WEBVTT 00:00:00.001 --> 00:00:08.740 Talk Python To Me, episode number one, with guest Nicola Ioroshi, recorded Tuesday, March 31st, 2015. 00:00:08.740 --> 00:00:37.820 Hello and welcome to Talk Python To Me, a weekly podcast on Python, 00:00:37.820 --> 00:00:41.400 the language, the libraries, the ecosystem, and the personalities. 00:00:41.400 --> 00:00:45.300 This is your host, Michael Kennedy. Follow me on Twitter where I'm @mkennedy. 00:00:45.300 --> 00:00:49.900 Keep up with the show and listen to past episodes at talkpythontome.com. 00:00:49.900 --> 00:00:53.820 This episode, we'll be talking to Nicola Ioroshi about EVE. 00:00:53.820 --> 00:00:58.380 Before we get to the interview with Nicola, a quick announcement. 00:00:58.380 --> 00:01:03.900 Since recording this episode, Nicola and I teamed up to create a dedicated course about EVE. 00:01:03.900 --> 00:01:11.800 This demo-driven journey is just the course you need to effortlessly build RESTful services based on Flask and MongoDB. 00:01:11.800 --> 00:01:15.400 We dive deep into every aspect of the EVE REST framework. 00:01:15.400 --> 00:01:19.860 After a quick introduction to MongoDB and Flask, we'll dig into EVE, 00:01:19.860 --> 00:01:23.720 build our schemas and endpoints, and start serving HTTP clients right away. 00:01:23.720 --> 00:01:25.020 And that's just the beginning. 00:01:25.520 --> 00:01:29.960 And who better to learn EVE from than Nicola, the creator and maintainer himself. 00:01:29.960 --> 00:01:35.840 To learn more and get started, just visit talkpython.fm/EVE or click the link in the show notes. 00:01:36.640 --> 00:01:37.860 Let me introduce Nicola. 00:01:37.860 --> 00:01:43.220 Nicola is a passionate Python and C# open source hacker based in Ravina, Italy. 00:01:43.220 --> 00:01:52.440 Back in 1991, he co-founded CIR2000, a small company focusing on delivering accounting software solutions for the small businesses. 00:01:52.440 --> 00:01:59.720 He's the creator and maintainer of a few open source projects, including EVE and a conference speaker who happens to be on sabbatical. 00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:08.320 When he's not hacking on code or spending time with his three kids, he's usually busy running, swimming, hiking, or reading a good old paper book. 00:02:08.320 --> 00:02:09.880 Nicola, welcome to the show. 00:02:09.880 --> 00:02:10.900 Hi, Michael. 00:02:10.900 --> 00:02:12.200 Thank you for having me. 00:02:12.200 --> 00:02:13.340 Yeah, it's really great. 00:02:13.340 --> 00:02:15.420 Thanks for helping me kick off this podcast. 00:02:15.420 --> 00:02:20.700 So you and I have known each other for a few years, and it's really nice to get a chance to speak with you again. 00:02:20.700 --> 00:02:26.080 I think it's been about a year since we last met on an aircraft carrier in New York City, right? 00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:27.580 Right, that's true. 00:02:27.580 --> 00:02:29.300 Yeah, that was a lot of fun. 00:02:29.300 --> 00:02:31.620 Yeah, indeed. 00:02:31.620 --> 00:02:34.060 Yeah, so let's sort of start at the beginning. 00:02:34.060 --> 00:02:37.380 You, like myself, do Python and C#. 00:02:37.380 --> 00:02:38.700 So how did you get into Python? 00:02:38.700 --> 00:02:44.520 Yes, as you say, I've actually always been a C# guy, mostly. 00:02:44.520 --> 00:02:56.060 Our flagship product is a Windows desktop application, so you usually deploy it on your user client server setup and stuff like that. 00:02:56.340 --> 00:03:02.960 And as long as we were working in that context, we never really felt the need to look anywhere else. 00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:09.040 C# in general was, and the Microsoft stack in general, was just doing fine for us. 00:03:09.540 --> 00:03:19.200 Then, like anyone else, a few years ago, we started looking at moving to the web and mobile and stuff like that. 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:29.140 And I believe that's when I thought it was the perfect time, the perfect opportunity to move out of my, let's say, comfort zone. 00:03:29.280 --> 00:03:36.980 My view back then, the micro stack was still a good bet for all things related to the web. 00:03:36.980 --> 00:03:41.360 But there was so much else out there, you know? 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:48.280 So I started looking at the JavaScript first and then Python and other languages. 00:03:48.280 --> 00:03:55.480 And there were so many options, I mean, and I really wanted to... 00:03:55.480 --> 00:03:58.960 Maybe I was also a little bored about what I was doing by then. 00:03:58.960 --> 00:04:04.120 So that was a perfect opportunity for me to start doing something else and looking around. 00:04:04.120 --> 00:04:09.960 And Python came... 00:04:09.960 --> 00:04:13.300 I don't really remember how... 00:04:13.300 --> 00:04:20.180 Maybe I was just reading some tutorial online and I was immediately hooked by the language itself and the community 00:04:20.180 --> 00:04:23.220 and the open source machine in general. 00:04:23.220 --> 00:04:29.260 It was allowing me for incredible performance boost, for example. 00:04:29.260 --> 00:04:34.660 I remember one of the first times I was playing around with Flask 00:04:34.660 --> 00:04:39.160 and something just did not work as I expected. 00:04:39.160 --> 00:04:41.260 And I was stuck there. 00:04:41.260 --> 00:04:43.020 I couldn't make any progress. 00:04:43.020 --> 00:04:47.840 Now, I don't really remember what it was really, 00:04:47.980 --> 00:04:51.280 but something very stupid, most likely, you know? 00:04:51.280 --> 00:04:53.840 That's how it is when you're learning, right? 00:04:53.840 --> 00:04:56.200 Yeah, I was just learning a new language. 00:04:56.200 --> 00:04:59.180 So it was truly had to be something very stupid. 