Practical Python for Production under Pressure (The Book + Resources)
Practical Python for Production under Pressure
Managing the insanity that is developing pipelines alongside a production at full speed
About the Book
Developing tools and pipelines for use in Film and Games is a unique challenge, where we must finely balance speed, stability, usability, and performance.
Everything is always urgent, everything is always broken, and we developers are left scrambling to hold the system together while begging production for time to "do things properly" and clean up accumulated code debt.
In a sense, it's like being in a pit crew; getting the driver back out there is your number one priority, sometimes with more duct tape than we care to admit.
That is what this book is about: how to deliver better tools while facing the uphill battle of a production in full swing and hopefully retaining some semblance of sanity at the end.
Prerequisites
This book is aimed at TDs and technical artists with an interest in production pipelines, but as it's mostly theory you should be able to get by with the basics.
Provided you have some experience with python and PySide you should get along fine.
What's included
Chapter 1: Introduction
An overview of the book's purpose and approach to python development and how to access accompanying resources.
Chapter 2: Communication
Develop structured communication skills including effective clarification techniques, workload management strategies, tracking mechanisms and how to set healthy boundaries.
Chapter 3: Structure
Build deployable pipelines using Rez, project organization strategies, create maintainable APIs and pipelines, the importance of schema and effective software architecture diagramming.
Chapter 4: Testing
A brief guide to automated and semi-automated testing techniques.
Chapter 5: Production Data
Whether using Shotgrid/Flow, Kitsu, FTrack, Codecks or Jira, optimize your query techniques, schema management and create clean API wrappers.
Chapter 6: Debugging
Essential troubleshooting techniques including PDB, GBD, exception handling, inspection tools, crash analysis and strategic logging to identify and resolve production issues.
Chapter 7: Optimization
What does fast mean in this context? What does it mean to practically optimize your tools?
We explore profiling techniques to identify bottlenecks and provide practical optimization strategies to ensure your tools run efficiently.
Chapter 8: Qt
Learn about Qt's internal metadata, creating style-aware components, state machines, responsive and data driven tools, UI testing and more.
Chapter 9: User Experience
A practical look at UX from a software engineers perspective.
We cover UX fundamentals, research methods, wireframing, effective layouts, data visualization, animations, accessibility considerations, icons and more to understand it's importance within the production environment.
Chapter 10: AI
A look at the emerging field of AI from the context of a production environment.
Learn the terminology, basic prompt engineering, localized deployment, AI assisted development and even how to build your own AI tools.
Chapter 11: Other Important Info
Additional information on legal licenses, references used and resources.
About the Author
Table of Contents
- Practical Python for Production under Pressure
- Introduction
- “Frontline” tools and Code Debt
- Communication
- Preparing for a task
- Managing your workload
- Getting Feedback
- Tracking
- Impostor Syndrome
- Structure
- Managing Environments with Rez
- Structuring your project
- Creating maintainable APIs
- Schema
- Designing with Diagrams
- Creating maintainable Pipelines
- Refactoring
- Common Libraries
- Testing
- Automated tests
- Production Data
- Production Tracking
- Wrapping APIs
- Debugging
- PDB
- Exceptions
- Inspecting
- Crashes
- Logging
- Optimization
- Profiling
- Optimizing
- Qt
- Overview
- Meta Data
- Styles and Painting
- State Machines
- Responsive UI
- Data Driven UI
- Testing
- QML in DCCs
- User Experience
- What is UX?
- The 5 elements of UX
- Research
- Wireframing
- Layouts
- DataViews
- Animations
- Accessibility
- Icons
- Don’t Make Them Think
- Don’t Make Them Wait
- Adding Redundancy
- Further Reading
- AI
- AI in Production Studios
- AI Portals
- Terminology
- Data Security
- Choosing an LLM
- Prompt Engineering
- Running Locally
- AI Assisted Development
- Developing AI Tools
- Other Important Info
- Legal Licenses
- References
- Afterword
- Practical Python for Production under Pressure
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