0:00

Do you find yourself for your team building

0:02

internal apps frequently for your company? Are

0:04

you familiar with the term forms over

0:06

data? They can be super empowering

0:08

for your organization, but they can also

0:11

be pretty repetitive, and you might find

0:13

yourself spending more time than you like

0:15

working on them rather than core products

0:18

and services. I've invited Jimmy

0:20

Chan from Dropbase to tell us

0:22

about their services, whose tagline is

0:24

build internal web apps with just Python.

0:27

It's a cool service and a fun conversation.

0:30

This is Talk Python to Me, episode 460 recorded March

0:32

12th, 2024. Are

0:37

you ready for your host, please? You're

0:39

listening to Michael Kennedy on Talk Python to

0:41

Me. Life from Portland, Oregon,

0:43

and this segment was made with Python.

0:50

Welcome to Talk Python to Me, a

0:52

weekly podcast on Python. This is your

0:54

host, Michael Kennedy. Follow me on Mastodon,

0:56

where I'm at M. Kennedy and

0:58

follow the podcast using at Talk Python,

1:01

both on bastodon.org. Keep

1:03

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episode. This

1:21

episode is sponsored by Mail Trap, an

1:23

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1:29

it's brought to you by us over at

1:32

Talk Python Training. Did you know that we

1:34

have over 250 hours of Python courses? Yeah,

1:36

that's right. Check them out

1:39

at talkpython.fm slash courses. Hey,

1:42

Jimmy. Hey, Michael, how are you doing? I'm doing

1:44

well. Welcome to Talk Python to Me. Fantastic to

1:46

have you here. Thank you, I'm really excited. Yeah,

1:49

I am too. I'm right. I saw a drop

1:51

base. I saw what you all are building. That

1:53

is pretty darn interesting. And I think people will

1:55

want to check it out. So we'll

1:57

dive into this app. The

2:00

platform that you made for a building

2:02

basically I will are fun Now before

2:04

we get inside they're just give us

2:06

a acquitted could fit a backer new

2:08

South. As you get in programming and

2:10

you find yourself writing a i thought

2:12

building platform awesome Yeah I went to

2:14

school for a generic add. this was

2:16

actually backing of Canada. I studied in

2:18

Montreal at a better school com Mcgill

2:20

University. Nice we started then I used

2:22

to insert by the way as chief

2:24

company called Research in Motion by you

2:26

make Like Bears way back into time

2:28

Oh yeah awesome In. The heyday In

2:31

a day where I run around, they

2:33

said we have fifty percent of the

2:35

U S smartphone market share. But the

2:37

problem with awesome it.on Java. not privatizing

2:39

the something afterwards. Actually my Metro founder

2:41

is the Python programmer and I think

2:43

that's I've been after we start working

2:45

together cause you got any fun stories

2:47

from your time? A blackberry did you

2:50

enjoy? and how are they aware of

2:52

his eternal space? The Bauhaus mrs been

2:54

to twenty months internships at a time.

2:56

I was at a game, a third

2:58

year of school, and of. Lewis was

3:00

working on this road shower ask for

3:02

their smartphones and Smitty sure everything was

3:04

was working. The cool thing is when

3:06

you work at a company that's making

3:09

devices devices have a very long development

3:11

cycle as I imagine. Example you work

3:13

at Apple today by the I phone

3:15

but fifty of was on what's coming

3:17

next with the been working on it

3:19

for at least a year probably longer

3:21

to get access to all these like

3:23

are times I became you get to

3:25

use cause like you're building for your

3:27

testing at my was a really nice

3:30

nice. Nice day but you can tell anybody

3:32

about but it was really cool to now

3:34

that you're on the last thing. you couldn't

3:36

lose it in a bar or anything like

3:38

that right at the remember those stories right?

3:40

Yeah, exactly easy to find somebody. got hold

3:42

of a last phone and it was sold

3:44

and there's all sorts of drama is a

3:47

big deal. I was around I phone for

3:49

three four five sorta timeframe. Yeah, I'm a

3:51

middleweight, a clear and yeah sucker sailed from

3:53

didn't want to be that you wanted to

3:55

make sure he hung onto our your skin.

3:57

Is that as a yeah I think work.

4:00

Copyright That would have been awesome at least

4:02

in the heyday. You know it's cooler work

4:04

for a tech company that's gotta lotta when

4:06

that it's back and lot of people use

4:08

and as it's. Can. Any of their

4:11

Ip we had a lot of our

4:13

it other concerns have a higher at

4:15

the time be set a blast work

4:17

in their over the summer here. Lot

4:20

of excited people the to do stuff.

4:22

Excellent course and so didn't you picked

4:24

up Python. Get me started. This project

4:26

is arranged so little bit before it

4:28

so when we started our start up

4:31

this was back every twenty twenty. Michael

4:33

founder has been using Python. He did

4:35

a master's degree computer science focus on

4:37

Mr. Varney solely in a fields Python.

4:40

Is is really bad. the main language

4:42

you use yeah this and said with

4:44

us are familiar with it and so

4:46

he said are stuck with me to

4:48

be a python or past them back

4:50

and and then just through that process

4:52

just looking a phase and designing features

4:54

a keys which is all about about

4:56

the pilot so he can it just

4:58

became the same Answer is actually the

5:00

recent are working on on a tight

5:02

the builder is were kind of building

5:05

upon ourselves the something where states are

5:07

oh nice that were for their mental

5:09

models so that's. Pretty much it out.

5:11

Today today I spent a lifetime

5:13

building apps with Drop A So

5:15

Eternal To and that's most of

5:17

the outbuilding I do now. Seven

5:19

filling demos, testing the products and

5:21

medishare everything is working and then

5:23

says finding other ways to make

5:25

the developer experience more convenient. It

5:27

seems like something you could really

5:29

take care of. bunch of internal

5:31

automation app of apps you know

5:33

done your have their grief for

5:35

on web apps and secret I

5:37

insisted or get that dashboard her

5:39

or whatever. A just by are

5:41

viewing platform and when a few

5:43

days sources that's right. Yeah so

5:45

the big difference with other frameworks

5:47

right? is that like you going

5:50

to use these frameworks to build

5:52

your customer facing applications as customers

5:54

they are high expectations about what

5:56

they need. Interactions sometimes make a

5:58

big difference for them. You

6:00

I components the way models come on.

6:02

it's all part of the spirit. It's

6:04

an answer for that. You really need

6:07

a lot of extra components. complexity. Thea

6:09

for eternal tools. It is not to

6:11

say that's eternal. Users don't have high

6:13

expectations, but the kinds of things are

6:16

you do with those tools and to

6:18

be very similar, he searched for data

6:20

you get context about that summers off.

