This week’s show is a bit different. We are taking a well-deserved short break, but we still wanted to share an episode with you. This rewind episode highlights clips from the many interviews over the past year or so of the show. We also hear from many new listeners who have just discovered the show. Welcome aboard! We wanted to provide a sample of guests, topics, and questions we feature on the show. For long-time listeners, this will be a brisk walk through past episodes and guests. We’ve talk...
Apr 30, 2021•45 min•Ep. 58
Are you interested in creating video games but feel limited in what you can accomplish within Python? Is there a platform where you can take advantage of your Python skills and provide the benefits of a dedicated game engine? This week on the show, we have Paweł Fertyk. Paweł is a Real Python author and has been creating games as Miskatonic Studio for several years now. Paweł has worked with PyGame. We recently featured his article on creating a clone of Asteroids in a previous episode. After wo...
Apr 23, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 57
Are you looking for a bit of order when working with dictionaries in Python? Are you aware that the Python dict has changed over the last several versions and now keeps items in order? Could you learn more about object-oriented programming in Python by comparing it to another language? This week on the show, David Amos is back, and he’s brought another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. David covers a Real Python article about the differences between the OrderedDict versus a standa...
Apr 16, 2021•51 min•Ep. 56
Do you think it’s time to refactor your Python code? What should you think about before starting this task? This week on the show, we have Brendan Maginnis and Nick Thapen from Sourcery. Sourcery is an automated refactoring tool that integrates into your IDE and suggests improvements to your code. Nick and Brendan provide advice on how to start refactoring and setting achievable code objectives. We discuss setting up unit testing and building confidence that you aren’t changing your code’s funda...
Apr 09, 2021•58 min•Ep. 55
Do you know how a neural network functions? What goes into building one from scratch using Python? This week on the show, David Amos is back, and he’s brought another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. David talks about a recent Real Python article titled “Python AI: How to Build a Neural Network & Make Predictions.” This article covers how to train a neural network and create a linear regression model. We also cover several articles about testing in Python including, writing u...
Apr 02, 2021•46 min•Ep. 54
If you haven’t visited the website lately, then you’re missing out on the updates to realpython.com! The site features a completely refreshed layout with multiple sections to help you take advantage of even more great educational Python content. This week on the show, we have Dan Bader, the person behind Real Python, and all these architectural changes. Among the features changed are a new bookmarking system, a section to keep track of what you’ve been learning lately, and a much more advanced w...
Mar 26, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 53
Have you heard about NoSQL databases, or wondered how to use one with Python? How does MongoDB store information and what packages can you use to connect this type of database to your Python project? This week on the show, David Amos is back, and he’s brought another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. David talks about a recent Real Python video course about managing namespaces in Python. We also look at a few recent stories about the Python packaging ecosystem. We cover several ot...
Mar 19, 2021•45 min•Ep. 52
What goes into the decision of how to host your Python code or application in the cloud? Which technology stack is the right size for your project? This week on the show, we have Calvin Hendryx-Parker. Calvin talks about cloud hosting options, infrastructure choices, and deployment tools. Calvin is the co-founder and CTO of Six Feet Up, and co-organizer of the Python Web Conference. We talk about finding the right tools for clients. He also discusses the Python platform they created for hosting ...
Mar 12, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 51
Have you wanted to get your Python code to consume data from web-based APIs? Maybe you’ve dabbled with the requests package, but you don’t know what steps to take next. This week on the show, David Amos is back, and he’s brought another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. We discuss an article titled, “Python’s APIs: A Winning Combo for Reading Public Data”. David shares another Real Python article about creating microservices using Google Remote Procedure Calls (gRPC). We also cove...
Mar 05, 2021•54 min•Ep. 50
What’s the difference between writing code for yourself and developing for others? What new considerations do you need to take into account as a professional Python developer? This week on the show, we talk to Dane Hillard about his book “Practices of the Python Pro”. Dane discusses his philosophy on the design principles that go into writing code. We talk about namespaces, object-oriented design, and how to keep your code extensible. We also consider the how and when of code optimization. Cours...
