn pytest, go to courses.pythontest.comWhether your new to testing or pytest, or just want to maximize your efficiency and effectiveness when testing.

217: Podcasting / SaaS / Work Life Balance - Justin Jackson

Charlie Marsh and team are using Rust to make Python tooling faster.Ruff can take the place of Flake8, isort, and Black, and so much more.uv can take the place of pip, pip-tools, and virtualenvAstral is Charlie's venture backed company, and what they have with `ruff` and `uv` is just the start.Since uv is the newest tool, there's quite a bit of the discussion diving into uv. Links:ruffAstraluv

Sponsored by PyCharm ProUse code PYTEST for 20% off PyCharm Professional at jetbrains.com/pycharmFirst 10 to sign up this month get a free month of AI AssistantSee how easy it is to run pytest from PyCharm at pythontest.com/pycharmThe Complete pytest CourseFor the fastest way to learn pytest, go to courses.pythontest.comWhether your new to testing or pytest, or just want to maximize your efficiency and effectiveness when testing.

216: ruff, uv, and Astral: Python tooling, much faster, with Rust

Software engineers that move into leadership roles have a struggle between learning leadership skills, maintaining technical skills, and learning new leadership and technical skills. 
Matt Makai went from individual contributor to developer relations to leadership in devrel. 
We discuss how to stay technical, as well as dive into some results of his studies in how companies use developer relationship channels.

Sponsored by PyCharm ProUse code PYTEST for 20% off PyCharm Professional at jetbrains.com/pycharmFirst 10 to sign up this month get a free month of AI AssistantSee how easy it is to run pytest from PyCharm at pythontest.com/pycharmThe Complete pytest CourseFor the fastest way to learn pytest, go to courses.pythontest.comWhether your new to testing or pytest, or just want to maximize your efficiency and effectiveness when testing.

215: Staying Technical as a Manager

If you haven't tried running automated tests, especially with pytest,  in VS Code recently, you should take another look.
The Python for VS Code interface for testing, especially for pytest, has changed recently. 
On this episode we discuss the change with the software engineer working on the pytest changes, Eleanor Boyd, and the product manager, Courtney Webster.  Links from the episode:Blog post announcing the rewrite  Code repo for questions, comments, issues etc

The Complete pytest CourseLevel up your testing skills and save time during coding and maintenance.Check out courses.pythontest.com

137: Become an Author - Matt Harrison interviews Brian Okken

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