00:04:59.180 --> 00:05:06.680 And I had this moment when I realized that I could just go a stepfather and look at the source code. 00:05:06.680 --> 00:05:11.460 That, you know, from someone coming from the .network and the closer source in general, 00:05:11.460 --> 00:05:13.760 that's not a given. 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:19.800 I mean, it was really awesome to be able to go on the website, on the tab, 00:05:19.800 --> 00:05:22.220 and check out on the source code for Flask 00:05:22.220 --> 00:05:27.520 and understand what actually was doing behind the scenes. 00:05:27.520 --> 00:05:33.080 And that's when really open source and the general Python and open source in general, 00:05:33.080 --> 00:05:38.080 really, I saw what the potential was about it. 00:05:38.880 --> 00:05:46.280 But then we were, in our world, we were, I would say, behind an arrow of car time, 00:05:46.280 --> 00:05:47.220 something like that. 00:05:47.220 --> 00:05:51.440 Developer tools, for example, they had to buy licenses for them. 00:05:51.440 --> 00:05:54.940 And most of the time, even if you bought a license, 00:05:54.940 --> 00:05:58.180 you still did not get any access to the source code. 00:05:58.180 --> 00:06:02.400 And so it was really an epiphany for me. 00:06:03.180 --> 00:06:04.800 Yeah, it's fantastic. 00:06:04.800 --> 00:06:05.640 Yeah. 00:06:05.640 --> 00:06:06.740 Yeah. 00:06:06.740 --> 00:06:08.480 That's really awesome. 00:06:08.480 --> 00:06:16.080 Yeah, I think a lot of developers spend their time in worlds where much of what you do is a black box 00:06:16.080 --> 00:06:17.440 and you just can't know. 00:06:17.440 --> 00:06:23.520 And I think, you know, in the Python world, we're kind of spoiled in that you can just keep looking farther down inside, 00:06:23.520 --> 00:06:24.780 you know, and that's really great. 00:06:25.040 --> 00:06:29.580 So you got into Python and it sounded like you were getting started in Flask. 00:06:29.580 --> 00:06:33.180 And then I guess EVE is kind of a natural extension. 00:06:33.180 --> 00:06:35.000 What is EVE, actually? 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:40.840 So EVE is an open source Python REST API framework designed for human beings, 00:06:40.840 --> 00:06:45.220 which means that it is supposed to be easy to use and powerful. 00:06:45.600 --> 00:06:56.520 And its goal is to allow any developer to effectively build and deploy highly customizable and fully featured web services. 00:06:56.520 --> 00:06:58.720 Or at least that's the idea. 00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:06.100 It is powered by Flask and it offers support for MongoDB out of the box. 00:07:06.680 --> 00:07:12.560 And there's also a SQL Archemy extension provided by the community. 00:07:12.560 --> 00:07:19.100 So you can use EVE both with MongoDB and Postgres or MySQL or whatever. 00:07:19.100 --> 00:07:21.120 So, yeah, that's fantastic. 00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:22.460 So I kind of looked at it. 00:07:22.460 --> 00:07:24.820 I don't know all that much about EVE. 00:07:24.820 --> 00:07:26.940 I've just played with it a little. 00:07:26.940 --> 00:07:28.700 I saw some tutorials and checked them out. 00:07:28.700 --> 00:07:30.640 And it looks really interesting. 00:07:30.640 --> 00:07:33.980 I also picked up that it was inspired by the requests package. 00:07:33.980 --> 00:07:34.760 So that's cool. 00:07:34.980 --> 00:07:38.960 Basically, the way it works, let me try to paraphrase how your library works, 00:07:38.960 --> 00:07:41.920 is I have some sort of data source. 00:07:41.920 --> 00:07:46.400 And it's by default MongoDB, which is an awesome data source, by the way. 00:07:46.400 --> 00:07:49.920 Or also SQLAlchemy, so against a lot of the relational databases. 00:07:49.920 --> 00:07:54.080 And I can easily put like a RESTful API over my data. 00:07:54.080 --> 00:07:54.900 Is that how it works? 00:07:54.900 --> 00:07:55.800 Yeah, exactly. 00:07:55.800 --> 00:07:57.420 That's the idea, basically. 00:07:57.420 --> 00:08:03.360 You have your data source somewhere and you bind it to EVE, to any instance. 00:08:03.780 --> 00:08:14.620 You configure it by just setting up a configuration file where you basically give your API topology, 00:08:14.620 --> 00:08:24.560 your endpoints, how they work, to which collection on MongoDB or table on SQL each endpoint maps to. 00:08:25.100 --> 00:08:27.080 And then you are good to go. 00:08:27.080 --> 00:08:32.080 The idea, basically, is that you have a lot of features out of the box. 00:08:32.080 --> 00:08:35.920 So you don't have to code much in order to get started with your API. 00:08:35.920 --> 00:08:42.580 And then you can, of course, go in and add the callback functions, for example. 00:08:42.740 --> 00:08:51.840 So when some RESTful API gets in, you can add your own code that makes whatever you need to do. 00:08:51.840 --> 00:09:01.500 But the basic idea is that if you just need a front-end API for your data, you just have very little to do. 00:09:01.500 --> 00:09:07.500 I mean, you just have to set up the configuration file and you are good to go in a few minutes. 00:09:08.440 --> 00:09:10.360 But, yeah, it looks super easy to get started. 00:09:10.360 --> 00:09:10.920 It looks great. 00:09:10.920 --> 00:09:14.120 And I think it's inspired by requests in that sense as well. 00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:21.240 So are people using more sort of JavaScript front-ends and using that to get to their data? 00:09:21.240 --> 00:09:24.440 Or are they using this for more, like, back-end services, right? 00:09:24.440 --> 00:09:27.220 So do you know, like, what the main consumption model is? 00:09:27.220 --> 00:09:34.640 Yeah, well, it is being used for all kinds of use cases, actually. 