6:22

Research for a transaction are for a

6:25

user. because I'm a context. Make sure

6:27

that that's the user, the transaction that

6:29

you. Want often and then you act

6:31

on or I like you you trigger

6:34

an action on that I them were

6:36

that resource. Yeah with up or isn't

6:38

it helps you simplify the kind of

6:40

things you need. Answer for that: Having

6:43

a framework of a builder make this

6:45

happen. A super convenient. The subtitle catchphrase

6:47

of.basis build internal web apps with just

6:49

Python is awesome. And when I think

6:51

of internal web apps or even traditionally

6:54

if you look back a ways that

6:56

was be be six in Windows forms

6:58

of those types of things. That were

7:00

kind of play in the same role.

7:02

so the same same basic idea. Who

7:04

is a lot of people who referred

7:06

to that as forms over data? A

7:09

kind of that's not why a negative

7:11

term. What? Kind of like we're sorta

7:13

doing the same basic architecture over and

7:15

over, but it's a different problem every

7:17

time and so exciting at a rate.

7:19

Codes freebies project from scratch every time,

7:21

but there for the kinder, same kind

7:23

of thing. And so yeah, I think

7:25

that's probably why Bbc Six with it's

7:27

kind of visual drag and drop be.

7:30

experience with camera popular cause you could

7:32

drag a table on their dragon data

7:34

source blinded to that make a button

7:36

click on some a touch of this

7:38

thing and it didn't create something that

7:40

would rival say air bnb.com or where

7:42

you are these really dynamic design sides

7:44

but that's not what they needed that

7:47

companies as work we need this week

7:49

i need our sales people to be

7:51

able to answer this question and make

7:53

this change that's what we need you

7:55

to build this we get if is

7:57

from scratch every time that's it of

8:00

rework. It's a lot of work. It's funny

8:02

you mentioned the forms over data. It is

8:04

true that a lot of the, well, if

8:07

you take it at a very high level, all

8:09

apps are forms over data. All

8:12

SaaS apps are forms over

8:15

a database in some sense.

8:18

And then you start to hear

8:20

also about the similar things with,

8:22

you've heard about the GPT wrappers,

8:24

right? It's the same concept where

8:26

it's like an over simplification of

8:29

what's happening, but at the same

8:31

time, it is kind of core to

8:33

what's happening. And for internal tooling at

8:35

least, it's exactly what you need, forms

8:37

over data, but very quickly so that

8:40

developers don't have to spend a lot

8:42

of time basically doing the same things

8:44

over and over again, you want to

8:46

make their lives easier to support their

8:48

internal users. So people in customer support

8:50

operations, and I think sometimes

8:52

even supporting other engineers as well. Yeah,

8:55

and it's not that people in companies

8:57

don't have expectations of nice apps and

8:59

nice interactions. It's just that it's more

9:01

utilitarian. Like so many of these big

9:04

enterprises, when you kind of think of

9:06

them, maybe the right way to think

9:08

of them is there's a massive Postgres

9:10

or Microsoft SQL Server at the center.

9:12

And like, it almost connects the

9:14

business division like the sales team and

9:16

the marketing team and the, you know,

9:18

the product team and all that. And

9:20

it's if you can get into the

9:23

database and, you know, answer questions, expose

9:26

data, expose relationships, give put a UI

9:28

to some aspect of that, you're

9:30

really right at the heart of the

9:32

company and in some sense, you know,

9:34

it's definitely about effectiveness. One

9:36

way we think about what these kinds of tools

9:39

should do, you have to enable

9:41

developers to very quickly build

9:43

apps that have maximal value that lets

9:45

you get the job done as effectively

9:48

as possible. But also that easy to

9:50

use for the end user. So you

9:52

know, it's like a business operator, someone

9:54

the operations team, they also need to

9:57

be able to learn quickly how to

9:59

use it. and trigger actions.

10:01

And so we call that sort

10:04

of effectiveness of the apps, some

10:06

sort of like effectiveness score. It just combines

10:08

these components. And that's really

10:10

the, like if you can get to the

10:13

essence of it and create a framework or

10:15

a tool builder that maximizes for that, I

10:17

think you're in a really good place. It

10:19

is something we're trying to do with DropBase.

10:22

The components are simple. The

10:24

kinds of apps that you can build

10:26

look roughly the same, but they look

10:28

really nice. And they're also quite simple

10:31

to understand. They're modeled after attributes in

10:33

a way where you have data,

10:35

grid or table in the middle. And then there's

10:37

a sidebar from where you can trigger actions. And

10:40

this comes back to this concept of,

10:42

when you ask people in operations, what

10:44

they do, like sales, marketing, business operations,

10:47

essentially it ties back to the previous

10:49

comments, which was you search for something,

10:51

you get context about it and you

10:53

trigger action. And so the way we

10:55

translated that insight about what people just

10:58

end up doing over and over again,

11:00

we said, well, then you really just need

11:02

some sort of search bar, you need a

11:04

grid, and you need a sidebar

11:06

with some buttons or some other dropdowns and

11:08

other components. And then you realize, okay, this

11:11

is kind of what spreadsheets have been trying

11:13

to do for a long time. Yeah, that's

11:15

true. Except we like to trigger

11:17

their actions. Yeah, people do oddly connect Excel

11:19

to like external data sources and all sorts of

11:21

weird things as well. Or

11:23

write VBA that makes them change. They probably should just

11:26

not be doing that. Yeah, there's a lot of, it's

11:28

actually a big use case. On our previous

11:30

product, we actually did exactly that. We

11:33

let you connect any database

11:35

source to your Google Sheets and

11:37

just kind of run that on a

11:39

schedule. So you'd imagine in a business

11:41

setting, you have sort

11:44

of these like weekly daily reports that

11:46

analysts end up working on, right? And

11:49

what you want is for the data to

11:51

be fresh, up to date. And so people

11:53

just wanted a way to, at

11:56

7 a.m., 8 a.m. on Monday morning,

11:58

basically automatically pull data. from a database,

12:00

load it up to your spreadsheet, and

12:03

then all your tables and calculations, which

12:05

is sort of updated, because they're referencing

12:07

a tab, a sheet, basically, that

12:09

has fresh data. It is very interesting, the

12:11

evolution of all these tools. It is really

12:14

interesting. Maybe one of the

12:16

big differences is the interactivity here versus

12:19

what you might do in that

12:21

story, right? That's read-only, really. And

12:23

then here, what we're doing is

12:25

letting you trigger actions, perform actions,

12:27

basically outside the app. So

12:29

you might call an API, or you might

12:31

trigger an internal endpoint, or

12:34

just some triggers matching in the UI. This

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13:00

I think we'll get to this more later, but I want

13:02

to maybe touch on since there's a good question and also

13:04

it might be a question a lot of

13:06

people have. So what's the pricing model for this? And

13:09

basically, more broadly, what is the

13:11

business model around here? Luis says,

13:14

already amazed by it, would like

13:16

to compare it. For

13:18

a start, there's nothing like this

13:20

available in open source, so very

13:22

neat. The business model is we're

13:24

going to sell the product on

13:26

a per user per month basis.

