TIL on Christopher Tyler

Use pytest-xdist to Speed Up Testing

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 13:44:04 -0500

I was able to reduce my tests from ~25 minutes to ~5 minutes.

How to Remove a Stubborn Snap

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 21:00:40 -0500

I was getting a failed to remove base directory error.

Using uv and subprocess module

Fri, 29 May 2026 20:34:06 -0500

Need to be careful when using uv to call a Python program with subprocesses

The Git Commands I Run Before Reading Any Code

Sat, 02 May 2026 18:10:27 -0500

Five git log commands that diagnose a new codebase before you open a single file.

Python tip: name your unicode characters

Sat, 02 May 2026 16:01:12 -0500

Another helpful tip from Trey.

uv Python Upgrade

Sat, 02 May 2026 15:41:06 -0500

If you use uv, an easy way to update Python.

Find Error in pg_dump

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 23:52:55 -0500

Find this handy tip on Mastodon.

Use filter() instead of for loop

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 16:54:59 -0500

A helpful tip to use Python’s built-ins.

How to Version in pyproject

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 16:35:28 -0500

This is from the packaging project’s documentation.

Use SQL Linter

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 16:22:58 -0500

With pre-commit, you can run the linter before each commit.

Bash trick: using grep for faster history search

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 16:19:13 -0500

A nice alias to help search your bash history.

List table columns in PostgreSQL database

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 16:13:43 -0500

An easy way to get all the tables in a given database.

Use Grep to Find Content and Move

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 15:59:38 -0500

You can grep and move those files at the same time.

Remove Tracking File or Folder from Git

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 15:57:03 -0500

How to remove a file from being tracked by git.

Last Updated Columns with Postgres

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 15:31:38 -0500

Good article from Gunnar how to avoid using triggers.

Remove Telemetry from Streamlit

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 15:24:48 -0500

Disable telemetry in StreamLit especially for work projects.

Data Alignment to Save Space

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 16:46:50 -0500

While it was an excellent talk, this was my biggest takeaway.

Remove Characters from a String

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 14:41:40 -0500

Needed to remove an email from a string of emails.

uv Cheatsheet

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 14:41:40 -0500

Nice cheatsheet from Rodrigo.

Firefly III Personal Access Token Expires

Sat, 16 Aug 2025 17:41:40 -0500

Access tokens expire and do not use the same name.

Start all of your commands with a comma

Sat, 02 Aug 2025 22:43:35 -0500

Start with a comma for your commands to set them apart.

git diff with pytest

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 20:04:58 -0500

An easy way to only run tests that have changed.

Get Schema Sizes

Tue, 29 Jul 2025 20:21:47 -0500

Get the size of each schema in a database.

How to Append Text in PostgreSQL

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 13:40:09 -0500

How to append text to a text column.

Python Gotcha: Logging an uncaught exception

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 14:41:40 -0500

A much better method than a huge try/except block.

Linking to external files & folders

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 15:47:12 -0500

An easy way to link external files and folders.

Finding Differences in Images with Python and Pillow

Tue, 20 May 2025 08:08:59 -0500

An easy way to determine the differences between images.

Install pre-commit with uv

Wed, 14 May 2025 07:50:59 -0500

Conscise explanation of using uv and pre-commit.

A PostgreSQL planner gotcha with CTEs DELETE and LIMIT

Sat, 03 May 2025 16:30:33 -0500

Good article from Shayon about CTEs and planner interactions.

Validating Data Types from Semi-Structured Data Loads in Postgres with pg_input_is_valid

Sat, 03 May 2025 16:08:59 -0500

Yet another excellent article from Elizabeth.

SQL Noir

Sat, 03 May 2025 15:40:57 -0500

Looks like a fun way to learn SQL.

PostgreSQL_Language Server

Sat, 03 May 2025 15:36:41 -0500

Initial release of Postgres Language Server - a Language Server Protocol (LSP) implementation for Postgres.

selfh.sh

Sat, 03 May 2025 15:25:14 -0500

Weekly newsletter for learning about self-hosted applications.

Python sh Package

Wed, 30 Apr 2025 19:03:42 -0500

sh is a full-fledged subprocess replacement for Python 3.8 - 3.11, PyPy that allows you to call any program as if it were a function.

De-duplicate with sets & dict.fromkeys

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 11:31:28 -0500

Some more useful tips from Trey.

A Quick Guide to Generating Fake Data with Pandas

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 11:46:46 -0500

A excellent article from Erin.

How to use Fuzzy String Matching with PostgreSQL

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 11:42:16 -0500

Good article from Peter.

Writing Python Like It's Rust

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 11:38:22 -0500

Good article from Jakub.