00:09:34.640 --> 00:09:41.800 We have a lot of websites consuming EVE instances, but we also have a lot of mobile clients, for example. 00:09:41.800 --> 00:09:50.940 I, myself, am using EVE from iOS and Android applications, for example, which are being coded in C-sharp, actually. 00:09:51.220 --> 00:09:57.440 We are using SAMRIN framework for writing our own mobile applications. 00:09:57.440 --> 00:10:00.180 So you have all kinds of use cases, really. 00:10:00.180 --> 00:10:04.180 And also, of course, desktop application. 00:10:04.180 --> 00:10:14.700 And all kinds of languages are consuming the EVE instance, since you are just dealing with, you know, JSON, basically, 00:10:14.860 --> 00:10:18.340 which goes back and forth between the client and the server. 00:10:18.340 --> 00:10:21.960 So you can deploy it whenever you want, actually. 00:10:21.960 --> 00:10:23.380 Yeah, that's fantastic. 00:10:23.380 --> 00:10:26.740 So you said MongoDB is the default back-end. 00:10:26.740 --> 00:10:28.440 Why did you choose Mongo? 00:10:28.440 --> 00:10:34.780 Well, MongoDB has a few interesting features for me. 00:10:35.040 --> 00:10:43.180 The first is that in the REST world, you basically are sending JSON back and forth between clients and servers. 00:10:43.180 --> 00:10:53.260 And MongoDB also stores JSON, or actually B-zone, which is a variation of JSON, but basically it's the same stuff. 00:10:53.260 --> 00:10:59.760 And then you have Python dictionaries, which are the perfect match for JSON as well. 00:10:59.880 --> 00:11:09.980 So when I was researching for building my own API, it came kind of, you know, the natural choice. 00:11:09.980 --> 00:11:19.280 I don't have to serialize and deserialize objects back and forth between the client and the REST server and the database. 00:11:19.920 --> 00:11:29.960 So everything is smooth and easy and there isn't a lot of code in the middle doing conversions and serialization and stuff like that. 00:11:29.960 --> 00:11:34.000 You don't have anything like that when you're working with MongoDB. 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:38.040 And also REST APIs are stateless by default. 00:11:39.220 --> 00:11:47.240 So you don't usually have to, you know, you're usually sending small data packets for each request. 00:11:47.240 --> 00:12:02.060 And that's something that makes MongoDB lack of transactions really a non-issue because you are already dealing with the concept of being stateless between your request and the client. 00:12:02.060 --> 00:12:11.660 And in some way it has to deal with the fact that a single request can go wrong or can go fine. 00:12:11.660 --> 00:12:23.800 And so what always is a concept for people going to use MongoDB is not really an issue in this particular use case. 00:12:23.800 --> 00:12:34.360 It's an interesting point that, you know, MongoDB has all of these really positive features, scalability, simplicity, lightweight, all these things. 00:12:34.360 --> 00:12:39.820 But one of its sometimes criticisms is its lack of cross-document transactions. 00:12:39.820 --> 00:12:43.320 But if you're doing REST over HTTP, that's a stateless protocol anyway. 00:12:43.320 --> 00:12:46.780 So you're kind of, it's like you said, a non-issue. 00:12:46.780 --> 00:12:47.580 That's really interesting. 00:12:47.900 --> 00:12:48.860 Yeah, yeah. 00:12:48.860 --> 00:12:59.360 And then there is MongoDB being schemeless, which is really nice for me because when you are building a prototype in your API, 00:12:59.360 --> 00:13:10.440 you are going to change your schema or if in API terms, your endpoint configuration, your payload, quite a lot you are adding fields. 00:13:10.440 --> 00:13:18.140 And between API versions, you are going to add new fields, remove old fields, stuff like that. 00:13:18.140 --> 00:13:21.180 You are doing that constantly, at least at the beginning. 00:13:21.180 --> 00:13:35.280 And here MongoDB is very nice to use because it allows you to change your schema on the fly without having to update the database. 00:13:35.600 --> 00:13:38.700 And so without any impact on performance as well. 00:13:38.700 --> 00:13:49.880 So it kind of made sense for what we were doing by then, working with MongoDB on the back end and Python on the server side. 00:13:49.880 --> 00:13:59.080 And yeah, that's what a lot of people agree with, I believe, because it has been adopted by a lot of people. 00:13:59.360 --> 00:14:10.440 And also, as I was saying earlier, there is a SQL extension, actually, which connects EVE to SQL ArchMere. 00:14:10.440 --> 00:14:16.320 And so you can, in fact, use your standard SQL database with EVE as well. 00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:18.460 Right, yeah, that's really interesting. 00:14:18.460 --> 00:14:20.500 You just have to do a little bit more work. 00:14:21.360 --> 00:14:27.940 So, you know, when you built the framework, who was the intended user that you were thinking of? 00:14:27.940 --> 00:14:29.880 Like, what's the most common use case? 00:14:29.880 --> 00:14:42.360 Well, I would say that the unexpected user can benefit a great deal from EVE because, and I think about EVE is that you can, 00:14:42.700 --> 00:14:50.180 you basically get a lot of design choices and implementation already done for you. 00:14:50.180 --> 00:15:00.220 So you can quickly prototype an API if you need to put your mobile or front-end developers at work. 00:15:00.220 --> 00:15:06.660 You can probably give them an API, a functioning API in a few minutes or maybe in a few hours. 00:15:06.660 --> 00:15:09.960 And that's surely very interesting for a lot of people. 00:15:09.960 --> 00:15:19.340 I'm having, I see there are PHP guys, for example, that are learning Python because they want to use EVE, which is kind of a surprise to me. 00:15:19.340 --> 00:15:20.340 That's pretty amazing. 