13:28

So it's a B2B SaaS app

13:31

product. Now, developers need

13:33

to be able to play around with

13:35

products before they can decide whether that's

13:37

something they want. And so

13:39

we have a free version

13:42

of the product that you can set

13:44

up locally, like in your own machine, or you

13:46

can just put it up on an EC2, and

13:49

you can just build apps for yourself. If

13:51

you want to automate personal tasks, you can

13:53

totally use this for it. And then the

13:55

way that we, in a way, layer the

13:58

pricing is, very

14:00

complex permission systems. So like you build

14:02

an app and you want it accessible

14:04

by this person, by person A, but

14:06

not person B, then you'll

14:08

need very granular permission systems. And so that's an

14:10

indicator that you're probably like a, you know,

14:12

like a corporate user, you're a business user. And

14:15

so we do the pricing based on that. The

14:17

source is open, at least people can

14:19

go and check it out, right? Is that

14:22

true? Let me clarify that. So you can self-host it.

14:24

Yes. You know, you can look

14:26

at the repo. Behind the scenes, it's a

14:28

Docker image that

14:30

you set. So the code for drop

14:32

base is not immediately, you know, you

14:35

can't just browse it through the file

14:37

system, but the code is basically sitting

14:39

in your machine when you set this

14:41

up locally. Now the difference here is

14:43

if you look at the directory where

14:45

you have the workspace. So the workspace

14:48

directory is where all your apps' files

14:50

would be generated as you build the

14:52

apps. Okay. That's really nice

14:54

because you can essentially version control this

14:56

from day one. You can build

14:59

apps, you can check it in GitHub. You can

15:01

just keep your code, you can version it. And

15:03

so it's really, it's all

15:05

open source. It's clarified that, but

15:07

you can self-host it. It's on

15:09

GitHub, but the licensing is really

15:11

not like just straight up GPL

15:13

open source type of thing, right?

15:15

That's correct. Yes. Okay.

15:18

And it's on GitHub because you need to, you do need

15:20

to clone the repo and then you need to send it

15:22

out and install it. The free tier doesn't allow self-hosting, but

15:24

if you pay for some, one of

15:26

the versions, then it does have a

15:28

self-hosting option. So when you just

15:31

to wrap this up on the price,

15:33

when you say it's $10 per user

15:35

per month, is that per person that

15:37

makes the project, that builds the apps

15:39

or is that per person that interacts

15:42

with the web app? This is currently

15:44

per member of your workspace. So we're

15:46

not yet differentiating between someone who is

15:48

building the app or using the app.

15:50

Although that might be something that we'll

15:52

have to add later on. Sure. We

15:55

had say four salespeople and one

15:58

developer in quotes, maybe. Weber

16:00

dowdy five users under this story corrects

16:02

under the current by Judah. Okay yeah,

16:04

even if it's not, just tear up

16:06

the source taken, run with it. I

16:09

do like the self hosting aspect of

16:11

it because if you've got private data

16:13

or maybe even more important than any

16:15

of that is I want to connect

16:17

it tude data sources that are and

16:20

want to give your cloud access to

16:22

my company database for example I could

16:24

expand on that us with so we

16:26

built this specifically with that comments in

16:28

in my innocent so. When you're

16:31

using infernal tools, it's very more

16:33

the say. It's almost all the

16:35

cases you are interacting with production.

16:37

At least one production database were

16:39

elected. You're supporting customers and your

16:42

issuing them unrefined. You don't do

16:44

that In has an executive Staging

16:46

in Detroit is it's you. Basically

16:48

you act on it on your

16:50

production data and so we thought.

16:52

okay people are probably going to

16:55

be very hesitant to to basically

16:57

say let me lot of all

16:59

my threads. Are my if he

17:01

I t into some me a player

17:03

and new class of and then like

17:05

hope for the best right? So when

17:08

we designed Drop Base and we call

17:10

it a worker or the workers server

17:12

the way you connect to data sources

17:14

he is. You basically go see your.e

17:16

M B file and he just add

17:18

your database france and that yeah me

17:20

fall fits in the same directory that

17:22

that workspace are accurate, sits and I

17:24

want to. We see where we saw

17:27

it on Get Help and that's completely

17:29

on your side. And that's in

17:31

your the to see or your

17:33

local machine and the same server

17:35

is the one that rigorous the

17:38

task is to query your database

17:40

fell in that office sitting on

17:42

your side in your and seen

17:44

as will be fired. far of

17:47

the product that processes queries, touches

17:49

your data, your data sources your

17:51

credentials that's completely on the user

17:53

side and the the only for

17:56

that we manage is really just

17:58

have permission system so. That

18:00

control your workspace actually be like the

18:02

app permissions. that's the layer that the

18:04

week true and that's really liked the

18:06

part where we can do the pricing

18:08

on to be a mistake of stuff

18:10

that's a feature set. That thing that

18:12

helps with say okay disagree dummy pill

18:14

customers on these are going to be

18:16

developers were just gonna learn how to

18:18

cope with python is one of built

18:20

little apps for that for their own

18:22

personal use. My them a sense let's

18:24

me We talk through an example I

18:27

will see go to Debase and I

18:29

are There's a. Ride the Top is

18:31

it sorta tutorial on our demo video of

18:33

a views in it I was. I don't

18:35

want to play the video that maybe just

18:37

August through the steps of a what this

18:40

app is and mortar the steps to build

18:42

it and just from people who are or

18:44

listen and watch the video. maybe as he

18:46

has twelve minutes long and you're like let's

18:49

create a new project and here it is

18:51

published at the end right which is really

18:53

nice say as August or I mean add

18:55

try to recreate the exact same one That

18:57

said you have on the on the screenwriter

19:00

it looks like an app that has two

19:02

tables and stuff you can somehow perform an

19:04

action with on the sidebar. Basically it's as

19:06

notifies either notifies a user or he performed

19:08

some sort of emissions. Think what this one

19:11

does is it has our work spaces and

19:13

then users in a workspace and you can

19:15

make them admins or not admins of that

19:17

work spaces. The ones that gotcha that how

19:20

perfect rocket or yes I'll I'll describe how

19:22

you build it up. So you go through

19:24

our up studio and it's gonna be a

19:26

blank canvas in that canvas you can add

19:28

tables for the first and you do is

19:31

you add table one yeah the for a

19:33

table as and do it at table to

19:35

which is the second table and then you

19:37

add a widgets.on the sidebar you just click

19:40

on add bunny and then just placed a

19:42

button on the screen for you. Well be

19:44

sort of a shell of the application will

19:46

be just to stay dry part. at this

19:48

point it's just a few mouse clicks. There's

19:51

no can scrub cold or packing to but

19:53

you're writing. The next step is to add

19:55

birds of the logic behind the scenes. The

19:57

first thing we need to do is to.

