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[00:00:13] Unknown:

Hello, and welcome to podcast dot in it, the podcast about Python and the people who make it great. When you're ready to launch your next app or want to try a project you hear about on the show, you'll need somewhere to deploy it. So take a look at our friends over at Linode. With 200 gigabit in private networking, node balancers, a 40 gigabit public network, fast object storage, and a brand new managed Kubernetes platform, all controlled by a convenient API, you've got everything you need to scale up. And for your tasks that need fast computation, such as training machine learning models or running your CI and CD pipelines, they've got dedicated CPU and GPU instances.   Go to python podcast.com/linode,   that's l I n o d e, today to get a $20 credit and launch a new server in under a minute. And don't forget to thank them for their continued support of this show.  

Your host as usual is Tobias Macy. And today I'm interviewing Nicolas Herrar, Cedric Crea, and Jonathan Levy about Triton.   So, Nicolas, can you start by introducing yourself? Yes. Hello,  

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everybody. Triton,   and   I'm   also   the   president of   the Triton.   And I'm also the president of the Triton Foundation, which is the subject of today.  

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And, Cedric, how about yourself?  

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Hello, everybody.   So I'm Cedric Pierre.   I'm the coworker of Nicolas at Bido CK, and   I'm   currently serving as, the leader of the Triton project.  

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And, Jonathan, how about you? Yes. My name is John Levy, and I am   not 1 of the core devs like Nikola and Cedric. I am instead a Triton user.   I am a lawyer by training   with Advocate Consulting Legal Group, and we have been using Triton for 8 years. And I'm involved also with the Triton Foundation. And going back to you, Nicolas, do you remember how you first got introduced to Python?  

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Oh, it's   almost   20 years ago, in fact. I was at the university.   I did my thesis in scheme,   which is, the elect of Lisp. And,   when I was   job hunting,   some   of course, there is not many,   job for Scheme programmers,   but 1 guy on the mailing list told me you should be   looking at,   Python, and, indeed, it was a big, good idea because I I was hired by Arang,   which is   a company in Belgium,   the 1 that organized   the very first   EuroPython   conference,   and, there I worked on Plune and Zope. So, it was in 2,001,  

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I guess, something like that. And Cedric, how about you? Do you remember how you got introduced to Python?  

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I'm not sure, but I think it's about   15 years ago   when I started to work at a company, Tinney ERP,   which was writing, an ERP in Python. So it's just I I learned from there.  

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And, Jonathan, how about you? Well, so as I said before, I am a lawyer by training, but I ended up at a firm that also did some heavy accounting work. And we had a series of Excel workbooks that someone along the line had programmed some visual basic for applications, but there wasn't anyone left in the company who   was able to   work with that. That person had left, and so I decided to dig in and thought, well, I've always been curious about programming, so let's see if I can do this. And so I took over the visual basic for application stuff, and   that got bigger and bigger over the course of some years   and got to the point where   that tool wasn't gonna cut it. We were gonna need a bigger bigger tool. An engineer friend of mine suggested that I   should learn Python.  

I   did some study on that,   tried to do,   migrating from   Excel to a Django project that that didn't go so well, and then I transitioned from the Django project to Triton.  

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And so in terms of the Triton project itself, can you describe a bit about what it is and how it got started?  

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So,   Triton is in fact   software framework,   so it provides all the the required   pieces that are needed to to create business applications.   And in top of that,   the Triton project provides also a set of modules that are covering   a wide variety of use cases. It started,   11 years ago.   I don't remember the date exactly.   And it's a fork of tiny ERP, in fact, which is,   well,   better known now as Odoo. I guess that, a lot of people know Odoo already.   It's,   it's also a Belgian company where,   Cedric and I, we both   work at the time, and,   we we decided to to to leave this company and to create a fork for   well, I will let probably Cedric explain the the reason of the fork because he's the 1 behind.  



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Okay. So indeed,   it was, 10 years ago, I think, or a little bit more.   Another,   coworker, Bertrand Chenal and me,   were working at Tinney,   on the ERP, and we were not very,   satisfied   by the quality   of the product and how the project was, manage it, manage it   and how it evolved it was evolving.   And so as it was, an open source project,   we decided   to   leave the company   and start our own   version   of   this, ERP.   And   so we founded, B2CK   as a company to provide services,   and, we started   to work on Triton,   and redesign and change what we wanted to change.   Since task we   work it on was to improve the quality   by adding test,   We make the development   more open.  

So,   we publish it our repository   because at this time, TiniLP   didn't publish   this repository.   And, we also improved the design of all the modules and   how they   communicate each other. So this took us   about 1 year of work   until we got the first release, the 1.0.   And then,   since there,   we make a release  

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every 6 months, new modules and so on. And you mentioned at the beginning that you're all members of the foundation for Triton. I'm curious if you can discuss   the relationship between the Triton Foundation and the Triton project and the reasoning for creating that type of an entity for governing and managing the project.  