Feb 26, 2021•52 min•Ep. 49
Do you know the initial steps to get your Python script hosted on the web? You may have built something with Flask, but how would you stand it up so that you can share it with others? This week on the show, we have the previous guest Martin Breuss back on the show. Martin shares his recent article titled, “Python Web Applications: Deploy Your Script as a Flask App”. David Amos also returns, and he’s brought another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. David shares a recent mathematic...
Feb 19, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 48
Do you feel like you understand how Python works under the hood? What is syntactic sugar, and how much of it should be in Python? This week on the show, we have Brett Cannon. Brett is a Python core developer and he’s been working on a series of articles where he is unraveling the syntax of Python. His series is a fantastic resource for those wanting to learn how Python is structured and works at its core. Brett wants to see a version of Python that can run in web browsers, so he started to break...
Feb 12, 2021•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 47
Are you interested in building interactive dashboards with Python? How about a project that takes a flat data file all the way to a web-hosted interactive dashboard? This week on the show, David Amos is back, and he’s brought another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. Along with the Real Python article about data visualizations using Dash, David covers an article designed to help Python developers understand the fundamentals of C. We discuss a couple of articles about Excel and usi...
Feb 05, 2021•45 min•Ep. 46
Are you interested in processing images in Python? Do you need to load and modify images for your Flask or Django website or CMS? Then you most likely will be working with Pillow, the friendly fork of PIL, the Python imaging library. This week on the show, we have Mike Driscoll, who is writing a new book about image processing in Python. We dive deep into the types of processing Pillow provides. Mike talks about creating Python GUI applications to take advantage of all the library has to offer. ...
Jan 29, 2021•47 min•Ep. 45
How do you create a virtual conference that retains the interactivity of an in-person event? What are the tools needed for talk submissions, ticketing, and live hosting? Can you find those tools written in Python? This week on the show, we have several of the organizers of the PyCascades 2021 conference. They share the process of restructuring a Python conference to meet those challenges. Nina Zakharenko and Seb Vetter are co-chairs, and Ashia Zawaduk is the conference program chair. PyCascades ...
Jan 22, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 44
What is it like to design a Python library for three different audiences? This week on the show, we have Nir Aides, creator of Jupylet. His new library is designed for deep reinforcement learning researchers, musicians interested in live music coding, and kids interested in learning to program. Everything is designed to run inside of a Jupyter notebook. Nir’s initial goal was to create a framework to study deep reinforcement learning, and this led to building a framework for 2D and 3D games and ...
Jan 15, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 43
Are you familiar with the role data engineers play in the modern landscape of data science and Python? Data engineering is a sub-discipline that focuses on the transportation, transformation, and storage of data. This week on the show, David Amos is back, and he’s brought another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. Along with the Real Python article on data engineering, we talk about a project where researchers downloaded 10 million Jupyter notebooks from Github to gather insights a...
Jan 08, 2021•56 min•Ep. 42
It’s been quite the year! The Real Python team has written, edited, curated, illustrated, and produced a mountain of Python articles this year. We also upgraded the site and membership with office hours, transcripts, this podcast, and much more. We are joined by two members of the Real Python team, David Amos and Joanna Jablonski. We wanted to share a year-end wrap-up with a collection of articles that showcase a diversity of Python topics and the quality of what our team created this year. Joan...
Dec 25, 2020•48 min•Ep. 41
Have you wondered how Python manages memory? How are your variables stored in memory, and when do they get deleted? This week on the show, David Amos is here, and he has brought another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. Along with the Real Python article on Python memory management, we also talk about another article about creating even and non-even spaced arrays in Python with np.linspace. We share an article titled “The Unholy Way of Using Virtual Environments”. This leads to a ...
Dec 18, 2020•58 min•Ep. 40
Have you started to use generators in Python? Are you unsure why you would even use one over a regular function? How do you use the special “send” method and the “yield from” syntax? This week on the show, we have Reuven Lerner to talk about his PyCon Africa 2020 talk titled “Generators, coroutines, and nanoservices.” Reuven helps developers around the world become more fluent in Python. We talk about some of his teaching techniques and also how he continues to learn. Reuven is a believer in the...
