I am Tony Narlock¶

This is my professional website. I’ve been a software developer for over 16 years. If you’re not in the field, what I do might not make much sense to you.

I work at tech startups, building web-based applications. On the frontend, I use React, TypeScript, and Relay (GraphQL), and on the backend, Python and Amazon Web Services.

In my spare time, I plan, develop, and maintain a suite of developer tools. For instance, tmuxp, which constructs tmux sessions from a JSON or YAML file. A few years ago, I also wrote a book about tmux, titled “The Tao of tmux”. Another tool I’ve created is cihai, based on Unicode’s UNIHAN dataset, which supports Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages.

I actively contribute to open-source software projects. You can find me on GitHub, GitLab, CodersRank, and OpenHub.

My CV documents everything I’ve ever done - professional work, my projects, and open-source contributions (I’m a polyglot; there’s even some C++ in there).

What’s going on in my life as a programmer¶

What am I busy with outside of work?

November 2024:
- Migrated Python projects from poetry to uv, a new Rust-based package and project manager.
  
  It’s impressive to see Rust revitalizing tooling in Python and Node.js. What might come next?
- unihan-etl: v0.35.0 (diff)
  
  Updated to UNIHAN @ Revision 37.

October 2024:

Faster test fixtures:
- libvcs: v0.33.0 (diff): 50% faster.
  - vcspull: v1.32.0 (diff): 33% faster.
Additional improvements to pytest fixtures are expected, along with significant enhancements like new options and hooks support in libtmux.
June 2024:
- libvcs: v0.30.1 (diff): Support for AWS CodeCommit URLs.
- CV: Added sidebar of years, track current year in top menu while scrolling.
April-June 2024:
- libtmux: Working on options and hooks: libtmux#516
March 2024:
- libtmux refactoring continues
  - v0.33.0 (diff): Improved new session creation and window splitting.
  - v0.34.0-v0.35.0 (diff): Improved .cmd() in respect to targets.
- Automated fixes via ruff
  
  Machine-made refactors rendering consistent, tight python code:
  - unihan-etl: v0.34.0 (diff)
  - libvcs: v0.29.0 (diff)
  - vcspull: v1.30.0 (diff)
  - libtmux: v0.36.0 (diff)
  - tmuxp: v1.45.0 (diff)
February 2024: Busman’s holiday
- libtmux: v0.31.0 (diff)
  - API streamlining (e.g., Pane.select_pane() -> Pane.select())
  - Up next: Options and hooks: libtmux#516
- CV: Add timeline to pull requests
- unihan-etl:
  - v0.31.0 (diff): Support updated from UNIHAN at Unicode 11.0.0 (May 2018) to 15.1.0 (Sept 2023), via unihan-etl#309.
  - v0.32.0 (diff): Highlight examples on the front page: unihan-etl#253, unihan-etl#314.
  - v0.33.0 (diff): Lint improvements, fix CSV highlighting.
January 2024:
- CV: Move to Tailwind (cv#1674, diff)
December 2023:
- Moved my CV and social-embed project to ~~oxlint~~ biome, a Rust-based linter and formatter:
  - CV: ~~cv#1667 (diff)~~ cv#1668 (diff)
  - social-embed: ~~social-embed#26 (diff)~~ social-embed#27 (diff)
- Documented even more projects w/ ruff’s pydocstyle linter:
  - cihai: v0.30.0 (diff)
  - cihai-cli: v0.25.0 (diff)
  - unihan-db: v0.14.0 (diff)
  - django-slugify-processor: v1.6.0 (diff)
  - g: v0.0.3 (diff)
  - vcspull: v1.26.0 (diff)
  - tmuxp: v1.33.0 (diff)
November 2023
- social-embed: Upgraded website from docusaurus v2 to v3 (diff).
- Linted project documentation with pydocstyle + ruff:
  - libtmux: v0.25.0 (diff)
  - libvcs: v0.26.0 (diff)
  - unihan-etl: v0.30.0 (diff)
October 2023 - Overhauled django-docutils

django-docutils - a django package for reStructuredText - is being dusted off.
- v0.15.0 (diff) introduces:
  - Renamed template tags / filters from restructuredtext to rst
  - Enabled template tags to accept block content, e.g.
    {% load django_docutils %} {% rst %} **my bold text** {% endrst %}
  - Added test coverage for template tags and template engine.
- v0.19.0 (diff): Typings for settings, cleanup, documentation
This package, originally part of a blog that combined django ORM + django views + intersphinx, remained unused in the attic until last month. It is now known as django-docutils.
Late September 2023 - More mypy --strict compliant typings
- django-docutils: v0.14.0 (diff)
- tmuxp: v1.31.0 (diff)
Early September 2023 - More quality improvements
- tmuxp: v1.30.0 (diff)
- vcspull: v1.22.0 (diff)
August 2023 - Continued quality improvements

Building upon the improvements made to ruff in July 2023, the following additional projects have now been revitalized:
- libtmux: v0.23.0 (diff)
- libvcs: v0.23.0 (diff)
August 2023 - CV Website updated
- Dark mode
- Renewed design with CSS variables
July 2023 - Improved Quality Standards

This enhances the maintainability of projects by employing ruff, a Python linter/fixer developed in Rust:
- unihan-etl: v0.25.0 (diff)
- cihai: v0.26.0 (diff)
- cihai-cli: v0.21.0 (diff)
- unihan-db: v0.11.0 (diff)
June 2023 - social-embed moved to vite.

