Have you ever wanted to share a working example of a Python script? How about just standing up a quick HTTP API somewhere on the Internet? We’ve got something that will make those things easier for everyone – but we need your help!
Today, we’re proud to crack open the airlock and announce a project we’ve been working on for the last few months:
py.space is a place for Python developers to build, run and share little bits of Python. It’s a website where you can write scripts, scheduled tasks, HTTP APIs and GUIs. You can share these widgets with others, publish them on your profile, fork and remix other people’s widgets, and even embed them in other websites as living examples. And yes, it’s all free.
Here’s is what a py.space widget looks like – this is a scheduled task that emails @ryan a new quote at 3am every morning:
Want to try it yourself? Click the Fork button to get your own copy, then edit and run it as you please.
Want to see more like it? Check out Ian’s py.space profile. Your py.space profile is an extension of your forum profile, where you can publish any py.space widget you want to share with the world. Here’s what @patricia’s profile looks like:
By the way, doesn’t it look pretty? A standing ovation, please, for @brooke and @patricia!
Does this look familiar?
If you scroll through that code, you might notice some familiar APIs. That’s because…drumroll…all of py.space is built on top of Anvil!
py.space widgets are Anvil apps. “Forking” in py.space is “cloning” in Anvil. py.space GUIs are Forms; py.space’s HTTP APIs are Anvil HTTP endpoints; even py.space scripts are souped-up Background Tasks.
We’ve taken the core Anvil engine, and used it to solve a problem we’ve seen again and again in the Python community: Once you’ve got some code running, it’s just too hard to put it online or share it with anyone else. And we’re hoping that, in the process, a few more people will hear about Anvil
This is where we need your help.
This is the first time we’ve shown py.space to anyone. And you know what that means – there are going to be bugs! We want this thing to look good when we start shouting to the world about it.
We want you, the Anvil community, to crawl all over this thing. We want you to try it out, use it, and show us what you’ve got. Show us what you can build with it – and show us where it breaks!
Please post all about it in the brand new py.space forum!
May the Fourth* be with you.
[*] Unless you’re far enough west that it’s still yesterday. Don’t worry, we have enough tenuously space-related puns for everyone.