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Sure. If I could jump in quickly to answer that. So the Triton project,   from my view, has shown a great commitment   to the principles of open source.   And b 2 c k, where Cedric and Nicola are,   is a company that has   devoted a lot of resources   to furthering,   Triton.   But my my feeling was that they   didn't want a perception   of that this was really,   pigeonholed by b 2 c k.   And instead, they proactively took the step   of   forming the foundation as a nonprofit under Belgian law   and contributing all the intellectual property   of the Triton project to that foundation. Now b 2 c k remains very dedicated to advancing Triton, but I think that   that,   the foundation exists to make sure that   Triton will remain a healthy open source project into the future without relying on any   specific company.  



[00:08:36] Unknown:

Yes.   I may add something maybe. Please, please. Indeed, it's exactly that. The in fact, as we are a fork of tiny ERP,   at that time, it was open ERP, we receive a lot of request of companies that would like to   invest   their time in Triton,   but some of those were afraid   that b 2 c k was the main   driving force and that's   1 day or another, we might close the the the code the source code and have a complete control over the project. And that's how, as Jonathan   said, we decided to create a Belgian foundation because the those foundation,   under the Belgian laws   make it   a requirement that you have to follow nonprofit goal.  

And in this case, it's the   development and publicity of Triton. And there's a small mistake.   The foundation doesn't hold the copyright.   In fact, every contributor   still holds   his copyright.   So,   Jonathan, for example, holds   his copyright. Everybody holds his own copyright and so it make it difficult   to to change the license of the project because   our license is GPLv3   or later.   And,   you would have, if you want to change, to contact everybody.   And,   the fact that you have to contact so many people, it will make it difficult   and it allows us to to to keep the GPL,   I guess, forever.  



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Yeah. I know that things like contributor license agreements  

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guard against somebody relicensing the project in the future? Yes. That's exactly that. That's the contributor license agreement that we   we we have some issues with and we decided   to guard us against those changes   by by distributing the copyright.   Exactly that. You're on point. Yeah.  

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Indeed, we are in the same situation as the Linux kernel, which is GPL 2, but it's also,   the copyright is shared with a lot of developers. So it's a a kind of protection in some way.  

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And so the project itself is focused on providing the software   and the utilities necessary for being able to run and manage a business. I'm curious if you can discuss a bit about the types of businesses that Triton is most well suited to and some of the cases where it might not be a good fit for a particular type of business?  

[00:11:23] Unknown:

Indeed, the the the main target of Triton is, the small and medium,   enterprise.   So I would say it's it goes from 1 employee to   200 employees.   And for now, the   functionality that has that are covered by Triton can   be helpful to companies that are in the wholesale   business or they that manage they have to manage a warehouse or a stock. Also, it works for service companies and for   production company. The type of companies   that for now we are not providing good enough features for for them is mainly the retails   the small retails,   companies   because,   mainly, we don't have a point of sale for now. And, also, what we have seen is that we don't fit well with companies that are not well organized.  

When very small companies   sometimes works with just papers and post it and and so on, And there are very difficulties   to go with   an organized tool that force them to follow some workflow and stuff like that. So,   usually, it's because these kind of small companies are not mature enough for yet for an an ERP.   But sometimes,   going trying to implement an ERP inside the company is also a way to organize the company and follow the best practice and find workflow and so on. And and 1 is others. So the way that I would describe it is first, we have to talk about what exactly Triton is. So there's the Triton kernel,  

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which interacts with the database, typically Postgres.   And   on top of the kernel, people implement   these plugins. And so as Cedric was describing, there are excellent warehouse plugins, excellent   project for service companies plug ins. And   so there's a there's a divide between Triton can be fantastic   for some companies   that may not have   premade ready to go modules available.   It would just require somebody to to write the module. Okay? I would say that thinking about it broadly that way, any company   that is needing a database   to keep track of, you know, their internal machinations   and where Postgres would be an appropriate database, any company like that, Triton would be certainly a   project to consider.  

And very likely, they would find that there are ready to go off the shelf modules   that can take care of what they need. Now as far as where it wouldn't be a good fit, there are companies that don't use a database as try that, Cedric was saying that maybe they   are small enough that they can just kinda keep track of things   just personally. And, sure, if they don't need a database, Triton wouldn't be the project for them. But if you need a database and Postgres is the right scale of Triton, I guess, who is it designed to be targeted at primarily as far as the people who are going to  

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to be targeted at primarily as far as the people who are going to be interacting with it on a day to day basis? And what are some of the considerations or design challenges that you face in terms of evolving the product, keeping those people in mind?  

[00:14:51] Unknown:

Oh, that's a tough 1. Triton is mainly,   as it is an ERP, it's mainly   a a backup. It's designed it for back office users. So we have 2   2 2 clients,   1,   which is the original client that was developed,   which came from the fork.   It's a GTK client, so based on the the the toolkit made from the Gnome project. And we have the   JavaScript client, which obviously works through   to your browser.   And we try to make those the most ergonomic   as possible,   but it's not an easy task.   I think that the GTK client is probably most more ergonomic than the   than the   JavaScript 1.  

