1. PythonTA

May–August 2025

PythonTA taught me three things quickly:

1. Read the codebase before writing code.
2. Tests aren’t optional.
3. Small PRs get merged. Big PRs get rewritten.

Major Contributions

• Fixed test coverage gaps in color_messages_by_type
• Refactored render_pep8_errors from a giant if/elif chain into a clean dict+regex mapping
• Fixed nested-loop variable extraction bug in AccumulationTable
• Added CSV output formatting
• Built a CLI for the CFG module (my first serious Click CLI)
• Modernized the entire HTML Reporter UI:
  • New neutral color palette
  • VS Code–inspired syntax highlighting
  • Heroicons
  • Real theming system with CSS custom properties
  • Dark mode support

What I Learned

• AST manipulation & regex parsing — Understanding how Python code is parsed and transformed
• Designing UI for developer tools — The HTML reporter serves thousands of students
• Reviewing my own PRs — Before asking for review, I learned to review my own code first
• GitHub workflow — From scratch to comfort with the full PR lifecycle
• Iterative UI feedback cycles — Design, implement, get feedback, refine
• Clean commit messages — Documentation that future maintainers can understand

PythonTA gave me the “base layer” I needed before entering MarkUs.