Mountaineering

February 26, 2025

I just made it through Chapter 12 of Test-Driven Development in Python, which means that there's a non-zero chance that you'll find a working website at http://mztape.com/, where you can create a To-Do list!

You can add items, and ... well, that's it.

15 chapters to go!

It's hard for me to convey what it's been like to build a website from scratch, but let's give it a shot, shall we?

Imagine you're at the base of a mountain. You board a gondola that whisks you up in comfort above cliffs, ice patches, and ravines. Within minutes, with no difficulty whatsoever, you find yourself at an observation deck high above the tree line.

That's Power Platform.

You come back the next year and decide to hike up. Maybe you don't want to pay for another gondola ride, or maybe you want a different view from the one you can get from the observation deck. And so you get some secondhand gear and start the trek. It's harder than it looks. Steep, cold, and difficult. But you put one foot in front of the other. Stay focused, don't get distracted. Your maps are out-of-date, even the new ones. Your gear's non-standard and it doesn't always work the way you expect. You get lost and have to double back. You learn to step carefully. You dig deep. And then after two weeks, although you're nowhere near the tallest summit, you make it to a smaller peak, a prominent one from which you see a clear view of the entire range.

That's what it's like building a website with the open-source django framework.

• vi instead of VSCode

• git bash instead of File Explorer

• apt and pip instead of the App Store

• ssh instead of Entra ID

• python instead of Power Fx

• selenium (and then playwright) instead of Power Automate

• Docker and Ansible instead of ADO and GitHub Actions

Now I can choose when to take the gondola.