But indeed, on the other hand, the JavaScript 1 is easier to deploy and so on, so it's it has its pro,   and it's quite difficult to to know   which 1,   to to choose, in fact. I I think people can use both. And,   usually, back office user will use the GTK client that they can install, and those those back office user are accountants,   purchase   management people,   and,   account managers and people like that that that they do form filling and they they they they have to search some information in the system to see why   a shipment hasn't arrived or   to feel the fact that you have lost,  

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10 pieces of a product or something? Yeah. And the way we try to keep the ergonomy and   the satisfaction of the users, it's that we we try to make change,   small step at a time and build on the existing   and try to refine it and improve it progressively.   This way,   we we have early feedback   for small change,   and we try to always   improve it or take the the feedback   community project, we we have   inputs from, the the whole community   who can   say the word about   the the   the interface and the,   the algorithm and how things are are done.   So  

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And then as far as the actual   workflow   of using Triton and being able to maintain an appropriate level of structure for the workflows while providing the flexibility needed to model a given business.   I'm curious if you can just talk through   maybe the day to day interaction of a typical user of Triton   and maybe some of the customizations   that can be applied to simplify their operations   or to match the specifics of their organization?  

[00:17:55] Unknown:

Okay. So   the main goal of, an ERP is to centralize,   the data in 1 database.   So this way, you don't need to   to duplicate and to reenter the   the data in many different software,   and, also, it helps you to keep the integrity of your data. So the typical,   workflow,   that you you have in Triton is that you have the salesman who enter a a sale order   in   the application.   So he will select   an existing party   from the address book,   already   stored in the the system,   and he will pick some product   that he sold   selling.   And,   once he filled the the the seller there, he will,   just confirm   by clicking on the button.  

And automatically,   the system will create,   the the shipment document   to to ship the the product to the customer,   but also the invoice,   for the accounting.   And,   also,   as you have a shipment to   to send,   the system will know automatically   if it needs   to purchase to to supply   the   the the warehouse   from where you are shipping the product because maybe you don't have enough product for this sale order   or you have a rule that you want a minimal   quantity of product. And then automatically,   Triton will create a purchase request   for for the   missing products, and the purchase manager   can see those requests that that are created automatically, and he can convert into a purchase order by selecting   the supplier   that fits for this   purchase   and, make   the negotiation   with the   the the supplier to to receive the product.  

And, this document, the purchase, that will be created out of the request,   will also create   a shipment, but an incoming shipment   from the supplier.   And so when you receive the product, you will validate   the incoming shipment that will fill the warehouse and you will know that your   shipment for the customer,   you can now   process it because you have received the product. So,   as all the information is stored into 1 database,   the information   is shared   across all the documents, and they can trigger   automatically   some   step in the workflow   and and so on.  



[00:20:52] Unknown:

So what was just described there was functionality   that you get through a module. So that was the I I we don't use that module. Is that the product shipment module or the warehouse module? Yes. Yeah. It's for   And Triton, the way I would think about it is that you have the desktop client that gives you automatically   many tools   for browsing or editing   the data in the database as well as excellent tools for restricting access or creating groups of users that have limited access to various parts of the database, and that is just automatic   self working. You get the system going and you have that layer. In addition, based on your company's specific needs,   you can write workflows into modules. And so you would create a custom module for your company or maybe there's an off the shelf 1 that fits you well because there are many off the shelf ones now that will allow you to go through   a workflow as was described there where you you place an order and then take it from order placement through every stage of the warehouse and the shipment out,   etcetera.  

But you have the flexibility   to write whatever workflow you you require. Typically,   how your employees are using Triton, it it depends on what the employee's role is, what what they need to do. They can use it in either way to just browse and edit the software,   excuse me, the database information   or to take steps through specific workflows that are written a module? Yes. Of course. Each workflow step  

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can be customized,   can be automated,   or or not, and, you can add   more steps if you want.   Everything is flexible on this, side.  

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So this is probably a good opportunity to talk a bit more about the   architecture and the implementation   of   Triton and some of the ways that it has evolved since you first forked it from the parent project? So,  

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the   architecture of Triton is a synchronous 3 tiers application.   So the the usual 3 tiers, the database,   how do you say that, the the business logic,   and then the the the client,   which   which, as I explained, is is,   are both thin clients, 1 available for the desktop users and 1 for for people   through their browser in JavaScript.   And   so so this is the the big picture.   Then in Triton, you have several layers.   So the first 1, which   provides the access to the database, which is currently   following an active record pattern. Previously, it was using a data mapper because tiny ERP at that time was using this   this pattern.  

They switch they switch later, but it has nothing to do with that. And thanks to   the active record,   we can do introspection on the classes   and we infer the database schema and we create   new columns in the tables. We create, of course, also the tables if it's required. Then you have all the business logic where you have,   the notion of   users,   groups,   and then everything that is needed by by your module, your own module. So, for example, if you make a module   that will   model a sale, you will obviously have the sale adder with the company that's that is selling something, the party you are selling to, the currency you are using, then you will have   some sell lines with   the quantity you sell, the unit of the product   Triton module,   which models the workflow,   which pilots   all the steps   that your cell your cell will go through. So, for example, you create the in in in the start a draft sale, and then you confirm the sale after discussing it with your customers.  