00:15:20.340 --> 00:15:28.280 So you must be kind of proud that, you know, you're bringing people into the Python world literally so that, you know, because they want to use EVE. 00:15:28.280 --> 00:15:30.680 Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. 00:15:30.680 --> 00:15:36.620 When I get emails from people who are learning Python because they want to use EVE, that's totally awesome. 00:15:36.620 --> 00:15:42.800 It means that, you know, kind of makes, tells you that your goal has been achieved somehow. 00:15:42.800 --> 00:15:48.860 And then you're also bringing new people to the Python world, which is also awesome. 00:15:48.860 --> 00:15:50.880 So I'm really glad for it. 00:15:51.240 --> 00:15:54.420 Being based on Flask itself. 00:15:54.420 --> 00:16:05.280 In fact, we also have a lot of experience with Python guys working with EVE and building extensions because, you know, EVE is just a Flask subclass. 00:16:05.280 --> 00:16:09.340 And so whatever works with Flask, you can use with EVE. 00:16:09.980 --> 00:16:17.940 And so you can also get access to the Flask documentation and whatever works there also with EVE as well. 00:16:17.940 --> 00:16:24.100 So you can go on Stack Overflow or browse the Flask documentation, which is also excellent. 00:16:24.460 --> 00:16:31.460 And you can move in the layers, between the layers, you know, EVE at the top and Flask is right behind EVE. 00:16:31.460 --> 00:16:34.940 And then eventually MongoDB or your SQL database. 00:16:35.340 --> 00:16:47.580 And so while it is very easy to start with, probably if you are already using Flask, you can enjoy EVE so much more because you can do whatever you want with it. 00:16:47.580 --> 00:16:56.280 You can, for example, you can build a Flask extension and use it with EVE, which is in fact what most people are doing. 00:16:56.280 --> 00:17:02.960 We have a few community extensions, which are basically Flask extensions themselves. 00:17:03.680 --> 00:17:10.200 So it is good for the beginner, but it is also good for the experienced developer, I believe. 00:17:10.200 --> 00:17:11.440 Yeah, that's really cool. 00:17:11.440 --> 00:17:14.980 So all the great stuff that's out there for Flask, you can just use it. 00:17:14.980 --> 00:17:25.180 And maybe even if you already have a Flask website for HTML, you know, for like browsers to consume, you could add services to it pretty easily by adding EVE into your web app, yeah? 00:17:25.180 --> 00:17:27.340 Exactly, exactly. 00:17:27.340 --> 00:17:29.080 That's exactly what people are doing. 00:17:29.240 --> 00:17:45.520 And for example, there is a guy who wrote a EVE docs extension, which basically what he's doing is building the API documentation and serving them as a static HTML pages. 00:17:45.760 --> 00:17:55.040 And what it does is reading the API configuration files and building a browsable documentation for the user. 00:17:55.040 --> 00:18:10.900 So if you go to the, I don't know, example.com slash docs, you get the API documentation for free because it's being done as a Flask extension by this EVE docs extension. 00:18:10.900 --> 00:18:17.100 So you can mix and match HTML pages with REST APIs. 00:18:17.100 --> 00:18:18.380 That's cool. 00:18:18.380 --> 00:18:27.800 So what this guy's project does is basically it's like a self-documenting API or self-documentation for the API just depending on how you configure EVE, yeah? 00:18:27.800 --> 00:18:28.940 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:18:29.040 --> 00:18:32.980 I get a lot of questions about this actually even on Stack Overflow. 00:18:32.980 --> 00:18:39.460 So how can I serve static pages along with my API endpoints? 00:18:39.460 --> 00:18:41.700 And that's actually very easy to do. 00:18:41.700 --> 00:18:48.380 You just have to add a route to Flask as you would do with the Plex itself. 00:18:48.380 --> 00:18:50.340 So it's very, very easy to pull off. 00:18:51.080 --> 00:18:51.500 Very nice. 00:18:51.500 --> 00:18:54.900 So it sounds like, you know, this is a very popular project. 00:18:54.900 --> 00:19:03.360 And I looked on GitHub and it's got, you know, like 2,000 stars and 300 or so forks. 00:19:03.360 --> 00:19:05.100 That's a lot of people contributing. 00:19:05.100 --> 00:19:07.480 And this is not your full-time job, right? 00:19:07.480 --> 00:19:08.780 This is like a second project. 00:19:08.780 --> 00:19:17.860 So how much work is it and challenges it to balance making your awesome open source project successful and actually keeping the day job running? 00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:26.340 Yes, it's actually becoming quite a challenge because, you know, EVE is becoming a huge work. 00:19:26.340 --> 00:19:35.360 There are a lot of use cases and people want to do like all kinds of stuff with EVE, which is super cool. 00:19:35.360 --> 00:19:36.900 The community is awesome. 00:19:36.900 --> 00:19:41.500 We have about 70 contributors to the project at this moment in time. 00:19:41.500 --> 00:19:45.540 And they contributed with a lot of very cool features. 00:19:46.300 --> 00:19:49.660 On the other hand, you end up doing a lot of work for free. 00:19:49.660 --> 00:20:01.820 You know, it's kind of, I mean, for what we need EVE for, we'd be happy with what EVE was maybe one year ago. 00:20:01.820 --> 00:20:07.700 And now all the additions to the project are basically coming from the community. 00:20:07.700 --> 00:20:16.080 And they are either or adding new features themselves or asking for new features. 