kcunning/balt

Sample code for interviews

balt

balt is sample code for interviews that relates to the code that powers the Tutorials product at http://safaritutorials.com. This document is written for people who want to run that code on their own computer. Depending on what you're doing, refer to either the JavaScript or the Python section.

JavaScript

Mac Setup

System dependencies

Install a recent version of node.

Very first time

$ cd api
$ npm install

Every time

$ cd api
$ node manage_users.js

Python

Mac Setup

System dependencies

Assuming you're on a Mac, follow the steps below. If you're not, you're on your own.

Start by making sure you have these packages from Homebrew (brew install them but really closely follow the Homebrew docs, especially for the databses):

• (None, yet)

Also do:

• virtualenv (sudo easy_install virtualenv)

Very first time

This setup assumes you have just cloned the git repo and are in the directory with this README.md.

$ virtualenv ve --python=python2.7 --prompt="(balt)"                                # Get a set of eggs just for this
$ . ve/bin/activate                                                                 # Turn on the virtualenv
$ python setup.py develop --always-unzip                                            # Fill the virtualenv with Python dependencies
$ cp balt/local.py.example balt/local.py                                            # Your local.py is your personal settings. Edit them later.
$ python manage.py syncdb --noinput                                                 # Fill out the database schema
$ python manage.py createsuperuser                                                  # Establish an admin so you can log in
$ python manage.py runserver                                                        # Prove this works by visiting http://localhost:8000

Before you write any code, make sure you can run the tests and get them to pass 100%.

Every time

When you come back to work after a day or more, you'll need to update your git checkout, and make sure you have any new dependencies or schema modifications:

$ . ve/bin/activate                                               # Turn on the virtualenv (Every time!)
$ python setup.py develop --always-unzip                          # Update the virtualenv with new Python dependencies
$ python manage.py syncdb --noinput                               # Make sure the database schema is still filled out
$ python manage.py runserver                                      # Prove this works by visiting http://localhost:8000

Git Hooks

Optionally, if you would like all the post-pull stuff to happen automatically each time you do a git pull, you can install git hooks. From the project root, simply run:

$ git-hooks/install-hooks

This will install (and keep up to date) some scripts in the .git directory that will automatically update your python packages, delete .pyc files, etc.

Tests

The tests for this project are managed by tox, a Python package. First, install tox via easy_install (or pip).

Prior to running tox, be sure to create a balt/_local_tests.py file by copying balt/_local_tests.py.example to balt/_local_tests.py. Any modifications to the test settings should be performed in the developer's _local_test.py.

To run the tests:

tox

The first run will take a while as it builds a virtualenv and installs everything in it, subsequent ones will be much faster. To rebuild the virtualenv later with updated dependencies:

tox -r

You normally shouldn't need to recreate the tox virtualenv, since it updates itself on each run, but it might be necessary in cases of version conflicts.