And   afterwards,   you   you process the sale, and it will create   shipments eventually if you are selling a product and so on. It will also also create an invoice, etcetera, etcetera. And the next step is displaying all this   information to the user because   we have the code that we have to to to have a user interface. And the user interface is specified also in the modules,   Thanks to XML files, which defines   all the fields are set up on the screens. It's it's almost like   HTML if you you want, but   less flexible.   And we send this XML to the to the to the client.  

The client display   all the fields on the on the screen and the user have also the buttons so they can trigger workflow steps and so on. I just want to  

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add that,   a particularity   of Triton   and in the design,   it's the   the modules   and the modularity.   What happened is that   each module can define   classes.   They can be base classes or   a kind of   partial class   that would be used to construct   the the main class of the active record.   So depending of which module are active   activated,   the server will build dynamically   the class   by composing   all the small   parts   of   all the small classes   that are   disseminating   different modules   to construct,   1 the the   the main class   for a kind of document.   This way,   we can have a module   that define   a a main object.  

I can keep with the the same example   and have another module   that extend the same model   by adding, for example, a new field   or a new step in the workflow or new methods and and so on.   So the the server, we combine both class   to create 1   main class   that will be always   be used by the server to manipulate the object.   So,   we dynamically create those   base class,   and this   give the power of   in Triton to be very flexible because,   by activate a module   in Triton,   you can   modify   the behavior   of existing objects   directly,   and you can really modify   any property of the of the object.  

It can be the fields or the methods   on it and and so on.   And, of course, thanks to the introspection   to create the database   schema scheme,   the   the activating modules that are the new field will,   automatically,  

[00:28:26] Unknown:

create the new columns in the in the database. Well, let me talk about that just a little bit more because the what Cedric is talking about here is 1 of the things about Triton that I just I find remarkably clever. And it's this different inheritance model where let's say that you have a a base module like the party module, k, which is a a standard module that's off the shelf, and it defines a party class.   And then you have 2 other modules that you wanna rely on,   and say 1 of them creates   a variant of party where now they have some new database attribute, you know, let's say middle name. Let's say base party has just first and last name. Now this other module has middle name. And now you can create   a second new module that also extends party, adding   whatever methods or business logic or database columns you like. And you don't need to have a linear   tree of inheritance where you've got base module party and then module a inherits   the party model from   the party module, then module b inherits it from, module a. Instead, there's this plug in logic that's used that allows you   to use these modules   much more flexibly and install them through PIP, and you don't and, of course, anything that is powerful, you could get yourself into trouble. Right? And so it it you you do need, of course, to be careful that you're not going to create contradictions across the modules. But it's a very clever   different inheritance scheme that I I've never seen anywhere else. And Triton lets you uses that to let you use modules and it it just sort of plug them in as you like, and it provides you with some very useful hooks   to take care of, things like migrations,   in in the register method of models and stuff like that. I think that it is just very well designed for modularity. And and, Cedric, I have never asked you, but where did this idea   for that inheritance model come from? Is that something you saw somewhere or did did you just think of that? And and the way it's done is through   the it'll construct this   multiple inheritance   where at at startup time, you're creating a new class that's inheriting   multiply from each of the declarations in each of the sub module.  



[00:30:45] Unknown:

In in fact, I can reply to that because that's an idea we had with a former   tiny ERP   employee, Gaetan Du Menten. When I was there, we we were working together   there. We had 1 month to do something that we found   cool, and I I remember that we've done that together.   So it's it it exists also in Odoo, in fact, and   it's we we had 1 month to do it. It was a bit too short, so,   the the the Fabienne, the the the guy behind Odoo   finished it, but   not as   as cleanly as we would have done it. And so,   yeah, the the idea, it's   it's basically it comes from the fact that we were playing with,   metaclasses   in Python at that time, and we were pretty convinced   that by using metaclasses,   you could create classes that would do what what Triton does now and what, Odoo does also, of course. So it's a it's an idea we had,   I don't know, maybe 4 14 years ago   or or or or 13 years. For the records, I  

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ran into a similar design,   indeed, in Firefox.   Yeah. But it's Oh, yeah? I think it's no more, in the current add ons because they use web extension   standard.   But before that,   you could tune   all the interface,   the the dual   stuff. I don't know if you can remember.   And,   there were also   merging class kind of classes   together to to compose the the interface and the and the behavior.   It's the only   time I see something similar a little bit similar   that,   depending on what is activated,   you compose   a class with parts   partial classes   around. But, yeah, for sure that's   1 of of the power   of the main reason to use Triton is this powerful   extension   way,   because it allow us to build simple blocks models with   simple functionality   and compose   them.  

