Practical Python for Production under Pressure: Managing the insanity that is developing pipelines alongside a production at full speed

Table of Contents....4

Practical Python for Production under Pressure....7

Introduction....7

Frontline'' tools and Code Debt....9

Communication....13

Preparing for a task....13

Managing your workload....24

Getting Feedback....27

Tracking....28

Impostor Syndrome....31

Structure....33

Managing Environments with Rez....33

Structuring your project....49

Creating maintainable APIs....52

Schema....73

Designing with Diagrams....84

Creating maintainable Pipelines....89

Refactoring....94

Common Libraries....100

Testing....106

Automated tests....106

Production Data....113

Production Tracking....113

Wrapping APIs....145

Debugging....155

PDB....155

Exceptions....161

Inspecting....164

Crashes....171

Logging....174

Optimization....180

Profiling....180

Optimizing....185

Qt....208

Overview....208

Meta Data....210

Styles and Painting....216

State Machines....232

Responsive UI....246

Data Driven UI....267

Testing....281

QML in DCCs....298

User Experience....308

What is UX?....308

The 5 elements of UX....310

Research....316

Wireframing....318

Layouts....323

DataViews....337

Animations....346

Accessibility....347

Icons....351

Don't Make Them Think....357

Don't Make Them Wait....363

Adding Redundancy....370

Further Reading....373

AI....375

AI in Production Studios....375

AI Portals....376

Terminology....377

Data Security....381

Choosing an LLM....382

Prompt Engineering....385

Running Locally....393

AI Assisted Development....401

Developing AI Tools....446

Other Important Info....467

Legal Licenses....467

References....470

Afterword....476

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.