00:20:16.080 --> 00:20:25.560 And when something new and interesting is proposed, I usually end up coding it for the community and for myself, of course, as well. 00:20:25.560 --> 00:20:27.860 But that takes a lot of time. 00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:39.560 So, yeah, it's kind of a challenge because you have to balance your work life with your family and hobbies and open source activity. 00:20:40.220 --> 00:20:47.840 It's not that easy, but you also get a lot of, you know, gratification for doing this. 00:20:47.840 --> 00:20:58.460 I get emails from all around the world from people using EVE in so many strange, odd and amazing use cases. 00:20:58.520 --> 00:21:04.960 And so, yeah, it's hard to do, to pull it up, but it is also very well worth it for me. 00:21:04.960 --> 00:21:07.160 Yeah, I'm sure it's very rewarding. 00:21:07.160 --> 00:21:07.860 That's great. 00:21:07.860 --> 00:21:12.900 Are there other contributors to it, people who actually are putting a lot of effort into it? 00:21:13.640 --> 00:21:17.220 Are you looking for new contributors or what's the status there? 00:21:17.220 --> 00:21:22.360 Yes, we have, as I was saying, we have about 70 contributors of these. 00:21:22.360 --> 00:21:31.800 Maybe 10 of them are very active and have been contributing to the project quite a lot lately. 00:21:31.800 --> 00:21:36.540 Some are very skilled with both Flask and EVE itself. 00:21:36.540 --> 00:21:40.800 So, I still have to do a lot of work or most of the work. 00:21:40.800 --> 00:21:51.400 But, yes, I would really appreciate if more people would join the community and help with, even with simple things like, you know, updating the documentation, fixes titles. 00:21:51.400 --> 00:21:54.700 As you can say, I'm not an English speaker. 00:21:54.700 --> 00:22:04.380 So, it is very easy to find incorrect mistakes in the documentation, for example, or in DocStrengths, in the source code, stuff like that. 00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:08.840 But, also, we have people who are adding amazing features. 00:22:08.840 --> 00:22:15.260 Like, we had, I think, in 0.5, we had versioning feature added to EVE. 00:22:15.260 --> 00:22:23.740 So, you can store multiple versions of your documents and your API. 00:22:23.740 --> 00:22:29.160 And then, you can get back the version that you need with simple request. 00:22:29.160 --> 00:22:36.580 And that's a very cool feature, which was entirely contributed by the community from one guy, actually. 00:22:36.580 --> 00:22:39.220 And that's very cool. 00:22:39.220 --> 00:22:43.400 And so, we had a lot of other additions like that from the community. 00:22:44.460 --> 00:22:46.660 And so, yes, there is a lot of room for improvement. 00:22:46.660 --> 00:22:53.440 And I really would love to see more people jump in and help us with going further. 00:22:53.440 --> 00:22:54.900 That's great. 00:22:54.900 --> 00:22:55.160 Yeah. 00:22:55.260 --> 00:23:05.780 I think people have a hard time realizing how much work it is to actually get something like EVE out the door and ready for the community. 00:23:05.780 --> 00:23:11.520 I mean, there's obviously the writing of the application or the library and then maybe a sample. 00:23:11.780 --> 00:23:20.400 But there's the GitHub repository, the website, the documentation, all the little stuff, the little polish that you have to put on there. 00:23:20.400 --> 00:23:28.400 It seems like, you know, when you feel like you're done, you're halfway there and you still have a ton of little things that are somewhat uninteresting but have to be there, like documentation. 00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:29.320 Yeah. 00:23:29.320 --> 00:23:30.720 Absolutely. 00:23:30.720 --> 00:23:38.700 How's the experience being both a C# and Python and JavaScript developer? 00:23:38.700 --> 00:23:43.300 How do you see the world being this polygot, living in this polygot programming world? 00:23:43.300 --> 00:23:50.960 It's been a wild ride, actually, because, you know, the languages are so different in so many ways. 00:23:50.960 --> 00:23:56.300 Python is a dynamic language, whereas C# is a strongly tighter language. 00:23:56.300 --> 00:24:04.620 And now I'm playing with Go and Netsharp on approaches to solving the same problem, basically. 00:24:05.140 --> 00:24:17.340 And that's really interesting for me because you don't always have one tool, one language, which is perfect for all kind of problems. 00:24:17.340 --> 00:24:23.600 So it's great to actually be able to pick the right tool for the right job. 00:24:24.340 --> 00:24:28.880 And basically what I have now is Python on the web side of things. 00:24:28.880 --> 00:24:38.780 So my servers and websites are Python, while all my mobile applications and desktop applications are C#, for example. 00:24:39.580 --> 00:24:46.900 And I mean, it helps a lot because you get a very different skill set. 00:24:46.900 --> 00:24:52.480 And you can just you often find the same problem. 00:24:52.480 --> 00:24:54.280 You can solve it. 00:24:54.280 --> 00:25:01.620 The different languages actually have been solving it in a different manner, in different with different methods. 00:25:01.620 --> 00:25:02.120 Sorry. 00:25:02.120 --> 00:25:04.560 And that's really awesome. 00:25:04.560 --> 00:25:10.880 It helps you understand and experiment with different things. 00:25:10.880 --> 00:25:20.840 Even if you I go back to C#, I often find that I'm using techniques, which I learned while I was studying Python, for example. 00:25:20.840 --> 00:25:23.300 And the contrary is also true. 00:25:23.300 --> 00:25:36.120 For example, when I was looking at classes in Python, it was very easy to pick them up because, of course, I've been coding classes in C# for like, I don't know, 15, 20 years. 00:25:36.120 --> 00:25:39.000 And so it was very, very easy. 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:43.080 And this is a very trivial example, but you get what I mean. 00:25:43.840 --> 00:25:44.680 Yeah, absolutely. 