You you pick the modules,   you want to use by   functionality, and you can just   extend them or make some glue to to make them work together as you like.   And this way, you you reuse a lot of existing   stuff,   that the project provides,   and you have just   some glue code   or some small customization  

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to to create. So for somebody who's interested in creating their own extensions and modules to plug in to Triton, what is actually the process of getting something started and getting it integrated?   And what are the available   extension points   for Triton for them to be able to customize any particular internal behavior of it? I would say, first, to to start  

[00:34:00] Unknown:

to create your own modules. What the the project provide,   a cookie   a cookie cutter template.   I don't know if you know about it. Cookie cutter is a project to to scaffold. Scaffold. Yeah. Project. So,   it asks, some questions about the name,   the version you want to   use, and so on. And it creates for you the the the skeleton   of of the modules, and it's something already working.   You can just,   put it in   the Triton modules folder,   and you have your module.   But, of course,   it does nothing   because   you have put any new logical in it. But from there, you can define a new class that will, be registered in in in the system or or modify an existing class. So that's for the the the Python part.   You write classes,   in your module. And for as Nicolas said, for the   view layer, you just have to write some XML layers that define the position   of the fields on the screen. That's the way you start to work,   to customize Triton for you. Now if you want to contribute   to to Triton,   the best is to   first   fetch the   the source code from the repository.  

It's on the website of Triton.   And   we have   a procedure to submit,   patches   through   a a code review process,   and we welcome   any   improvement that people can   provide   on Triton.   So, creating a patch is the the simple way   when you want to fix   or improve small stuff.   Once you start to be confident and you think to you can   contribute a full module,   we first   ask   people to write what we call a blueprint.   So it's a description of   your goals   and how you are going to   implement it and and so on.   It's   on our   form that you you post that, and people can discuss   about the ideas   and the design and so on until we reach   a kind of agreement   about the best solution and the best way to to implement your new   the new feature. And, then   once it's it's   agreed,   you can   submit submit   a   a big batch with all your modules and then start   the the review process from the community   and so on until,   again, we reach an agreement about the quality of the of the submission.  

And, once   it's done,   1 of the the core developers will push for you the the new module,   on the Triton,   repository,   and it will be part of the next,   release.  

[00:37:15] Unknown:

Now that, of course, is the process for sort of 1 of the official core modules. You can, of course, write your own module for your own your own business or you can write,   modules that you open source, and there are   a significant number of modules available on GitHub or Bitbucket that are not part of the core or not officially, you know, sanctioned by the Triton project. And so, of course, use them at at your own risk and and always know what you're installing. But there there are other modules available Yeah. Of course. You just the core 1. You can publish your module on, PyPI.  

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Modules   is a a standard Python package,   that, you you can and you can find a lot of them on PyPy.   By the way, we have a classifier on PyPy,   the Triton.   I think it's   framework Triton,   so people can use it to   to filter and to find   Triton modules   there.  

[00:38:17] Unknown:

And in terms of the overall project itself, as you mentioned, it's been around for a number of years now. And I'm curious   if you were to completely start the whole project over today, if there were any elements of it that you would reconsider or redesign   given the current state of the art and the available libraries and ecosystem? Yes.  

[00:38:38] Unknown:

Indeed, it's a it's a little bit difficult to to answer because   1 thing we do with Triton is when we think   some there is something out,   that exists and is better than some something we have done. We are not fear to   to trash what we have done and use,   the new stuff. So   we   the project   has evolved it a lot in 10 years, and we   have,   included or reused   existing tools   or framework,   that we found   that are better than what we had.   So,   at some point, I would say, if   I   to start Triton now,   I guess, I it will be as it is now,   of course, without all   the the previous   version,   different tools that we were using back in back at that that time.  

But,   at at at some point, I I have no   maybe we will change something,   tomorrow because we have we found something better for for our specific   need.   But for now,   I don't see we  

[00:39:56] Unknown:

have nothing in mind. When we thought about this question   earlier today, we we had 1 stuff   that we would probably not not include.   It's the the fact that,   you can have   per process,   a connection to multiple   databases.   Currently, that's what that's what we do. Probably, that's  

[00:40:19] Unknown:

something that we would not do again. Right. And am I right to understand that the Docker is the big changing   technology there? That when that was built, the idea was, well, you're gonna have   1 server running Triton, and it may need to connect to a lot of things. Whereas now you can spin up multiple   Yes. Indeed.  

[00:40:41] Unknown:

Now we   most of the deployment of Triton   now are just to connect to 1 database,   because it's it's much   it's much cheaper to   to start a new process.   And so   this feature in Triton, indeed, is mainly used by the feature in Triton   indeed is mainly used by developers,   where the the they have 1 they start 1 Triton, and they switch from 1 database to another to test different   case or scenario.   But,   in   production,   it's not really used,   and, indeed,   it adds some complexity,   in some part of Triton that could be removed and simplified.   That's   a a point.  



[00:41:37] Unknown:

And then as far as the   sustainability of the project, we mentioned that there is the foundation   that is there to serve as the governing agent,   and b 2 c k is at least 1 company that's involved in the continued development of it. But I'm curious how you're approaching just the overall   day to day of being able to ensure that necessary work gets done and that the project is evolving   and some of the approach that you use to ensure the ongoing stability and security of the project given the criticality of it to a number of people's businesses?  

