Latest posts
- Date Arithmetic in BashFeb 04, 2026Miguel Grinberg
Date and time management libraries in many programming languages are famously bad. Python's datetime module comes to mind as one of the best (worst?) examples, and so does JavaScript's Date class. It feels like these libraries could not have been made worse on purpose, or so I thought until today, when I needed to implement some date calculations in a backup rotation script written in bash. So, if
- How to Add a Quick Interactive Map to your WebsiteJan 29, 2026Miguel Grinberg
In this article I want to share a technique that I recently learned to display an interactive map on a website. For this, you will need just a few lines of HTML and JavaScript. This solution does not require you to sign up for any accounts or services anywhere, it is completely free and open source, and can be integrated with any front or back end web framework. Give the demo below a try and if yo
- A Year In Review: Flask in 2025Jan 01, 2026Miguel Grinberg
Like I did last year, I reserved some time during my holiday break to prepare an independent report of the Flask ecosystem in 2025.
- CSRF Protection without Tokens or Hidden Form FieldsDec 21, 2025Miguel Grinberg
A couple of months ago, I received a request from a random Internet user to add CSRF protection to my little web framework Microdot, and I thought it was a fantastic idea. When I set off to do this work in early November I expected I was going to have to deal with anti-CSRF tokens, double-submit cookies and hidden form fields, pretty much the traditional elements that we have used to build a defen
- How to Securely Store Secrets in Environment VariablesDec 14, 2025Miguel Grinberg
You may have seen the recent reports of a malware that stole API keys, tokens and other secrets from a large number of developers. From where were these secrets stolen from? You guessed it, they were mostly stolen from environment variables. We use environment variables to configure information that processes need to run, but this type of storage was not designed for security, so using the environ
- Python 3.14 Is Here. How Fast Is It?Oct 08, 2025Miguel Grinberg
In November of 2024 I wrote a blog post titled "Is Python Really That Slow?", in which I tested several versions of Python and noted the steady progress the language has been making in terms of performance. Today is the 8th of October 2025, just a day after the official release of Python 3.14. Let's rerun the benchmarks to find out how fast the new version of Python is!
- Benchmarking MicroPythonJul 31, 2025Miguel Grinberg
In the Q&A session following my EuroPython 2025 presentation about the Microdot web framework, a member of the audience asked me what the performance of MicroPython running on a microcontroller is. This took me a bit by surprise, because I really had no way to quantify it, I just knew it was, in vague terms, not great. I never questioned the low performance, because it was never a problem for me.
- Why Generative AI Coding Tools and Agents Do Not Work For MeJun 14, 2025Miguel Grinberg
People keep asking me If I use Generative AI tools for coding and what I think of them, so this is my effort to put my thoughts in writing, so that I can send people here instead of having to repeat myself every time I get the question. From the title you already know that this isn't a pro-AI blog post. But it isn't an anti-AI post either, at least I don't think it is. There are already plenty of
- Create a React + Flask Project in 2025May 31, 2025Miguel Grinberg
My article on creating a React + Flask project is one of the most visited on this blog. Can you believe that I wrote it over 5 years ago? In this article and video I'm going to share how I'm building this type of project in 2025. The main change I've introduced since I documented my 2020 process is that now I'm using Vite (French word that is pronounced "veet" and means "quick") instead of create-
- Font Ligatures for your Code Editor and TerminalMar 13, 2025Miguel Grinberg
The other day I shared my code editor window during a video call with a client, and he immediately did a double take. "How did you make your code look like that?", he wanted to know. Have a look at the following screenshot and see if like my client, anything calls your attention: If you are wondering what secret keyboard trick allows you to type ≠, ≤, ≥ and other unusual characters, and then how