How to List Active Connections on PostgreSQL

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 11:36:10 -0500

How to return the active connections.

Working with Time in Postgres

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 11:33:38 -0500

Yet another good article from Elizabeth.

Vim Tips

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 11:31:28 -0500

Some useful tips.

Escape Keys using psycopg2

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 11:29:10 -0500

A mistake I seem to make repeatedly.

psql is Awesome

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 11:25:07 -0500

Excellent talk from Laetitia.

How to use Variables in a psql Script

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 11:19:37 -0500

How to use variables.

Prune Docker Images

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 11:16:09 -0500

How to remove the old images.

Ultimate Guide to Python Debugging

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 11:13:33 -0500

A good guide to Python debugging.

Clear Highlighting in Vim

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 11:11:47 -0500

How to clear highlighting.

Find and Replace in Vim

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 11:08:51 -0500

How to do find and replace in Vim.

Improving GROUP BY with CREATE STATISTICS

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 11:03:29 -0500

Improve planning by using Create Statistics from Hans.

Include Schema in psycopg2 Connection String

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 10:45:49 -0500

A method to connect to a specific schema.

Practical Decorators

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 10:36:56 -0500

Reuven’s talk from PyCon 2019.

Create Read Only User in PostgreSQL

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 10:34:11 -0500

Creating a read only user.

Using a Data Dictionary as Your Roadmap to Quality Data

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 10:32:37 -0500

Good article from Crystal.

MERGE Command with Examples

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 10:20:07 -0500

How to use the merge command with PostgreSQL 15 and above.

How to Create PowerShell Alias

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 10:16:29 -0500

Example of an alias with Python virtual environment.

Creating Histograms with Postgres

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 19:29:24 -0500

A nice article on how to do histograms in PostgreSQL.

Self-Contained Python Scripts with uv

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 12:25:47 -0500

As long as uv is installed, be able to run a python script with dependencies.

Check Iterable Equality the Right Way

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 19:09:30 -0500

From his Python Morsels newsletter.

Data Spines

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 19:04:02 -0500

A way to fill in data.

Using Assert Never in Python

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 18:29:06 -0500

Similar to how to do it in SQL you can do in Python.

Create Assert Function in SQL

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 18:15:50 -0500

Using an assert to instead of sending NULL.

List Table Columns in PostgreSQL Database

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 20:50:24 -0500

A way to list table columns.

Stub Code

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 20:41:19 -0500

A better way to have a new function that is not ready.

List of Named Color for Pandas

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 21:22:08 -0500

How to get a list of colors.

Using Document Properties to Track Your Excel Reports

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 21:11:00 -0500

A good way to add some info to an Excel file.

How to Generate a list of Tables to Drop

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 21:08:33 -0500

An easy method to get a list of tables to remove.

Passing a List of Arguments with Click

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 21:04:57 -0500

This can be useful when an option can take multiples at the same time.

Using Regex in PostgreSQL

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 21:01:37 -0500

How to do regex with SQL.

Linear Regression

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 20:57:27 -0500

How to do linear regression with SQL.

Interpolation

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 20:52:38 -0500

One method to fill in data.

Date Functions

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 20:46:37 -0500

Different ways to extract values of a date.

Using DuckDB in Streamlit

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 20:37:32 -0500

There were a handful of useful things from this article.

Sampling

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 20:26:00 -0500

Sampling data with SQL.

Random

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 20:14:38 -0500

Some different ways to create random data

Create Table with Existing Table with No Data

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 21:12:09 -0500

Another Haki tip.

Self Joins

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 20:32:30 -0500

How to do a self join.

Recursive CTEs

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 20:28:05 -0500

How to do a recursive CTE.

Starting in Read Only Mode the Easy Way

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 12:44:37 -0500

Easy way to ensure that you are in read only mode.

Exporting Notebooks from DuckDB UI

Sat, 22 Mar 2025 20:08:50 -0500

How to export DuckDB notebooks.

Postgres query cancellation

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 11:15:37 -0500

Couple of different ways to add a timeout to a PostgreSQL query.

VS Code to Copy and Paste to Terminal

Mon, 10 Mar 2025 11:18:37 -0500

Very useful tip from Mehdi without leaving your IDE

An introvert’s 3 secrets to networking

Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:14:37 -0600

Excellent article from Ami

Some New Unix/Linux Tools

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 20:56:22 -0600

Shorten your .bashrc with newer Unix programs.

Uv has a killer feature you should know about

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 20:39:14 -0600

Lukas pointed out how to use a package with uv run.

Using uv to build and install Python CLI apps

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 20:31:59 -0600

Not the full article but a couple of new items I did not know about.

Generate CREATE TABLE query for an existing table

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 20:25:47 -0600

When you do not have the script that created the table.