00:25:44.680 --> 00:25:47.000 And I, you know, I've lived that life as well. 00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:54.220 I think one interesting aspect that's different is the languages are actually not super different, right? 00:25:54.220 --> 00:25:57.920 Python is obviously dynamic and C# is static. 00:25:57.920 --> 00:26:01.160 But in a lot of ways, like you said, with the classes and so on, they're similar. 00:26:01.160 --> 00:26:08.860 Where they start to get different is around the tooling and around the packages and the frameworks that you can use. 00:26:08.860 --> 00:26:09.500 Yeah. 00:26:09.500 --> 00:26:10.000 Yeah. 00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:13.400 What tools do you use for working with Python? 00:26:13.580 --> 00:26:16.400 Do you have like an editor that you're fond of or anything like that? 00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:17.320 Yes. 00:26:17.320 --> 00:26:20.220 Oh, that's a good question, actually. 00:26:20.220 --> 00:26:23.620 You know, I'm using Veeam for coding in Python. 00:26:23.620 --> 00:26:28.520 And that's also something I never used until as long as I was working with C#. 00:26:28.520 --> 00:26:35.780 So back in, I think, maybe 2010 or something like that, I started working with Python. 00:26:35.780 --> 00:26:38.000 And I also picked Veeam. 00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:40.980 And I was a Visual Studio guy. 00:26:41.480 --> 00:26:45.060 And I've been a Visual Studio guy for a lot of time. 00:26:45.060 --> 00:26:51.860 And so coming to Python, it also meant learning a lot of new tools. 00:26:51.860 --> 00:26:56.300 I started using Veeam for a lot of new tools. 00:26:56.300 --> 00:27:04.460 And I started using Veeam for installing packages and learning how Python packaging works, which is totally different from C#. 00:27:04.460 --> 00:27:10.340 That's another very interesting aspect of using different languages. 00:27:10.340 --> 00:27:16.500 And now what you have is that C# and .NET are, you know, in this new Microsoft era. 00:27:16.500 --> 00:27:23.200 We are getting to the point where even Microsoft is learning from the open source experience. 00:27:23.200 --> 00:27:34.020 And so we have, for me, it is really exciting looking at how Microsoft is approaching and evolving these last maybe couple of years. 00:27:35.180 --> 00:27:39.620 Releasing .NET framework as open source, for example, is totally awesome. 00:27:39.620 --> 00:27:42.560 And going cross-platform as well. 00:27:42.560 --> 00:27:48.140 And this is all stuff that I've been seeing working on Python. 00:27:48.140 --> 00:27:58.140 And I was always wondering, "Ah, I really would love to see this kind of approach in Microsoft Word and Windows and C#." 00:27:58.140 --> 00:28:02.640 And now it's happening and it's really exciting. 00:28:02.640 --> 00:28:09.520 And it also means that Microsoft is learning from, you know, let's call them mistakes maybe. 00:28:09.520 --> 00:28:12.660 And, yeah, it's really cool. 00:28:12.660 --> 00:28:20.740 And I'm super excited because I see the open source potential coming to the C# world. 00:28:20.740 --> 00:28:33.920 On the other hand, I must say that the open source community in C# and in the .NET framework in general is still very, very, very in these early stages, so to speak. 00:28:33.920 --> 00:28:42.600 So when I release an open source tool in C#, I get a fraction of the attention that the same tool will get in Python, for example. 00:28:42.600 --> 00:28:45.800 So there is still a lot of room for improvement. 00:28:45.800 --> 00:28:48.300 Yeah, I totally agree. 00:28:48.300 --> 00:28:56.980 It's definitely a good sign that some of these closed source companies, especially Microsoft, since they're so widely used, is moving. 00:28:56.980 --> 00:28:59.820 I think they're learning a lot from open source and from Python. 00:28:59.820 --> 00:29:08.820 So it sounds like there's a lot of interesting pieces that you're bringing into EVE, like Cerebus and Flask Sentinel and things like that. 00:29:08.820 --> 00:29:13.320 Those are separate projects, separate packages that you're just using in EVE, right? 00:29:13.320 --> 00:29:15.860 Yeah, I'm using a lot of packages. 00:29:15.860 --> 00:29:20.540 I am also using Redis, for example, for some features. 00:29:20.540 --> 00:29:29.380 We have a rate limiting, which is a feature which is being bundled within EVE and it uses Redis, actually. 00:29:29.380 --> 00:29:36.540 By the way, Redis is also by an Italian developer, so Dr. Sanfilippo, which is a friend of mine. 00:29:36.540 --> 00:29:43.220 And yes, I'm using Cerebus, which is another open source release of mine. 00:29:43.220 --> 00:29:46.220 It's used for data validation, basically. 00:29:46.220 --> 00:29:58.220 And Cerebus, actually, it is being used even outside of EVE from forum by a lot of people, since it allows, basically, to do validation for Python data. 00:29:58.220 --> 00:30:02.900 So we use it within EVE for data validation. 00:30:02.900 --> 00:30:11.580 So that's really interesting. 00:30:11.580 --> 00:30:12.580 So that's really interesting. 00:30:12.580 --> 00:30:20.260 I haven't used Cerebus, but basically what you can do is you can say what required fields and what required shape a Python dictionary should have. 00:30:20.260 --> 00:30:23.260 And then you can say, validate this particular dictionary. 00:30:23.260 --> 00:30:25.940 What kind of stuff can you validate there? 00:30:25.940 --> 00:30:31.940 Yes, you can basically say, hey, this is, you know, the name field is a string. 00:30:31.940 --> 00:30:42.940 It must be, must have a maximum length of 10 and, or you can, you must use this regular expression to validate it. 00:30:42.940 --> 00:30:45.940 And this is, there are a lot of options. 