Celery is by far the most popular library in Python for distributing asynchronous work using a task queue. If you're building a Python web app, chances are you already use it to send email, perform API integrations, etc. Many people choose Redis as their message broker of choice because it's dead simple to set up: provision a Redis add-on, use its environment variable as your BROKER_URL, and you're done. But the simplicity of Redis comes at a cost. Redis does not currently support SSL, and it doesn't seem like that's going to change any time soon. Because Heroku add-ons communicate over the public web, that means the contents of Celery jobs are traveling unencrypted...

When we think of the concept of Waza (技) or "art and technique," it's easy to get caught up in the idea of individual mastery. It's true that works of art are often created by those with great skill, but acquiring that skill is neither solitary nor static. Generations of masters contribute to a canon and it is in that spirit that we built the Heroku platform and the Waza event. This year's Waza was no exception.

On February 28th, more than 900 attendees participated in Waza including Ruby founder Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto, Django co-creator Jacob Kaplan-Moss and Codeacademy’s Linda Liukas. True to form, we offered you a platform for experimentation and...