The Reverse of cat is tac

Sun, 16 Feb 2025 17:38:01 -0600

tac is the reverse of cat.

Browsing DuckdB Offline

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 11:20:37 -0500

When you want to be offline.

Open Mateo Weather API

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 19:22:40 -0600

Open Mateo can be an alternative to Open Weather Map.

Great Tables and StreamLit

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 16:02:22 -0600

The Great Tables package is all about making it simple to produce nice-looking display tables.

How to Reinstall Python with uv

Sat, 11 Jan 2025 14:21:41 -0600

uv python install –reinstall 3.13

WAT Python Inspection Tool

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 15:44:34 -0600

A powerful inspection tool to help with unknown Python objects.

RightTyper to Generate Types

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 21:37:26 -0500

Get a helper with typing.

Count Number of Lines in a Git Repository

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 00:00:26 -0500

If you were ever curious how many lines of code you have in a repo.

Fastest Way to Read Excel in Python

Sat, 22 Jun 2024 15:20:48 -0500

Hint, use DuckDB.

Check for unused Indexes

Mon, 18 Dec 2023 14:00:00 -0500

Part of a larger PostgreSQL management article.

Powershell Remoting

Mon, 04 Dec 2023 00:00:00 -0500

A couple of different ways to connect to a remote PC.

View Code of Stored Procedure

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 14:00:00 -0500

I needed to see the code of a stored procedure in MS SQL Server at work so that I could create a modified query. I normally don’t use Stack Overflow much anymore but this was actually useful and well described.

Using SQL Server Management Studio do the following:

Go to Database -> Programmmability -> Stored Procedure.
Right click on the procedure you want to view and click Modify.
Be careful not to modify it when you only want to view it.

See the History of a Method with git log -L

Sun, 19 Nov 2023 23:56:35 -0500

Saw this on Simon’s blog.

Using psql Variables to Introspect Your Script

Sun, 19 Nov 2023 00:03:39 -0500

Another good article from Lucas.

psql Watch Improvements

Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:45 -0500

A good tip found by Luca.

How to List Active Connections on PostgreSQL

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 11:00:00 -0500

How to check using a query what is actively running.

Check for Unvalidated Database Constraints

Tue, 10 Oct 2023 11:00:00 -0500

Verify that you don’t have a constraint created without validation.

Deprecated

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 11:00:00 -0500

I neat way to deprecate parts of a Python program.

Get Battery Status in CLI

Tue, 12 Sep 2023 11:00:00 -0500

How to get the battery status using standard CLI tools in Linux.

How to Read a Vim Swapfile

Tue, 12 Sep 2023 11:00:00 -0500

How to read a swapfile, especially where there isn’t an reference file.

Delete Files Older Than x Days on Linux

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 11:00:00 -0500

Quickly delete files older than a certain number of days.

How to Use a match case Statement

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 11:00:00 -0500

Some examples of how to use match case statement in Python.

Vim Tips

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 11:00:00 -0500

Notes from the VIM Workshop from pybites

Create Git Branch and Checkout

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 11:00:00 -0500

Create a git branch and checkout at once.

Set Statement Timeout

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 22:55:00 -0500

Set a timeout in case you want to terminate a long running query.

Built-in Functions in Python

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 23:27:41 -0500

A couple of functions that I now know.

Escape Keys using psycopg2

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 20:00:00 -0500

Making sure that using % in PostgreSQL works with psycopg2.

Setup Python Package to use with Pipx

Fri, 26 May 2023 20:00:00 -0500

Setting up your Python project to work with pipx and pyproject.toml

Prune Docker Images

Fri, 21 Apr 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Remove images that are not in use.

Clear Highlighting in Vim

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Clearing highlighting after performing a search for an example.

Application Name in PostgreSQL

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Send application name to PostgreSQL.

Find and Replace in Vim

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Different ways to find and replace items using vim.

Calculate the Distance between two Latitudes and Longitudes

Fri, 17 Mar 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Calculation using SQL.

Get Disk Size for Each Database

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Get the disk size for each database in PostgreSQL.

Include Schema in psycopg2 Connection String

Mon, 19 Dec 2022 17:00:00 -0500

Include schema in PostgreSQL connection string.

Create Automatic Timestamps in PostgreSQL

Fri, 16 Dec 2022 18:00:00 -0500

Create automatic timestamps by default.

Using Rich Inspect to Interrogate Python Objects

Sun, 13 Nov 2022 14:00:00 -0500

Using Rich can help format an object in the REPL.

Use IN and EXIST in the Right Situations

Thu, 15 Sep 2022 23:17:10 -0500

Good article from Marat Badykov

Pasting Text in Vim

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 14:30:00 -0500

Pasting text into vim.