Python
2018

Better Python Dependency Management with pip-tools
I recently looked into whether I could use pip-tools to improve my workflow around projects' Python dependencies. My conclusion was that pip-tools would help on some projects, but it wouldn't do everything I wanted, and I couldn't use it everywhere. (I tried pip-tools version 2.0.2 in August 2018. If there are newer versions, they might fix some of the things I ran into when trying pip-tools.)

Stories of Security (PyCon 2018 Must-See Talk Series)
This is the second post in the 2018 edition of our annual PyCon Must-See Series, which highlights the talks our staff especially loved at PyCon. While there were many great talks, this is our team’s shortlist.

Love Your Bugs (PyCon 2018 Must-See Talk Series)
Welcome to the 2018 edition of our annual PyCon Must-See Series, highlighting the talks our staff especially loved at PyCon. While there were many great talks, this is our team’s shortlist.

PyCon 2018 Recap
Making connections
Before the conference, our team listed “making connections” as one of the main reasons to attend PyCon. We certainly did that, welcoming visitors to the booth and catching up with friends old and new.

Caktus at PyCon 2018
We’re one month away from PyCon 2018 and are looking forward to this year’s event in Cleveland, OH. Caktus is proud to sponsor once again and will be in attendance with a booth.
2017

Caktus is Excited about Django 2.0
Did you know Django 2.0 is out? The development team at Caktus knows and we’re excited! You should be excited too if you work with or depend on Django. Here’s what our Cakti have been saying about the recently-released 2.0 beta.

Readability Counts (PyCon 2017 Must-See Talk 6/6)
Part 6 in the 2017 edition of our annual PyCon Must-See Series, highlighting the talks our staff especially loved at PyCon. While there were many great talks, this is our team’s shortlist.

Python Tool Review: Using PyCharm for Python Development - and More
Back in 2011, I wrote a blog post on using Eclipse for Python Development.
I've never updated that post, and it's probably terribly outdated by now. But there's a good reason for that - I haven't used Eclipse in years. Not long after that post, I came across PyCharm, and I haven't really looked back.

Requests, Under the Hood (PyCon 2017 Must-See Talk 5/6)
Part five of six in the 2017 edition of our annual PyCon Must-See Series, highlighting the talks our staff especially loved at PyCon. While there were many great talks, this is our team’s shortlist.

Managing your AWS Container Infrastructure with Python
We deploy Python/Django apps to a wide variety of hosting providers at Caktus. Our django-project-template includes a Salt configuration to set up an Ubuntu virtual machine on just about any hosting provider, from scratch. We've also modified this a number of times for local hosting requirements when our customer required the application we built to be hosted on hardware they control. In the past, we also built our own tool for creating and managing EC2 instances automatically via the Amazon Web Services (AWS) APIs. In March, my colleague Dan Poirier wrote an excellent post about deploying Django applications to Elastic Beanstalk demonstrating how we’ve used that service.