20:00

Populate the first table with data about

20:02

your work spaces and essentially what we

20:04

do is you please click on create

20:06

new you Korea new function as a

20:08

not constantly to be a sequel function

20:10

or a python function because our sister

20:12

table he could just create a new

20:14

sequel function. So you do Korean you

20:16

function collect everything from work spaces the

20:18

see that's the table and as you

20:20

can see a lot of preview of

20:22

what that select state may were with

20:24

salt and so you can verify that

20:26

that's been added. You want to shop

20:28

and once you've done. That just say

20:31

that guy who had query and

20:33

you do something we called binding

20:35

Fill in the you eyes you

20:37

can select people once and for

20:39

censor with the tables properties and

20:41

one of the property is with

20:43

sequel file which legal script hitting

20:45

balance you are you squeak by

20:48

into a single father just row

20:50

and then it is automatically populated

20:52

with data were your workspace Now

20:54

the second see It was a

20:56

little bit more interesting because the

20:58

second syllable will update depending. On

21:00

what role you've selected in the first

21:02

people. When you click on a workspace

21:05

in the first people it'll be shit

21:07

Load all of the users and are

21:09

part of a particular workspace and so

21:11

we do this. We have a future

21:13

call dependent tables and that's exactly where

21:15

does so for the second table he

21:18

was still write a sequel query and

21:20

a query would just say select everything

21:22

from users were the whispers I'd be

21:24

is the selected row Work this idea

21:26

from the first people and you will

21:29

you. Since About Ginger. Much or maybe

21:31

the audience will be familiar with into

21:33

a sort of like ginger templating style

21:35

where he says like everything from

21:37

users were were false Id is he

21:40

a double cheney brace and then we

21:42

have something call states Baby Sweet gives

21:44

you the state of the you

21:46

I have any point in time and

21:49

click something and it's for the we

21:51

made any to class of be can

21:53

say the state.tables.table one dot. Much

21:55

as Id we resolve that into the

21:58

value. that's that's what's that. What

22:00

was I the from the first cable s

22:02

oh that's too many do the same for

22:04

you say flat stucco query you buy me

22:06

to the site and table and then we

22:08

are not me A for that whenever you

22:10

need he was you whenever you like to

22:12

the front row in the first able to

22:14

second table will update the which is id

22:17

value rerun the query and they showed you

22:19

the data with as go I was wondering

22:21

how that happened I thought you my satellite

22:23

wire some on change of and consumer here

22:25

than in trying to your that these have

22:27

that all automatically be you I actually knows

22:29

that a which. Tables are related but

22:31

you i sense a payload to the

22:33

back and saying the stable was clicks

22:35

and this other team of it's related

22:38

sweat and so we kind of know

22:40

that we need to process again as

22:42

so that's how we do this dependency

22:44

evil or the getting the the value

22:46

of they work for his Id in

22:49

the first cable we basically we resolve

22:51

be a be available in the back

22:53

and and then passive value. for that

22:55

we can update the queer lawsuit as

22:57

if you stop at that point. In

23:00

a you say premium bf the app

23:02

would look like two tables were is

23:04

really just let's see all the users

23:07

for each workspace. that's the you have

23:09

your in a database and then a

23:11

few more things to make that very

23:13

useful If you might want to spend

23:15

my workspace before you know who to

23:17

support. Solas A plus a workspace is

23:20

associated with one of your customers. Oh

23:22

miss a company age or customer. The

23:24

company a gives you a cause a

23:26

poor call and says hey could you

23:28

make John in our. company and admin

23:30

for the first and you wanna do

23:33

you want to find the source for

23:35

company a and then fine job so

23:37

we have is nice feature that basically

23:39

automatically creates searches for you some of

23:41

the same the first table you can

23:43

click on a been to convert it

23:45

to a smart people and when you

23:47

do that we miss the generates dancers

23:49

for you so you can then to

23:52

say i'd like to search by company

23:54

name and you can select the saucer

23:56

and you can tend to censor into

23:58

the table and that automatically performs

24:00

the search for you. So it's just pretty

24:02

neat that way. It reminds me a little

24:04

bit of Notion. Notion tables. I don't know

24:06

if you play with Notion any. Yes. You

24:08

know, you've got those pin swords and those

24:10

pin filters and different things you kind of

24:13

put at the top of the, I guess,

24:15

their database. Is it called a Notion? A

24:17

little like that. It's very similar to that

24:19

in the sense that you're not writing any

24:21

code to be able to search through tables

24:23

but you can still modify what you let

24:25

people search by pinning certain filters. The really

24:27

interesting thing that we've done here is that

24:30

we let you do joins and

24:33

still provides you that feature. So in Notion,

24:35

for example, you would just have one database

24:37

and you can filter and sort that database.