00:30:45.940 --> 00:30:50.780 Actually, you can say that a field must be unique or stuff like that. 00:30:50.780 --> 00:30:53.060 And this is true for, 00:30:53.060 --> 00:30:57.180 the EVE by load, of course, but also for any Python dictionary. 00:30:57.180 --> 00:30:59.380 So people are using it everywhere. 00:30:59.380 --> 00:31:01.340 And this is very nice. 00:31:01.340 --> 00:31:09.500 And another tool that I ended up building for EVE, but it is also being used outside of EVE, is events, 00:31:09.500 --> 00:31:18.740 which is basically a package which allows you to bind the callback functions to any kind of event. 00:31:18.740 --> 00:31:22.940 And so when EVE receives an incoming request, 00:31:22.940 --> 00:31:31.260 you can have a number of callback functions, which are being called by EVE. 00:31:31.260 --> 00:31:46.260 And so you can do your own stuff with this payload, which is coming in and change it or store it elsewhere, or call another API and validate it against it, stuff like that. 00:31:46.260 --> 00:31:57.580 And this is all powered by events, which is another package that you can use for your own tools for building your own tools. 00:31:57.580 --> 00:31:58.580 So that's fantastic. 00:31:58.580 --> 00:31:58.580 That sounds great. 00:31:58.580 --> 00:32:03.700 So another one that I saw in there was Flask Sentinel. 00:32:03.700 --> 00:32:04.700 What is that? 00:32:04.700 --> 00:32:13.020 Flask Sentinel is basically an implementation of OAuth for Flask. 00:32:13.020 --> 00:32:19.020 In particular, it is addressing the token authentication scheme. 00:32:19.020 --> 00:32:32.340 So you can, of course, you can use it without EVE as well, or you can use it with EVE to have OAuth 2 on your API. 00:32:32.340 --> 00:32:38.660 So yes, you can basically look it up on GitHub. 00:32:38.660 --> 00:32:41.660 It is being used for a lot of things. 00:32:41.660 --> 00:32:42.660 That's cool. 00:32:42.660 --> 00:32:49.660 So if I want to have like Twitter authentication or Google or Facebook or something like that, is that kind of what you're thinking? 00:32:49.660 --> 00:32:50.660 Almost. 00:32:50.660 --> 00:32:58.980 I mean, right now it only addresses token authentication, basic token authentication. 00:32:58.980 --> 00:33:02.540 So it's not really suited for that use case. 00:33:02.540 --> 00:33:16.980 It is not yet a full OAuth 2 authentication scheme, but it is the best use case, I think, is when you use it for your own mobile application 00:33:16.980 --> 00:33:32.420 application and you want your user to be authenticated with your REST API framework and you give him a token and then your mobile application uses this token instead of using the username and password and sending them over the wire, of course. 00:33:32.420 --> 00:33:40.700 And so, yes, it's, you know, kind of just one of the many users of OAuth 2. 00:33:40.700 --> 00:33:42.100 Sorry about that. 00:33:42.100 --> 00:33:47.780 OAuth 2 for me is very easy, very difficult to pronounce that word. 00:33:47.780 --> 00:33:49.780 And, yeah. 00:33:49.780 --> 00:33:52.100 Okay, that's great. 00:33:52.100 --> 00:33:53.860 Yeah, so I can see how you use that. 00:33:53.860 --> 00:33:54.660 That's very interesting. 00:33:54.660 --> 00:33:58.340 Now, I noticed you're also working on a project called Eve.net. 00:33:58.340 --> 00:34:01.860 Is that like a .NET spinoff of this whole idea? 00:34:01.860 --> 00:34:07.700 It's basically a REST client for .NET. 00:34:07.700 --> 00:34:21.380 So, what you use it for is, for example, if you are writing a mobile application for iOS or Android and want to connect to an Eve instance, you can use Eve.net. 00:34:21.380 --> 00:34:35.060 It deals with, since it knows very well how Eve performs, you can send, for example, a class or an object instance to Eve and it deals with serializing the object and sending it to Eve. 00:34:35.060 --> 00:34:38.740 And it handles the responses. 00:34:38.740 --> 00:34:50.740 And, for example, if you want to modify an object, the user just says to Eve.net, "Hey, store this update up to the server." 00:34:50.740 --> 00:35:00.420 And the client connects to Eve, sends the update and if something goes wrong, it reports back to the client. 00:35:00.420 --> 00:35:08.420 And since it knows very well how Eve performs, it can, you know, it hides a lot of the implementation behind the scenes. 00:35:08.420 --> 00:35:18.100 So, you don't have to worry about E tags and conflicts and errors, validation and stuff like that. 00:35:18.100 --> 00:35:26.100 And this is interesting because it is exactly the Polyglot approach, which we were speaking about earlier, a little bit earlier. 00:35:26.100 --> 00:35:32.900 So, you have C# and C# client working with a Python server. 00:35:32.900 --> 00:35:35.780 And so, it's kind of, you know, kind of fun. 00:35:35.780 --> 00:35:41.380 Yeah, because you know both sides of that story, you can make it really easy for the C# guys. 00:35:41.380 --> 00:35:47.780 I wonder if there's other languages out there like Swift or Java or something that might also benefit from that. 00:35:47.780 --> 00:35:48.900 Yes, yes. 00:35:48.900 --> 00:35:49.700 You can use it. 00:35:49.700 --> 00:35:51.540 You can use it everywhere you use .NET. 00:35:51.540 --> 00:35:52.820 So, it's very nice. 00:35:52.820 --> 00:36:04.100 And actually, one of my, one of the things that I'm doing with the .NET framework, at least here in Italy, is encourage people to go out on the reconfort zone. 00:36:04.100 --> 00:36:10.420 For example, installing Eve instead of, I don't know, embassy framework or stuff like that on the server side. 00:36:10.420 --> 00:36:14.100 And because they also get the advantages of Eve. 00:36:14.100 --> 00:36:27.380 Eve is totally language agnostic. 