Articles by Adam Beagle

I'm a big fan of the Paul Rudish-helmed series of Mickey Mouse shorts being produced since 2013.

One of my favorite aspects of these shorts is the frequent nods and careful attention to Disney history, from the straightforward to the relatively obscure. References exist to many aspects of Disneyana - parks, classic films and shorts, music, and even Walt's family life.

This article is a guide to all the Disney history homages of which I am aware in these shorts. Contact me if you know of any I missed! I will try to keep this page updated as new shorts are released. Read more...

One of my biggest (and admittedly nitpicky) pet peeves is when inherently subjective topics are spoken about using objective language. I'm entirely aware that others find my view pedantic, but to me there is a world of difference between "X is terrible" and "I think X is terrible." I find the distinction to be particularly important in written forums (i.e. on the internet) where the conversational, off-the-cuff tone a writer may intend for a statement is not necessarily the tone every other reader will infer.

In an attempt to make light of my obsession, I propose a new informal fallacy Read more...

The previous articles about the topic of Python function attributes gave an example of how a decorator can be used to add functionality to a given function using function attributes. It then introduced an alternative approach using classes, and no function attributes, to achieve similar functionality.

The purpose of this article is to examine these two approaches in-depth to see if they hold up as "interchangeable", or if perhaps one approach has distinct advantages over the other. At its end, I'll share my view on the status of function attributes. Read more...

The previous article in this series introduced Python function attributes and discussed how they are implemented under the hood. This article shifts focus to using function attributes to implement a (sort of) practical task. It also introduces an alternative to the use of function attributes: callable class instances which wrap functions. Read more...

Function attributes are a relatively little-known corner of the Python language. Ultimately, this is because most of the problems they may solve are arguably better solved by a different approach (as will be shown). However, understanding why they exist may highlight some interesting cornerstones of Python's design to beginners or even intermediate users.

Prior to beginning, I'd like to make it clear that my purpose is not to proselytize, merely inform. Function attributes appears to be a topic that has not been blogged-to-death so I thought they might be worthwhile to discuss at some length. Read more...

This article is the first in what will likely be a series of programming patterns that should be avoided or used with caution in Python. Read more...