24:40

With drop base, what we have is, let's

24:42

say you have a table called users and

24:44

a table called roles and

24:46

then they're related by an ID

24:48

where let's say ID1 is users,

24:51

ID2 is developers, ID3

24:53

is admins. You might have to join

24:55

those two tables first. And so that

24:57

same smart feature, smart table feature, you

25:00

can just write that SQL statement, join statements

25:02

and we can still generate sort of the

25:04

right filters for you. And we'll actually let

25:07

you edit those tables as well. What

25:09

we do is we take your SQL

25:12

statement and then we infer all the

25:14

SQL required to search or edit any

25:16

column within the SQL statement. That sounds

25:18

awesome. That's a really neat feature especially

25:21

for the people who are used to

25:23

using something like Django admin in

25:26

the sense that it helps you

25:28

very quickly build an admin panel

25:30

with very little developer work. You can

25:32

just write a SQL statement and then

25:35

we give you an admin panel. So

25:37

that's really neat. But the final thing

25:39

with the app here in the demo

25:41

is the little button on the right

25:44

side. That is a Python function. So

25:46

you create a new Python function and

25:48

you essentially say, you essentially write a

25:51

database update to update the role from

25:53

whatever it was, let's say from developer

25:55

to an admin. So it's just really

25:57

a select statement, you know, updates. table

26:00

that column something on this particular ID. And

26:02

so that's just a Python function. And the

26:04

final thing is just to connect that button

26:06

to run this Python function. So you click

26:08

on the button, we run the function, and

26:10

then we perform a database update to update

26:12

the role to whichever role you want. And

26:14

that really is just the gist of the,

26:17

of the done. So a couple of things

26:19

about that Python function, that's pretty interesting. When

26:21

you create it, you can say, I want

26:23

to create a function and it says, do

26:25

you want SQL or do you want Python,

26:27

which is pretty interesting. The Python

26:30

function has access to the UI widgets,

26:32

like it in the actual video, not

26:34

the screenshot of the video. I think

26:36

you've got a dropdown select box. And

26:39

so the Python function go, well, what

26:41

did the user select? And then we'll

26:43

make the change to the person in

26:45

the workspace along those lines. So that's

26:47

pretty cool, right? That you interact with

26:49

this UI and kind of a object

26:51

oriented way, I suppose. That's exactly how

26:53

it works. So behind the scenes, we

26:55

have two classes. One is called state

26:57

and one is called a context. So

27:00

the state class does let's us

27:02

access all of the UI state

27:04

at any point in time. Anything

27:06

you enter in an input component

27:08

or any row you select in

27:11

a table, you can see the

27:13

currently selected values of it. And

27:15

so whenever you click on a

27:17

button or you perform an action,

27:19

that state is passed

27:21

to the backend, just with a payload,

27:24

just like a dictionary. And the backend,

27:26

we generally all the classes, all the

27:28

objects related to state and

27:30

context, so we just have to pass

27:33

the values in and then execute the

27:35

function with those values as the input.

27:37

And so that's how we're able to

27:39

do the state thing with Python. If

27:41

you've seen how you would do it

27:43

in Python, it is very much a

27:45

dot notation, right? So you would say

27:47

to get the value of column one

27:49

in table one, you basically just say

27:51

state dot tables, which gives

27:53

you all the tables, dot table one, Dot

27:56

column one, and that basically

27:58

resolves in. The you devalue off

28:01

the table of the role in that

28:03

table for that call our school. I

28:05

can imagine the implementation of that thing

28:07

is like.at Dunder get get outturn if

28:09

you ask for the thing you can

28:12

the dictionary interests thing and put the

28:14

with that mind. What I thought was

28:16

really nice about this is you add

28:18

pretty decent on a complete and you're

28:20

pro embedded python editor. How audible I

28:22

did you notice? yeah we spend our

28:24

time on is that I bet you

28:27

did That has that we're we're designing.

28:29

It is worth. And gave them vs

28:31

notice really nice. Yeah it's all the

28:33

plugins, all the article sweet and every

28:35

day by we have two choices right?

28:37

Either we built this whole you i

28:39

build into the a coat or we'd

28:41

find out take some other things I

28:43

may just code grade and then bring

28:45

it into the job a studio we

28:47

don't Also the fine I'll eventually why

28:49

this will be but the current version

28:51

of this is we thought the on

28:53

I speak we need to give users

28:56

an editor like a built in editor

28:58

for they can just quickly become the

29:00

best experience. Building the app and

29:02

be assisting why and concepts and

29:04

state really quickly when we just

29:07

wish that about way where we

29:09

added a in alice be so

29:11

I got my were server. So

29:13

anytime side code and your Python

29:16

function is basically over a web

29:18

socket connection, basically streaming and the

29:20

code changes and saving them in

29:23

your file system. that's the only

29:25

way we can do this. Decide:

29:27

Object Oriented Python.notation Axis. And

29:29

so we the topic due to the too

29:31

fast so we set this up so that

29:33

normally and you can do on a complete

29:35

but also that we can actually do the

29:38

feeling conflicts approach to the web framework. It

29:40

was a bit complicated because we haven't been

29:42

really exposed to our species for as we

29:44

have to learn how to use our species

29:46

and we have to sort of i jackson

29:48

of be so that the web socket connection

29:50

in a way so that we intercept the

29:52

code and then wrists we save it is

29:54

your house with them and we have to

29:57

customize the the limits you to do this.

29:59

As. With. because now you can

30:01

do autocomplete for your files. It's

30:03

just a need. It's so hard to

30:05

develop now. We're so used to these

30:07

tools. And now with things like copilot,

30:09

like we're used to even more than

30:11

just autocomplete, right? It's like autocomplete the

30:13

function, not just the variable, right? I

30:15

feel like autocomplete is just table stakes,

30:18

you know, especially in this kind of

30:20

thing. You know, there's somebody who's just

30:22

done Python forever, and they're just, they'd

30:24

rather get it out of the way.

30:26

And it's fine. It's not my way

30:28

of working, but it's fine for people

30:30

who want to do that. But if you're

30:32

working with somebody who might not be a

30:34

full time developer, but they want to use

30:36

your framework, your service to build some app,

30:38

it seems like this could really empower them.

30:41

But if you give them something with zero

30:43

autocomplete, zero highlighting, they're going to be having

30:45

a rough time, you know? Yeah, even for

30:47

a more experienced developer, I think it's definitely

30:49

still a hard time. Even if you can

30:51

do it, it's just less productive to go

30:54

like, oh, yeah, way less productive. Yeah, way

30:56

less productive. I think AI gets added to

30:58

apps a lot, just to kind of check

31:00

a box. But the result of it is

31:02

not that great to get on my email

31:04

client that has AI integrated.

31:06

But it almost always seems like, well, that's not

31:09

something I'd, yeah, something I want to read, like,

31:11

I don't really want to read that. And I

31:13

know, it's, I don't need to summarize it as

31:15

emails, you know, just seems like a lot of

31:17

energy goes into it when it's not that big

31:19

of a value, but maybe something like Copilot could

31:21

be here. This is something we've talked about me

31:23

and my co founder. So one of the things

31:25

that we didn't get to cover, because we, you

31:27

know, we're not going to go through all the

31:29

demos, but the way that we render

31:31

data in these tables is we

31:34

basically format it as a pandas data

31:36

frame. Okay. So what that means is

31:39

that let's say that you theory

31:41

data from Stripe, like you, you get all

31:43

your customers from Stripe, Stripe is not going

31:45

to return a data frame for you, it's

31:48

going to return like an object, right? Dictionary.

31:50

And then you basically have to take that

31:52

dictionary, and then basically convert it into a

31:54

data frame. And then we automatically know how

31:56

to render everything else from there. So we've

31:59

thought about this in a Wouldn't it be

32:01

cool if as soon as you get

32:03

the response from an endpoint, let's say

32:05

as a JSON dictionary, that we suggest

32:07

that we can just take it out

32:09

next step for you, which

32:11

is just to convert it into a data

32:13

frame, and then you wouldn't have to hustle

32:16

with it. We've done that with a bet.

32:18

In theory, that sounds very helpful. If you're

32:20

proficient in pandas and using data frames, it's

32:22

actually not that hard. It's a very quick

32:24

thing for you. If you

32:26

just know Python but not exposed

32:29

to the whole data frame ecosystem,

32:31

then maybe it would be really nice if

32:33

you just said, okay, we just

32:35

turn it to data frames for you, and then that's all you

32:37

have to care about. We've thought about this.