00:36:27.380 --> 00:36:33.220 So, you can use it with whatever language you want. 00:36:33.220 --> 00:36:34.580 Yeah, that's beautiful. 00:36:34.580 --> 00:36:36.900 It uses the universal language of JSON. 00:36:36.900 --> 00:36:37.300 Excellent. 00:36:37.300 --> 00:36:38.260 So... 00:36:38.260 --> 00:36:39.380 Right. 00:36:39.380 --> 00:36:39.940 Yeah. 00:36:39.940 --> 00:36:46.660 So, are there any notable uses or really popular deployments of Eve that you could talk about? 00:36:46.660 --> 00:36:49.300 Yeah. 00:36:49.300 --> 00:36:56.100 There is, there are two or three which I think can be interesting for your audience. 00:36:56.100 --> 00:37:10.180 For example, we have Dailymotion, which is, I don't know if you know about it, but they are, I believe, the second streaming website in the world right below, right after YouTube. 00:37:10.180 --> 00:37:15.540 It's a French company, which is streaming live content on the web. 00:37:16.340 --> 00:37:20.340 And they're using Eve for some of their projects. 00:37:20.340 --> 00:37:24.340 Actually, they are also contributing to it itself. 00:37:24.340 --> 00:37:30.740 So, they are one of the main contributors to the project itself, which is totally cool for me. 00:37:30.740 --> 00:37:36.180 And then there is a RedTartle, which is a company. 00:37:36.180 --> 00:37:41.140 They are the guys behind the SQL extension, for example, speaking of the community. 00:37:41.140 --> 00:37:47.140 As you can see, we have people who are using the tool itself and then contributing with new features. 00:37:47.140 --> 00:37:57.700 And this is one special case because RedTartle basically took the SQL extension, which was already being developed by other guys. 00:37:58.820 --> 00:38:12.020 And, you know, kind of completed it and they are now 100%, I believe, I suspect, I think as well, they are 100% feature complete. 00:38:12.020 --> 00:38:15.300 And so, yeah, RedTartle. 00:38:15.300 --> 00:38:23.540 And then we have these very famous space agency, but I didn't get any feedback from them. 00:38:23.540 --> 00:38:26.260 I wanted to mention them, but I'm not sure I can. 00:38:26.260 --> 00:38:39.620 Let's just say that it is a very famous space company led by a very, very well-known entrepreneur who also works on a car industry and stuff like that. 00:38:39.620 --> 00:38:41.060 That's really fantastic. 00:38:41.060 --> 00:38:43.880 So, Eve might be going to space and back. 00:38:43.880 --> 00:38:44.720 That is really cool. 00:38:44.720 --> 00:38:47.140 Yeah, that's my dream, actually. 00:38:47.140 --> 00:38:48.240 It would be totally cool. 00:38:48.240 --> 00:38:50.900 I think they are still experimenting with it. 00:38:50.900 --> 00:38:54.040 They are contributors as well. 00:38:54.040 --> 00:39:00.200 One of their engineers is the guy who worked on a version in Feetor, for example. 00:39:00.200 --> 00:39:03.560 Yeah, they are using it internally. 00:39:03.560 --> 00:39:07.160 I'm not sure if they are using it to send stuff in the space. 00:39:07.160 --> 00:39:10.180 I'm not sure I want them to use it for sending stuff in the space. 00:39:10.180 --> 00:39:12.240 It's a whole other level of responsibility. 00:39:12.240 --> 00:39:13.380 Yes, it is. 00:39:13.380 --> 00:39:14.060 Yes, it is. 00:39:15.680 --> 00:39:19.960 But, yeah, it is being used by all kinds of people. 00:39:19.960 --> 00:39:24.580 And that's what I find really interesting for me. 00:39:24.580 --> 00:39:25.900 It's really exciting. 00:39:25.900 --> 00:39:36.940 So many people with so many different use cases who rely on your tool is, you know, so, I don't know, totally awesome. 00:39:38.280 --> 00:39:39.740 Yeah, that's really great. 00:39:39.740 --> 00:39:41.100 I'm sure it's super rewarding. 00:39:41.100 --> 00:39:45.280 And, you know, thanks from everybody in the community for putting that together. 00:39:45.280 --> 00:39:45.840 That's cool. 00:39:45.840 --> 00:39:49.420 So, I think that's probably a good place to wrap up the show. 00:39:49.420 --> 00:39:57.460 So, is there anything you want to mention or give a shout out to, you know, give a little promotion to before we call it a day? 00:39:58.140 --> 00:39:58.920 Not really. 00:39:58.920 --> 00:39:58.920 Not really. 00:39:58.920 --> 00:40:04.220 What I really would like to see is people join the community. 00:40:04.220 --> 00:40:07.580 And, as I said already, try the tool. 00:40:07.580 --> 00:40:20.780 And if they have, you know, questions or contributions to add, be very happy to learn about them and see more people adopt the tool. 00:40:20.780 --> 00:40:29.440 And the other, the satellite tool like Flash Sentinel or Cerberus and, you know, just keep sending feedback. 00:40:29.440 --> 00:40:34.280 And so, we can keep growing with the tool and the community itself. 00:40:34.280 --> 00:40:36.160 Yeah, that's really great. 00:40:36.160 --> 00:40:40.740 Okay, so, you can find Eve on the web at python-eve.org. 00:40:40.740 --> 00:40:42.800 Nicola, thank you so much for your time. 00:40:42.800 --> 00:40:44.320 It's been a really interesting conversation. 00:40:44.320 --> 00:40:45.480 Thank you. 00:40:45.480 --> 00:40:46.300 It's been great. 00:40:46.300 --> 00:40:47.860 And thank you for inviting me. 00:40:47.860 --> 00:40:48.800 It's been awesome. 00:40:48.800 --> 00:40:49.940 You're welcome. 00:40:49.940 --> 00:40:53.720 Hopefully, we get to catch up on an aircraft carrier in New York City sometime soon. 00:40:53.720 --> 00:40:54.060 Okay. 00:40:54.060 --> 00:40:56.960 Talk to you soon. 00:40:56.960 --> 00:40:58.180 Looking forward to that. 00:40:58.180 --> 00:40:58.620 Indeed. 00:40:58.620 --> 00:40:59.020 Okay. 00:40:59.020 --> 00:40:59.540 See you later. 00:40:59.540 --> 00:40:59.920 Thank you. 00:40:59.920 --> 00:41:00.260 Bye. 00:41:19.100 --> 00:41:22.100 Developers, developers, developers, developers.