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Nepal I will go hiking in Nepal in March! The guide has a website: lostinthehimalaya.com Travel Plan Day 01 Fly to Lukla, trek to Phakding (2,651m) 8km 3 - 4 hours trek Day 02 Phakding to Namche Bazaar (3,438m) 11km 5 - 6 hours Day 03 Acclimatization Day - Namche Bazaar … Read More »

Python Package Versions Python packages should (must?) have a version. It would be best if that version string was a semantic version, but this article is not about how your version string should look like. It's about how to have a consistent version string on PyPI and accessible via [yourpackage].__version__ - and preferably … Read More »

Pythons str vs repr The goal of __repr__ is to be unambiguous and the goal of __str__ is to be readable. Bonus points, if __repr__ returns what is needed to create the object. Some examples are: >>> repr([42, 1337]) '[42, 1337]' >>> repr({42, 1337}) '{1337, 42}' >>> from collections import namedtuple >>> Location = namedtuple('Location', ['lon' … Read More »

Closures A closure is a technique for implementing lexically scoped name binding in a language with first-class functions. Pairs This post is triggered by this question and the nice answer by Martijn Pieters. Here is a super short example: def cons(a, b): def pair(f): return f(a, b) return … Read More »

Python property Python has a built-in decorator @property. In this article, you will learn why and how to use it. The following super basic Location class is used: def Location(object): def __init__(self, longitude, latitude): self.longitude = longitude self.latitude = latitude Getters and Setters Let's say, you want to add a … Read More »

Command Line As a software developer, I work daily many hours on the command line. This article summarizes some tools and tricks to speed up this work. The basics Bash, ZSH, Fish are Linux shells. Oh-my-ZSH is a plugin for ZSH which is AWESOME! Commands Basics cd: Change directory, e.g. cd … Read More »

Recommender Systems I recently became interested in recommender systems. You know, the thing on Amazon that tells you which products you might be interested in. Or the stuff on Spotify that gives you a song you might like. On YouTube the next videos shown. On StumbleUpon, your next stumble. On a news … Read More »

How old am I? Calculating the age of a person in a web service is harder than one might think to get right. Things you must be aware of are: Time zones: The time zone at the client is likely not the same as on your machine. Hence it could be that the person … Read More »

1822direkt Creating a bank account is one of the things you need to do when you're a longer time in a country, but is incredibly difficult if they don't offer enough information online - especially, if you don't speak the language. I had a pretty good experience with N26, let's see how … Read More »

Bugs Every software project which is not absolutely tiny likely has (or had) bugs, but astonishingly I learned very little about bugs during my university studies. So let's summarize a few important things. What are bugs I define a bug like this: A software bug is a fault in software that … Read More »