32:39

We haven't added this yet. I think it's fine

32:41

without. It's kind of one of those things, like

32:44

you're in there and you've got these data sources, and maybe

32:46

you're not super familiar with them. Maybe you can pull them

32:48

together somehow. One of the things that I find myself struggling

32:50

with is, let's say I want to build a demo. If

32:53

I say I haven't been exposed to the

32:55

SendGrid API or the HubSpot API, then

32:58

I have to go to their documentation

33:00

to figure out what's the package name

33:02

so I can install it, how do

33:05

I authenticate in, how do

33:07

I call a few endpoints to do what I need to do. I

33:10

think in that case, it's all about your

33:12

knowledge of Python. It really is about your

33:14

knowledge of this other thing that you're using.

33:16

In those cases, it seems that it could

33:19

be extremely helpful for someone to build apps

33:21

very quickly if they somehow had access to

33:23

either a quick documentation or just

33:25

suggest that what you might want to do. Yeah,

33:28

that's kind of what I was thinking as well. If

33:31

you're a regular listener of the podcast, you've

33:33

surely heard about TalkPython's online courses, but have

33:35

you had a chance to try them out?

33:38

No matter the level you're looking for, we have a

33:41

course for you. Our Python for Absolute Beginners

33:43

is like an introduction to Python plus that

33:45

first-year computer science course that you never took.

33:48

Our data-driven web app courses build

33:50

a full pypi.org clone along with

33:52

you right on the screen. And

33:55

we even have a few courses to dip your toe in

33:57

with. See what we have to

33:59

offer at training.talkcoin.com. python.fm or just click the

34:01

link in your podcast better. So

34:05

speaking of that sort of external

34:07

resources, you've got this python function and

34:09

what can I put in there? Can

34:11

I use external packages? Can I call

34:13

out on the network to talk to

34:15

some API endpoints? I

34:18

spin up threads like what can I do? How

34:21

much python can I do there? Pretty much all

34:23

of the above. So I'll elaborate what I mean

34:26

by that. So the standard way that you would

34:28

connect to some of these

34:30

services, the third party services is

34:32

you'll make like an HTTP request,

34:34

like get requests, post requests. So you

34:36

can just like import requests, basically it

34:38

could install a request and then just

34:41

do it over the standard Python, basically

34:43

Python package. Now it is way more

34:46

convenient when you use an SDK provided

34:48

by one of these third parties. So

34:50

if you want to use Stripe, if

34:52

you're able to just import Stripe, it'll

34:55

make your life a lot easier, very

34:57

nicely Pythonic, everything set up. So in

34:59

drop base, you can install anything that

35:01

you can install via PyPIA. We have

35:04

a file called custom requirements.

35:07

And if you just list them out,

35:09

when you set up drop base, we'll

35:11

basically install all those for you. And

35:13

then when you write a function, you

35:15

can just basically import Stripe directly into

35:17

function without, you know, keep installing it

35:19

again. And then you just use it.

35:21

So that's really nice. Basically anything, I

35:23

think you were doing a previous UV.

35:25

You were talking. Yeah, yeah. I was

35:27

talking to Charlie Marsh about UV earlier

35:29

today. Yeah. We haven't looked into it

35:31

yet, but anything you can install from,

35:33

you know, from PyPI, you can install intro

35:35

base, which makes it really, really powerful. Yeah.

35:37

Nice. There's a database connections. I mean, you

35:39

could use SQL, Alchemy, or you can import

35:42

whatever else you want. But we make those

35:44

a bit more native because we

35:46

know that you're going to connect to databases. So

35:48

we want to make it a bit more a

35:50

convenience. So. And your tables need

35:52

sort of direct access to it as well,

35:54

right? Not just the output of some access

35:56

to the database, but you've got to figure

35:59

out the columns. and all that kind of

36:01

stuff, right? That's correct. So we

36:03

created a little library, like a

36:06

utility slash helper, that lets you

36:08

perform database operations very quickly. So

36:10

if you've added your database credentials

36:13

to the .env file,

36:15

then you can quickly perform a

36:18

select statement or make an

36:20

update to that database via functions. But

36:22

without the standard thing where you

36:25

do if you use SQL offering, for example,

36:27

where you start a section, start a connection,

36:29

all those steps, we kind of abstract that

36:31

for you. But you can totally use SQL

36:34

alchemy in its full glory if

36:36

that's what you're used to. Nice. Can I write

36:38

Python files, like separate Python scripts and stuff, and

36:41

then just import and call them from there? Or

36:43

does it have to be done through the UI?

36:45

Totally. There's actually one of the biggest advantages of

36:48

drop base is that if you have a

36:50

Python script lying around and you want to

36:52

use it in drop base, you can add

36:55

it to that file system somewhere in the

36:57

workspace directory. And you can just import

36:59

it in via your function. So use

37:01

like from your file, you can import

37:04

a specific function in that file, for

37:06

example. And so the implication of this

37:08

is that you can set up drop

37:10

base in a way that it just

37:12

lives in your existing Python code base.

37:14

So imagine you've already set up your

37:16

company, you've

37:18

got product market fit, things are running,

37:20

and you have a Python back end. And

37:22

now you're starting to scale and

37:25

you need to build tools. So your

37:27

first option would be to do all

37:29

custom, obviously. The second option is to

37:31

use some sort of tools builder. But

37:34

every single action you take is

37:36

done over an HTTP request with

37:38

authentication with everything. So just like

37:40

a standard internet communication. But if

37:43

you wanted to just interact with

37:45

an existing functions or internal endpoints,

37:47

then you'd have to either set

37:49

up an RPC server, or

37:51

you might want to use some other way to get

37:53

in there. With Drop Base, You

37:56

basically just set up drop base in

37:58

the same directory as your app. And

38:00

you can import selectively what song says

38:02

you need a sort of like a

38:04

window. it's your code base that is

38:06

like a plugin to that how base

38:08

where you can now expanding build a

38:10

lot of tools that leverages everything that

38:12

you've already done. Yeah let's say by

38:14

the way that when you've got all

38:16

the others requirements I customary to you

38:18

got your docker compose file mean could

38:20

use said of the so as you

38:22

build it even better just said of

38:24

a volume so that it can directly

38:26

find them. Agatha so you kind of

38:28

show and I hear. Right is that

38:30

you can sort of map mouth volume

38:32

just directly in to say you're get

38:34

repo for your big project code and

38:37

the you could start importing that and

38:39

doing stuff with it right? We still

38:41

need to some tweaks because of birth

38:43

of routed Sats but they the and

38:45

you can do with a little bit

38:47

of a little bit of customization. but

38:49

but yeah Fireworks Racer! basically your mouth

38:51

files or directories and then we can

38:53

look into those two to execute bad

38:55

manners. As far as with get her

38:57

some like that a good example of

38:59

this is a. You familiar with Janko

39:01

and Jangle Admin? Not super as the

39:03

idea of in a bind Mercer Tango.

