Projects

In this repository I intend to keep track of some algorithms I've been learning throw the past year. The code consists on a Django application that runs the algorithms, written in p5.js (Processing) as static files.

The cryptography demos (AES, SHA-1 and RSA) are hand-written Python and run on the server. Everything else is a p5.js sketch and runs in the browser.

There is no database. The list of projects lives in index/catalog.py, and the only per-user state is the asymmetric-key demo's chat, kept in a signed cookie.

Running the code

Install dependencies

1. Create a virtual environment

python -m venv venv

2. Activate the virtual environment

source venv/bin/activate

3. Install the requirements

pip install -r requirements.txt

Set up a secret key

4. Generate a secret key for Django

python gen_secret_key.py

5. Export the secret as an environment variable

export DJANGO_SECRET_KEY='your-secret-key'

Sessions are signed with this key, so changing it clears any chat in progress.

Launch the site

Development

Use this approach when launching the site locally in development. It is simpler and automatically reloads the application when the code changes. DJANGO_DEBUG serves the static files straight from the source tree and shows tracebacks in the browser.

DJANGO_DEBUG=1 python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8080

Production

Use this approach when launching the site in production. It is faster, more scalable, and designed to handle production loads. Leave DJANGO_DEBUG unset.

Collect the static files first. WhiteNoise compresses them and stamps a hash into each filename, so this has to run again whenever a static file changes.

python manage.py collectstatic --noinput
gunicorn projects.wsgi:application --bind 0.0.0.0:8000

Whichever hostname the site is served under has to be in ALLOWED_HOSTS in projects/settings.py. On Render, RENDER_EXTERNAL_HOSTNAME is picked up automatically.