[00:42:12] Unknown:

So for the project itself,   the foundation   rely on the fact that it will receive,   donations   from people. And, hopefully,   we we are very lean, so we don't have   a lot of costs.   And with   the few donations that we have now,   it allows us   to have   all our servers,   the trademarks   that are paid, and we have also some some money to organize sometimes   try to gather in some developers or unconference.   And   for the the project in itself,   as we are a free software project, we we really really   rely on the fact that   people use our project and need to need it   to to exist for for their for their business. So b 2 c k, for example,   we have customers   and they pay us to work on Triton   and,   there are other companies that that do that. So I mean, Spain, in Argentina,   Germany, and so on, France, of course. And thanks to them,   we are allowed to to dedicate some time   on the free software project.  

Although, we are a small project   when you compare us to the Linux kernel or   Firefox   or, I don't know, Django.   We we still   can live and thanks to the dedication of some   some developers that do the the work on their free time and so on and so on. Yeah. It's it's a bit tricky, but it works. And   economically,   it it works also. Also. We are not unicorns,   but, but it works. The main business  

[00:44:08] Unknown:

plan that   for the companies   around Triton   is to sell services,   on Triton. So   the service   they provide   often involve,   improving Triton itself.   So,   this   is the main way Triton evolve and   keep up to date with   regulation   and and so on.   The the other point was about the,   the maintenance and the security.   We have   some process   that allow us to ensure that we don't break too much Triton.   First is that we have,   wrote on a lot of tests for   every module is a set of tests by default   that ensure   some integrity and quality in the in,   the Triton, the code, the Python code, and so on. But, also,   we we write   extended test,   for   for many key modules,   like for accounting, sales,   and so on.  

We have 2 kind of   test is the first 1 is unit test. So we test   usually   methods in   on a class   and with different   values and and so on. And we have also   a larger test, which is more about   integration test,   where   we we script a full workflow,   in the in   the application.   By workflow,   I mean that,   with scenario that   start, create a sell order, validate the sell order,   validate the shipments or and   post the invoice, check that the accounting is right,   ensure   for the shipment that a back order is created, and so on and so on.   And,   we have a lot of scenario like that.  

And, indeed, each time we find   a bug,   we try to write a scenario that showed the the the issue   or a test that   ensure that   that   the the the code   is now   tested for this kind of case.   Then we have a continuous integration tool   that build,   and run the test   on each commit.   And so,   if 1 change break   the test suite, it harms the developer   responsible for this, break, and, we try to fix it as soon as possible.   And, of course, we don't release make a new release if there is an issue on 1 test. That's the how we keep the state of Triton as it is now, the stability.   The second point about also, it's that we   review all the change.  

So,   we try to have at least   1 review for each commit.   It's not always   easy to get because it takes time. And on   such   open projects,   people don't   always have   the   the free time to to make reviews.   But we try to   to to enforce that.   And,   of course, the the review   also ensured the   the security,   of, Triton   because we have more eyes looking at the code   and   they may spot weakness and issue.   And, finally,   for part   the particularity of the security issue, we have a specific   process to report security issue   where they are only   known by a   very small set of,   core developers,   and   they try to find the solution and provide the fix. And once we have   a proper fix,   we make a security release, which is coordinated with the   pack the package,   the packager of   different distribution   where Triton is packaged.  

And so we set up   a release date for the security issue, which goes public only   after this date. That's,   the point for security.   And now for the people who are using Triton,   the the end users,   they have the choice   of 2 kind of release   to use.   We have a long term support release that we support for 5 years.   So when, you are   this is,   the the best choice if you don't want to   upgrade frequently   and have new features.   This feature this series   receive   bug fix and security   release   for 5 years.   And, otherwise,   the   normal release   are supported for 1 year. So, we give the choice of for to the users to choose, which kind of   frequency   you want to have to upgrade.  

And we try to make bug fix release every,   15 days, if, of course, there is   bugs to fix.   And   I didn't say that, but we make a release every 6 months. It's a major a major release with new features,   new modules,  

[00:50:12] Unknown:

and new client, and so on. And then as far as the   usage of Triton, I'm sure that it's been used in a pretty wide array of businesses. And I'm curious what you have seen to be some of the most interesting or innovative or unexpected ways that it's been used and deployed.  

[00:50:27] Unknown:

1 of the most interesting news, at least from my point of view,   is the 1 that Gnuels   is doing of Triton.   So Gluells   is a project under the Glue umbrella, and   their   their aim is to provide  

[00:50:46] Unknown:

all those An H I s, hospital  

[00:50:49] Unknown:

information system. Yes. An hospital,  

[00:50:52] Unknown:

information system. And sorry. Just to jump in because it it was a little hard to hear. So what he's saying here is, Gnu Health. Gnu Health. Yes. Yeah. Gnu Health. GNU Health is  

