Distorting Time with Directories

made and submitted by kellyfoulk
Do you ever want to take a break from ‘serious’ projects and just write something quick, simple and funny? That’s what I did today at the Recurse Center’s Creative Coding event where you have two hours to create a program based on a random prompt. At five o’clock we gathered in a squished Zoom room to hear the day’s prompt: Distorting Time. Then, with a flurry, we all got down to business building whatever schemes had popped into our heads. Well, actually, in reality I sat staring at my glass of water for about ten minutes. What program could I write to illustrate ‘Distorting Time’? I decided to randomize the last modified time of all files on my laptop. Just kidding...

Logging Virtual Race Results with Selenium, Cron and Python

made and submitted by kellyfoulk
Who else hates doing repetitive tasks that you know could be automated? I know I do 🙋‍♀️. In this article I will discuss how I used Strava’s API and cron jobs to automatically log new activities for my virtual races on RunSignup. I love this project because while tutorials and such are great, it was so satisfying to build something that solved a real issue of my own!

Refactoring A Flask App to Scare

made and submitted by kellyfoulk
So you just created your first Flask application, what’s next? If you’re like me, your app works, but it’s like a baby deer that’s lost its mother—its chances of ever growing old and maturing are slim to none. Let’s fix that. In my opinion, it’s much easier to write something well from the start than it is to go back and fix something crappy; however, the best way to learn is by fixing your mistakes. Therefore, this post will not explain how to write a perfect Flask app from scratch; instead, it will highlight 12 mistakes I made while creating my first major Flask app, explain why these mistakes were prohibitive to growth, and demonstrate how I fixed them.

Automate Boring Stuff with Python: Part 1

made and submitted by kellyfoulk
Are you doing a repetitive task that feels like it could be automated? I was. Every day for the past year I’d been importing new users for an app into MailChimp by hand. No more! Now that I’ve learned how to code I’ve handed that task over to Python and Cron.

Self-Directed Pandas Crash Course

made and submitted by kellyfoulk
Want to learn pandas, but don't know where to start? That was my position about a week ago. In this post, I'll explain how I structured my learning process during my one week 'crash course.' By no means am I an expert now, but I feel confident to say I can accomplish essential data cleaning and visualization tasks.

Developing a Flask Blog

made and submitted by kellyfoulk
Learn how I started with a blank text editor and created a blog from the ground up with the help of python's Flask framework. It had always been a dream of mine to create a blog from scratch versus using a Wordpress theme...so here it finally is. Complete with a backend that is my humble attempt at integrating the functionality of both Wordpress and MailChimp.