Don't get upset about CPython concurrency - just get Grumpy!

Here's a short recommended read that was brought to my attention by a teammate. If you've grumbled about poor concurrency support in conventional Python, Grumpy looks like it's coming to the rescue.

I suspect this break-through reflects the benefits of new concurrency approaches, as reflected in recent packages (like Akka) and languages (Go).

It's a fundamental shift, since Go extensions will be supported over C extensions. I assume that means Grumpy and CPython will co-exist for some time, unless most existing C extensions get re-coded in Go? It will be interesting to see how this unfolds!

Installing Robot Framework on a MacBook

I recently faced challenges getting the open source Robot Framework to work on my MacBook, which is running OS X El Capitan. In general, the installation process should be trivial, but here's what finally worked:

1. If you have the brew package manager installed, update it:
   
       brew update
   
2. Use brew to install (or upgrade) the chromedriver program:
   
     brew upgrade chromedriver
   
3. Make and use a Python virtualenv for the framework installation:
   
     pip install --upgrade virtualenv
     source virtualenvwrapper.sh  # Note: Depends on where virtualenvwrapper.sh was installed to.
     mkvirtualenv robotframework
     workon robotframework
     cdvirtualenv
4. Install the necessary framework packages:
   
     pip install --upgrade robotframework
     pip install --upgrade robotframework-selenium2library
     pip install --upgrade requests

Now, you'll be able to use the robot command to run test scripts OK :-)