P.S. cihai updates ongoing (updated below)
May-June 2023 - cihai is being revamped

After over 5 years of inactivity, this suite of packages has been revived.

cihai updates:
- May 25th, 2023 - 0.20.0: Adds mypy --strict compliant typings
- June 3rd, 2023 - 0.21.0: Migrate from SQLAlchemy v1.3 to SQLAlchemy v2.0
cihai-cli updates:
- June 4th, 2023: 0.17.0: Introduced mypy --strict compliant typings and transitioned from SQLAlchemy 1.3 to SQLAlchemy 2.0.
unihan-etl updates:
- June 12th, 2023: 0.21.0: Move to pathlib, type callbacks via typing.Protocol.
- June 17th, 2023: 0.22.0:
  - Add doctest support
  - Configuration: Move options from dict to typed dataclass object.
  - Docs: Split API documentation into multiple pages
  - Move unihan_etl.process -> unihan_etl.core
unihan-db updates:
- June 10th, 2023: 0.9.0: mypy --strict compliant typings and migrate from SQLAlchemy 1.3 to SQLAlchemy 2.0
In the future, cihai projects will have:
- ~~SQLAlchemy updated to 1.4, then 2.0+~~ Completed
- Typings, for improved maintainability and completions
- Doctests for tested examples
- unihan-etl and cihai will have their own pytest plugins for bootstrapping a UNIHAN.zip and reusing it throughout the test session.
- In the medium to longterm: Simpler and stable APIs
December 2022 - I’m not giving up being successful

In 2023:
- Snappable, expressive configurations will enliven tmuxp and vcspull
  
  Dataclasses will resemble the structure of the:
  - libtmux: tmux session, and
  - libvcs: the file paths of the user’s repository checkouts
- My oldest library - libtmux - will be renewed with dataclasses, documentation, and improve tests
September 2022 - One more thing on doctest

I wrote a doctest module that can parse reStructuredText and markdown:

Doctest w/ docutils

It also has a pytest plugin

On that note, I also made a pytest plugin for libtmux and libvcs:
- tmux pytest plugin - bootstrap tmux sessions in your tests
- libvcs pytest plugin - setup and teardown git, mercurial and subversion repos in your tests.
Mid August 2022 - Promises keep coming

Additionally, test and quality infrastructure has been improved across all projects:
- libtmux now has comprehensive typings (--strict mypy compliance) as of 0.13.0
- All projects except vcspull now have basic mypy and doctest support.
Early August 2022 - Promises kept (and keep coming)

libvcs 0.14.0 released w/ typing annotations and doctests.

Also, added a URL Parser (compare to urlparse) for git, hg, and svn URLs. Extensible using framework tools. Built on dataclasses and uses doctest.

In the process, “side inventions” (License MIT):
- QueryList: Nested searching of dict-like data.
- SubprocessCommand: Deferrable subprocess commands.
- SkipDefaultFieldsReprMixin: Exclude default fields (useful for clearer pytest assertions / printing). Thanks Pietro Oldrati.
June 2022
- libvcs and vcspull are being rebuilt from the ground up. This will be a fresh take on one of my earliest python projects. What they’ll be using:
  - doctest: actual code demo in documentation which also function as tests
  - mypy: type checking through annotations (PEP 484, PEP 526)
  - dataclasses (experimental): As a library creator, I will put these to the test
  The projects will be a proving ground for quality standards and patterns I’ll adopt across my other and future packages.
March 2022
- All sites moved to new design.
June 2021
- tmux-python (tmuxp + libtmux), vcs-python (vcspull + libvcs), cihai (cihai, cihai-cli, unihan-etl, unihan-db) moved to markdown
April 2021
- Created @social-embed web component / library in TypeScript and LitElement: Homepage, GitHub
Feb 2021
- Experimenting with new CV: cv-react-v2.git-pull.com

Publications¶

The Tao of tmux

Available on Leanpub and Kindle (Amazon). Read the book for free on the web.

Language Projects¶

cihai

United front for creating open, permissive, standardized CJK datasets.

HSK FlashCards

Study chinese flashcards for Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì, (New) Practical Chinese Reader and Integrated Chinese

Unix-like Utilities¶

tmuxp (中文)

tmux session manager via JSON and YAML file

libtmux

pilot tmux with python

vcspull

manage and update multiple git / hg / svn projects via JSON or YAML file

libvcs

pythonic API for version control systems

Coding around the web¶

My ports for the FreeBSD operating system on portscout
My issues for FreeBSD in Bugzilla
Software porting from Linux to BSD on my FreeBSD Wiki Page
Unofficial tally / roster of open source contributions on OpenHub
GitHub @tony for recent / current coding

Porting (Linux-to-BSD)¶

Elementary Algorithms – Book of Elementary Algorithms and Data structures #16
pymux – tmux(1) clone in python #34
aseprite – Cross-platform sprite / pixel art editor #888 #893
tmux-mem-cpu-load memory, CPU and load averages for tmux status lines #30
uMario_Jakowski – Super Mario NES clone in SDL2 and C++. Add CMake and get building on FreeBSD and OS X #1
spdlog - C++11 logger #254
python-cmake-buildsystem - CMake buildsystem for CPython #133 #136
nanogui - C++11 gui library for opengl #128 #147
pyston - An open-source Python implementation using JIT techniques #1072, #1073, #1085
libpypa - Python parser implemented in pure C++ #50