39:05

It's a great the It's a great

39:07

web framework is used by a lot

39:10

of companies. It's like if you want

39:12

to be a web apps these Janko.

39:14

He comes to the lot of stuff

39:16

and there's this thing called Jagger Admin

39:18

that basically automatically generates admin panel square

39:20

you based on your Jangle models as

39:23

a gallon model or by it's a

39:25

bug spray in the book as authors

39:27

it squeaks doses that to the Jaguar.

39:29

Been. And the now you can edit

39:31

it's a book with are really doing anything

39:34

like it all kind of comes for free

39:36

like it's pretty neat. I think that's

39:38

like a half the appeal a zinger right

39:40

there in as he i think a

39:42

lot of people use it for that. yeah

39:44

that I got all right us of amusing

39:47

Go yeah for real and it's great

39:49

now at some points and was young. When

39:51

your company gets us or new milestone or

39:53

is spent the sun a number of

39:55

of customers you will need to customize knows

39:58

I'm in panels you might need to for

40:00

it. I'm in kennels for thing for

40:02

you. Maybe you don't have models for yes

40:04

or for things that are mine data from

40:06

your from your database with data from

40:08

like strike or some other source and so

40:11

are we See went when we talk to

40:13

to these people he is that be

40:15

kind of struggle to like either when I

40:17

keep using this or do I like

40:19

completely rebuild everything for those users when we

40:22

talk to them about drug based they get

40:24

very excited because I'm a trapeze you

40:26

can start ago and he can sit in

40:28

your fast with them. And so essentially

40:30

all the models that you've already built

40:32

and Janko the to basically Columbia trapeze

40:34

with up his function because it's all

40:37

Python right now as a D C

40:39

this like okay Jungle admins are great

40:41

up to a certain point and then

40:43

us about what happens right? Like he

40:45

might not want to rebuild everything just

40:47

and you can have internal tooling and

40:49

so as much as I'd have a

40:51

nice spot for us to say the

40:53

drop is can live in your code

40:55

base uses everything you already have but

40:57

he gives you some extra things if

40:59

you want to. Build in Toronto's very

41:01

quickly so that's something you're nervous you

41:03

day they excited about. That's really cool.

41:05

I like that aspect of it. So

41:07

when we talk about this codes guess

41:09

there's two scenarios. the cloud version or

41:12

the self hosted version. And we're and

41:14

how to says Python run as it

41:16

it must be foresee. Python: Is it

41:18

running an isolated docker, containers or new

41:20

cloud? What happens that functions like eight

41:22

of us functions lambda. It's just as

41:24

as runs I their own your and

41:27

your local machine. if you set it

41:29

up as developer. It's all running

41:31

their of Cb. To turn up there

41:33

numeracy be send us your ass and

41:35

in if you set it up, the

41:37

guy in a production instance misses you.

41:39

Deploy this on an easy to your

41:41

Python posters are running on that easy

41:43

to but it's running yeah docker container

41:45

inside to get a little isolation, a

41:47

little bit of protections, that kind of

41:49

stress and we're assuming bad and size

41:51

image your belly. These apps to run

41:53

a you're on infrastructure is idea. With

41:55

that you know what you're doing so

41:57

this is as opposed to us having

41:59

a. The whole cloud version were

42:01

all customers run on trusted code in

42:03

the same sort of back and system

42:06

which would be obscene may dangerous cause

42:08

I'm sure there's ways a customer can

42:10

somehow you know goes to the back

42:12

in an axis other customers on trust

42:15

and code and I would be a

42:17

nightmare and so if you we have

42:19

isolation first major his voice in your

42:21

infrastructure you gonna do is just your

42:24

company's code but and further in a

42:26

we run I found in containers in

42:28

that in an instant that's. of the

42:30

more like of a durability thing

42:32

than anything muses also from isolation

42:34

protection but first and foremost says

42:36

don't let bad Python code take

42:39

down the whole thing in our

42:41

the way we we recommend people

42:43

using using trump is or setting

42:45

up their deaths but a process

42:47

which base is that a word

42:49

that would close as I basically

42:51

sports the be Worth rappers and

42:53

then they would develop locally bill

42:55

test changes he when sir happy

42:57

with the new code yellow push

42:59

it back. In the that last Yazidi

43:01

ensued that production instance and then it

43:03

can proceed control everything from that Nelson

43:06

gives you an extra layer. Okay let's

43:08

make sure that when I would personally

43:10

is tested you can always add test

43:12

databases and you developed locally with before

43:15

you post production where it is gonna

43:17

have to act on your production. The

43:19

yeah that's pretty interesting. I like them

43:22

birth control aspect of it that consider

43:24

a much nicer tad stuff connection to

43:26

real software rather than just it's a

43:28

text input area in. an app that

43:30

who knows what happens as developers the

43:33

it sometimes feels a bit scary right

43:35

like you're building something and it's in

43:37

this other framework and is other cloud

43:39

as it just feels like you said

43:41

kind of get like it if the

43:43

saying goes away like each element see

43:45

your previous code that was another because

43:47

of that we wanted it is in

43:49

this in the school that feels friendly

43:51

for developers that it matches your mental

43:53

models and you're sort of like your

43:56

development process of color like how you're

43:58

used to make and making acid and

44:00

code that we keep that feeling when

44:02

you're building apps and trophies. I want

44:04

to maybe have a PR to understand

44:06

if we accept this change to

44:08

it, right? That's right. Yeah. Yeah. You don't

44:11

normally hear that kind of stuff around these

44:13

kind of tools, you know? And if you

44:15

do, I think it tends to be like,

44:17

yeah, okay, it's like a huge enterprise contract,

44:20

pay us $50,000 a year, and then you

44:22

get version control, which to me, it sounds

44:25

scary. I mean, it just it'll make me a

44:27

little bit less comfortable. Now, obviously, if I'm a

44:29

big company and I just really

44:31

need the tool, sure, maybe I'll just

44:34

pay for it and I get version control.

44:36

But, you know, getting registered control, it just

44:38

feels so like it's like table

44:40

stakes for developers, especially today. But yeah, it

44:42

just wouldn't make sense otherwise for us. I

44:44

mean, the way we're approaching this product. Yeah.

44:46

Well, the other aspect is, you know, what

44:48

are you version controlling? You know, do you

44:50

end up with, you know,

44:52

something like effectively a Jupyter Notebook, like

44:54

big blob of something and then there's

44:56

an older blob of something and then

44:58

you diff it, you're like, what is

45:01

this? But since you end up with

45:03

just these, you know, your workspace files

45:05

that just live there, right? It's a

45:07

real optimize, like show me the changes,

45:09

show me what's happened here. Yeah, it

45:11

all lives there, including the component properties.

