The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source - Python's :=, email falsehoods, no more self-hosting & Leon (News)

Episode Date: September 6, 2022

Martin Heinz thinks you should be using Python's walrus operator, you probably believe some falsehoods about email, Carlos Fenollosa threw in the towel after self-hosting his email for 23 years & Leon is an open source personal assistant that can live on your server.

What's up nerds, I'm Jared and this is changelog news for the week of Monday, September 5th, 2022. Only it's shipping out on a tuesday this week we're keeping it short and sweet like this intro which ends right now Martin heinz thinks you should be using python's walrus operator and he'll tell you why I am the eggman They are the eggman I am the walrus The Walrus operator was added in Python 3.8, but Martin says it's still somewhat controversial and many people have unfounded hate for it.

If you're not aware, the Walrus operator is a colon followed by an equal sign, which looks like a sideways Walrus, I guess. But it's officially called the Assignment Expression Operator. How is it different from the traditional assignment? You just don't get it, do you? You don't. An assignment expression returns the value after assigning it, so you get two operations for the price of one. It's syntax sugar, but Martin thinks it's a really good addition to the language and,

quote, if you use it properly, then it can help you make your code more concise and readable, end quote. His post points out five different scenarios where the Walrus Operator shines Quote, if you use it properly, then it can help you make your code more concise and readable. End quote. His post points out five different scenarios where the walrus operator shines and finishes up with some gotchas and limitations. A solid read if you're not sure about the feature, or if you're a big fan of the walrus operator and you want to link slap a skeptical colleague. Newsflash, you probably believe some falsehoods about email. If you don't think so, check out this epic list of things programmers think about email, which aren't always true. You want answers?

I think I'm entitled. You want answers! I want the truth! You can't handle the truth! Maybe you think everyone has an email address. Maybe you think email addresses don't change. Maybe you think email addresses don't change. Maybe you think an email can only have one from address. Maybe you think that that regular expression,

which validates an email address that you copied off the internet and paste into every code base ever since, is foolproof. You would be wrong about each of those, and I have a blog post about that regular expression, if you're not convinced. Speaking of email, Carlos Fenollosa self-hosted his email for 23 years, but recently threw in the towel. He says the oligopoly has won. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Carlos says, quote, I have been self-hosting my email since I got my first broadband connection at home in 1999. I absolutely loved having a personal web plus email server at home, paid extra for a static IP and a real router so

people could connect from the outside. I felt like a first class citizen of the internet and I learned so much. Over time, I realized that residential IP blocks were banned on most servers. I moved my email server to a VPS. No luck. I quickly understood that self-hosting email was a lost cause. That last bit is what made Carlos finally give up. Email deliverability is being nerfed by big tech, and Carlos thinks it's deliberate. Check his post for the reasoning if you're interested. He also provides a simple proposal where everybody wins. With win-win-win, we all win. Man, I love that soundbite.

Fun fact, the first name I came up with for my recently retired software consultancy was win-win-win. With win-win-win, we all win. Unfortunately, my wife rolled her eyes at it. So hey, that name's up for grabs, and it's pretty cool if you ask me. Just don't ask my wife. Have you met Leon? No, not Leon the professional. If it leave your mouth, I pull the trigger, capisce? This Leon is an open source personal assistant that can live on your server. He does stuff when you ask him to. Created by Louis Grenard,

Leon is a Node.js powered app that's been in the works since 2016. It's built on a modular architecture so you can create or use shared skills that fit your needs. And of course, Leon uses all the latest in AI to pull it together. Natural language processing, plus text to speech and speech to text. So you can talk to Leon or you can just text him stuff. Think about Leon like a permissively licensed open source Siri that you can self-host and has a public roadmap. that's cooler than cool.

Now what's cooler than being cool? I can't hear you. I say what's cooler than being cool? I can't hear you. All right, all right, all right. That is the news for now. Don't forget to subscribe to our weekly newsletter that includes these stories and a whole lot more. Get in on it at

changelog.com slash weekly. Have a great week and we'll talk to you again real soon.