[00:51:03] Unknown:

a is an   hospital information system   which,   stores medical records of people   usually from,   law development   countries   like, Congo, Jamaica, and so on. Because   in countries like Europe or guy or I guess the United States, you have to, a lot of red tapes and   laws to follow and it's really difficult.   Is not   does not its main point is to bring computer science and and   informatics to to those countries and to help them to to have   a a good traceability of people. So they don't really care about all all the problem that we care about in in our in our country, but in in Google Earth, they they do they care about stuff that are really vital. And so they they have a lot of,   of modules   for,   obstetrics   and,   I don't know, anything that goes with the medicine   and,   it's it's really a a nice project. There's also the the the project of John, which is something that I didn't expect it. So Sure. I'd be happy to describe our implementation. So we are a law firm that services the aviation industry,  

[00:52:23] Unknown:

and the aviation industry is very   heavily regulated   and record intensive.   And so we have a   web portal side that is built basically using Flask, actually using a   slightly different project called NERID.   And   our clients use that to   input   all of their data through web forms, and it goes into our Triton database. And then we have also,   in terms of our internal workflow, a large number of discrete sort of small tasks that we need to do for each of these clients. And so we have Triton   handling   our web front end and then also handling   our   flow of tasks and sort of assignments and delegations of tasks to people inside the company so that we can make sure that we've got a good audit trail and clarity that each and every item is getting done. That's how we use Triton. This is  

[00:53:23] Unknown:

far away from all usual cases, which are more web shops and   sales related or purchase related implementation.  

[00:53:31] Unknown:

That's And, indeed, we we have we had also a   project that was   a little bit   different than   the usual.   It's a it was for   it's a project we developed for a company   where the main goal was,   to provide   an application,   on the,   on the cell phone. Smartphones? Yeah. Where people could   buy more stuff like, sand sandwich sandwiches   from their, the local   grocery.   And they could order it   when they were   at work,   in the morning   and,   schedule the time when they want the the sandwich.   And so,   the payment was collected by the application.   And,   behind,   there was a Triton server receiving the orders   and dispatch the orders to   printers   in the   shop of different grocery   everywhere in the city and and so on. And so they receive the   the ticket with the number and   the orders, and they prepare it for the time it was specified.  

And so the the guy who ordered it with this application   can go to the shop and take directly the back with shop the the the cart with the the the shopping item and, without having to pay because it was already paid by   the electronically   and so on. And so it was a way to   to skip the lane in such   a shop where everybody goes at the same time, get this   food   directly.   And so the,   the commission   could organize   the the work, prepare in advance the the orders, and and so on. So that was a nice project where   Triton was involved to follow   the the orders   you received from the application,   dispatch to the right shop, and,   make a a small accounting   about how much was sell and that's what. At the end, send   the total   money, order it for for to each, shop. That's,   yeah, that was   an astonishing   way of using Triton.  



[00:56:00] Unknown:

And then in terms of the future of the Triton project, I'm curious what you have in store in terms of new feature capabilities or future direction for the project. The Triton project is no real road map because it's built by the the community,  

[00:56:16] Unknown:

for the community.   And so each 1 come with his own needs and own targets and own goals and, try to,   to push it in the the project.   So this we cannot guide,   which direction we go or which feature   we want to implement for the next 3 d's and so on because it depend on what the community  

[00:56:48] Unknown:

ideas   that are lingering   and that we would like to implement.   So,   for example, we we are thinking   a lot   about,   creating creating,   more specific applications.   Right now, we have an application named Kronos, which is a browser plugin,   which allows you to input your timesheets.   That's also the scratch your own itch because   we use it to to to invoice our customers   at b to c k,   and I guess other people in the Triton community use it because   we know a lot of people that work the same way as we do.   But   those applications,   they they they use   specific,   path in every modules.  

So if you want a module, you can   open   a path,   an entry point, yes,   in in the in the,   in the HTTP server,   which you can   put   or pull data from. And   thanks to this entry point, you can enter directly into Triton with,   of course, your credentials and so on and   have some specific   actions.   So for example, for the timesheets, you can fetch the timesheets of specific days, but you can also push   a new a new line in your time   sheet and or or you can edit a new line   a line an existing line. And we would like to have more application like   that, for example, to do the shipping in the warehouses.  



[00:58:32] Unknown:

Yeah. It's dedicated   application.   So,   in some way, it's a way to hide Triton behind   a very,   stellar user   interface.  

[00:58:46] Unknown:

I think that something big for the future of Triton is the LTS, the long term support, which was just added maybe about a year ago. And as we've talked about, Triton has been around for   around 10 years   and has had this philosophy of   we   are willing to   break things   to improve things. And so   the as Cedric was saying, there's a new release every 6 months. Traditionally,   those releases had only received a year of support, and so there was   some aspect of conveyor belt of needing to   upgrade to the new versions.   But now   we have gotten to where the core Triton functions,   I think, are pretty stable. I mean so for example,   Nicholas described earlier that   it transitioned to the active record model a few years ago, and that that was quite a bit of API changes. But I don't   there haven't been any   changes like that in   since then or in in quite a while, and I think that Triton is now   stable enough that as you can hear from,   what Cedric and Nicholas are describing as new additional features, I think, like support for browser plug ins, that's not going to be   sort of breaking changes that would threaten existing,   installs. And so I think that a big driver of   more people   starting to use Triton   is knowing that they have LTS,   that they have 5 years of support in the version that they install,   and   greater stability   to   the API. And   the the fact that,   the core devs have been willing to make such changes has gotten Triton to where it is now, which I think that there are very elegant   idioms that it's using. It it it it's a very   nice system to code in. And   now that that's not changing so much, long term support is possible. And I like I said, I think that that's going to be a big driver of more and more people using Triton. Yep. Indeed.  