45:13

Like we don't store this in like

45:15

a separate database or anything like that.

45:18

So like, you know, like for some

45:20

of their tools, they will

45:22

store all the components in their database. And

45:24

so what they do is, you know, when

45:26

you load up their tools, like their tools

45:28

builder, it'll fetch all the components from the

45:30

provider's database, combine it with maybe the your

45:32

custom code, and then you'll do it. And

45:35

so even that feels like, okay, but where

45:37

am I? Where's like config for my components?

45:39

Yeah, where'd this button come from? Why is

45:41

it gone? That's tough. Yeah, that's tough. And

45:44

then like, imagine if you wanted to like

45:46

share their app. Yeah, it's just

45:48

like version control makes a bit less sense. I

45:50

mean, you're just version controlling, just like the individual

45:52

functions, maybe like the custom part of the code

45:54

that you write, which is still useful, but it

45:56

still feels like you don't have the full picture

45:59

of what's happening. Yeah, you don't have a

46:01

full record. It could easily get out of

46:03

sync. Quite interesting. I guess one thing we

46:06

touched on a little bit before I press

46:08

go here in the show, you said that

46:10

at one point you were considering using Jupyter in

46:13

this whole mechanism.

46:16

What's the story around that? We love

46:18

Jupyter. We love notebooks and we love

46:20

the experience of them, the sense that

46:22

you can write some code and you

46:24

can quickly test and execute the code

46:26

without, basically without needing to write

46:29

anything else. So for prototyping,

46:31

for getting quick feedback, it's great.

46:33

And we wanted to give our

46:35

developers something like that because when you

46:37

build these apps, you're kind of

46:39

iterating, right? You're testing it. A lot

46:42

of times you don't even know the

46:44

documentation for Vibe or HopSpot. And

46:47

so there's a lot of experimentation.

46:49

And so we wanted a quick

46:51

way to do that. So we

46:53

consider maybe having something like a

46:55

Jupyter kernel within Dropbox that allows

46:57

people to do it. There were

46:59

some issues with it in the

47:01

sense that the kernel actually stores

47:03

results from like previous blocks. And

47:05

sometimes I get in the way of you

47:08

triggering an action in a later block. And

47:10

so we were like, okay, maybe that's a

47:12

little bit more than we need. Now we

47:14

still kind of eventually want something like that.

47:16

We hacked it in a way. Like so

47:18

the way that we do it is you

47:21

can write a Python function. You basically get one

47:23

block. You can write a

47:25

Python function and you can click an

47:27

uplay button to basically run that function,

47:30

but it's not like a kernel. So what we

47:32

do is behind the scenes, we

47:34

have like a main function. And when

47:36

you trigger that function, we take the

47:39

state from the client. So whatever you've

47:41

selected or input it, we take the

47:43

underlying file for your Python function, and

47:45

then we call it from it. And

47:47

so we kind of simulate that experience

47:49

of like instantly testing code that you

47:51

just wrote, but there is no, like,

47:54

there is no Jupyter kernel behind the

47:56

scenes. And then you can only do

47:58

one block at a time. So

48:00

we set up a for now as we're getting

48:02

started with it. It's good enough. You

48:05

can write your functions, you can run and test them

48:07

immediately, which is really nice. You

48:09

can do this with VS Code, by the way. Like you

48:11

would have to open up the terminal and then basically run

48:13

your function. And so we still do one of this feature

48:15

where you can click and just see your outputs and basically

48:18

debug and troubleshoot. But it'd be really nice if

48:20

you get out multiple blocks and you can just

48:22

build functions that way. So

48:24

maybe for the future. Interesting. Did you say

48:26

that you were a core developer for Recipiter?

48:29

No, no, I just spoke to them. That

48:32

sounds fun, but I interviewed a whole bunch of

48:34

them recently. What

48:36

I thought was interesting is Jupyter is

48:38

such an empowering thing for Python developers,

48:40

but many of the core developers are

48:42

so focused on writing JavaScript and TypeScript

48:44

to sort of make these interactions possible

48:46

so that the rest of us don't

48:48

have to write JavaScript and that kind

48:50

of stuff. So I think we're getting

48:52

about to the end of our time

48:55

here. I'm sure

48:57

that actually this is somewhat similar. It's

48:59

really a dynamic interactive web app. And in

49:01

that case, it probably has to have some

49:04

interesting frontend JavaScript stuff going on. What's

49:06

the JavaScript story? Yeah. What framework you're

49:08

using and stuff like that? We react

49:10

to build our components. Obviously

49:13

we abstract that away so that

49:15

you as a Python developer, you're

49:17

just writing Python. Well, you're

49:19

writing SQL as well, but let's call that

49:21

Python. And then we deal with the components

49:23

for you. So

49:25

it's not the kind of framework

49:27

where you're writing Python and regenerating

49:30

HTMLX or something like

49:32

that. So obviously we understand

49:34

React and we know we can build

49:37

some beautiful components, customize them with it.

49:39

We weren't about to create a

49:42

completely new framework where we somehow

49:44

just generate HTML from Python. I

49:46

think there's a few people working

49:48

on that actually. We already know React,

49:51

so let's just build those components or

49:53

customize those components and then just let

49:55

people declare them and then sort of

49:58

access and modify them via the the

50:00

context objects in your Python functions.

50:03

So our stack, we use FastAPI

50:05

for our backend, which is great.

50:08

Excellent, yeah. I'm not sure

50:10

if you have had the creator here on. Yeah, I've

50:12

had Sebastian on, I think at

50:14

least three times, Sebastian Ramirez. Yeah,

50:17

he's great. Yeah, he is really great,

50:19

yeah. FastAPI is a fantastic app. And

50:21

so, yeah, we use them, we use

50:23

Reactor, our client side, and

50:25

we, a lot of our infrides

50:27

on AWS. Yeah, sounds really interesting.

50:29

Sounds like a fun app to work on.

50:31

Yeah, you should play around with it. I

50:33

can help you build some apps to manage

50:36

your podcast library. All right, well,

50:38

Jimmy, I think we are pretty much out

50:40

of time, final thought for people

50:42

listening, maybe they're excited to try this out.

50:44

What are you telling them? Yeah, just go

50:46

to dropface.io and sign up for free accounts.

50:49

It's free for developers, you can set it

50:51

up locally. If you have any

50:53

issues setting it up, just reach out, I'll personally

50:55

help you get it up and running, you can

50:57

look at the documentation for everything else. That's

51:00

about it, try it, give us some feedback, we'd love to

51:02

hear from you. Awesome, congrats on building

51:04

a cool project for people and yeah, good

51:06

luck with it. Thanks, Mike. This

51:09

has been another episode of Talk Python to Me.

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52:09

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52:11

I really appreciate it. Now, get out there and write

52:13

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