[01:00:57] Unknown:

Another point that we are working   is   to include a a web shop   directly.   So for now, there there is many   solution, but,   external solution   to plug a web shop to Triton.   BduCK have developed it, some,   but others also have developed it,   web shop extension and so on. And for now,   there is a work,   going on   to support,   Vue storefront,   which is a new webshop,   front end   that is  

[01:01:39] Unknown:

Based Based on Fuse. Yes. Yes. So it's  

[01:01:42] Unknown:

an SPA, single page application,   that support also the   progressive   application.  

[01:01:50] Unknown:

PWA,   it's progressive  

[01:01:53] Unknown:

web application. So it can work offline and so on. And,   so there is a module in review for now to plug Triton and,   view storefront.   And this could be also,   once it's,   polished and,   in credit, a big change   for for for Triton   because it will provide out of the box   a webshop,   to to small business,   and that can   be very helpful for many Economies. Companies. Yes. There's also the ergonomy that we would like to make be better, but it's difficult. Yes. We have to work that we try to   to display   the the right data at the right time to the user. So it's a little bit, mix of,   having a dashboard,   but   tailor it for the type of user   you are depending of your access and permissions and so on, but also to   try to provide you the next task you should work on. So we have some blueprints   going in in this direction.  

So probably in the next years, we will have a better   way  

[01:03:07] Unknown:

of pushing the work. Alright. Well, for anybody who wants to follow along with the work that you're doing or get involved, I'll have you each add your preferred contact information to the show notes. And so with that, I'll move us into the pick. And this week, I'm going to choose audiobooks   because I've been listening to them more with my kids as a way to keep them busy   and as a way to keep us all entertained. So definitely recommend finding some good audiobooks whether through your local library or through a service such as Audible. And so with that, I'll pass it to you, Nicolas. Do you have any picks this week?  

[01:03:38] Unknown:

Yes, indeed. As everybody, I tried to to have something to to think that is a bit joyful. So I started   to play Civilization 6. There has been years   since,   I haven't been playing Civilization. In fact in fact, my first contribution to to open source was to FreeSieve, the   the free software clone of Civilization   civilization 2. And now I started to play again to civilization 6. So if you have   some tags, you can   start to play civilization 6 or read a book.   I read   an excellent book from from an author of China, U16.   It's the 3 body problem. It's   science fiction, but from the point of view of China, so it's a bit   bit different than than usual. And   I found that the the liberty   of speech   of the author was   quite surprising to me because he he described,   in the first chapters   the cultural revolution of China, and,   it was awful.  

But I was surprised to read that in a Chinese book. So if you if you   like science fiction but with a twist because it comes from   another cultural background,  

[01:04:58] Unknown:

I I I really recommend it. Alright. And how about you, Cedric? Do you have any pics this week?  

[01:05:05] Unknown:

Indeed, I   started to read   the integral of   Valerien et Laurelin.   It's a French   comic from   17th.   Seventies.   Yeah. It's it's a big influential,   in   science fiction   culture. Indeed,   it seems there there is,   they influence it, the Star Wars movies and   and many other stuff. So, yeah, it's,   old comics, but,   I enjoy reading  

[01:05:38] Unknown:

those. And Jonathan, how about yourself? Well, my pick for this week, I think, has to be hand sanitizer   as we are all hunkered down dealing with the coronavirus and waiting to see what's gonna happen in the next few weeks. But no. The, the thing I I'm I'll give a shout out to is it's not exactly a pick, but it is a   new project or start up that I've been trying to get going for the last year, and I think that we're set to launch   hopefully in the next 2 months. It is   royal.com.   Royal spelled r o I l as in roiling river,   and it is a better way to interact   with RSS feeds, a better way to enjoy content on the Internet.  

So been working hard to get that going, and, hopefully, we're rounding the final turn and should have a public release in the next couple months.  

[01:06:30] Unknown:

Alright. Well, thank you all very much for taking the time today to join me and share your work and experience with Triton. It's definitely an interesting project and 1 that, number of people obviously rely on. So I appreciate all of your time and effort on that front, and I hope you each enjoy the rest of your day. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Tobias. Thank you. Thank you.   Thank you for listening. Don't forget to check out our other show, the data engineering   podcast at dataengineeringpodcast.com   for the latest on modern data management.  

And visit the site at python podcast dotcom to subscribe to the show, sign up for the mailing list, and read the show notes. And if you've learned something or tried out a project from the show, then tell us about it. Email host at podcastinit.com   with your story.   To help other people find the show, please leave a review on Itunes and tell your friends and coworkers.