Dec 11, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 39
If you’re coming to Python from a different language, you may not know about a useful tool for working with loops, Python’s built-in enumerate function. This week on the show, David Amos is here, and he has brought another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. Along with the Real Python article covering the details of the enumerate function, we also talk about another article about constructing Python graphical user interface elements in PyQt. David shares a couple of resources for da...
Dec 04, 2020•44 min•Ep. 38
One of the best ways to learn something well is to teach it. This week on the show, we have Kelly Schuster-Paredes and Sean Tibor from the Teaching Python podcast. Sean and Kelly teach middle school students Python and share their art and science of teaching Python on their podcast. They wanted to come on the show to talk about the Real Python articles, quizzes, and other resources they use when teaching their students. We also talk about teaching students how to research topics and use things l...
Nov 27, 2020•50 min•Ep. 37
Are you interested in learning more about Natural Language Processing? Have you heard of sentiment analysis? This week on the show, Kyle Stratis returns to talk about his new article titled, Use Sentiment Analysis With Python to Classify Movie Reviews. David Amos is also here, and all of us cover another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. Kyle discusses an article about distance metrics for machine learning. David shares a Real Python article about Python signal processing and Four...
Nov 20, 2020•57 min•Ep. 36
So you built a web application in Python. Now how are you going to authorize users? Security goes beyond authentication. Who gets to do what, where, and when? This week on the show, we have Sam Scott, chief technology officer from Oso. Oso is an open-source policy engine for authorization that you embed in your application. Sam talks about the typical security and authorization challenges developers face. He discusses building an engine on top of your existing Flask or Django app. We cover the c...
Nov 13, 2020•52 min•Ep. 35
Are you ready to move beyond flat files for your data in Python? Maybe you’re not sure where to start with databases and SQL. This week on the show, David Amos returns with another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. We cover a Real Python article about managing data with SQLite and SQLAlchemy. David explores the intricacies of using the modulo operator (%). We also cover several other articles and projects from the Python community including, how to shoot yourself in the foot with ...
Nov 06, 2020•53 min•Ep. 34
You probably have heard of the bestselling Python book, “Automate the Boring Stuff with Python.” What are the next steps after starting to dabble in the Python basics? Maybe you’ve completed some tutorials, created a few scripts, and automated repetitive tasks in your life. This week on the show, we have author Al Sweigart to talk about his new book, “Beyond the Basic Stuff with Python: Best Practices for Writing Clean Code.” We discuss several topics covered in his new book, including using the...
Oct 30, 2020•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 33
Do you have gaps in your Python learning path? If you’re like me, you may have followed a completely random route to learn Python. This week on the show, David Amos is here to talk about the release of the Real Python book, “Python Basics: A Practical Introduction to Python 3”. The book is designed not only to get beginners up to speed but also to help fill in the gaps many intermediate learners may still have. David has been working on the book for the last two years, and we dive into all the r...
Oct 23, 2020•51 min•Ep. 32
The Python return statement is such a fundamental part of writing functions. Is it possible you missed some best practices when writing your own return statements? This week on the show, David Amos returns with another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. We also talk functional programming again with an article on the Python map function and processing iterables without a loop. We cover several other articles and projects from the Python community including, interactive data visuali...
Oct 16, 2020•47 min•Ep. 31
Python 3.9 has arrived! This week on the show, former guest and Real Python author Geir Arne Hjelle returns to talk about his recent article, “Python 3.9: Cool New Features for You to Try”. Also joining the conversation is Real Python video course instructor and author Christopher Trudeau. Christopher has created a video course, which was released this week also, based on Geir Arne’s article. We talk about time zones, merging dictionaries, the new parser, type hints, and more. Geir Arne and Chri...
Oct 09, 2020•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 30
If you use Python, then you probably have used pip to install additional packages from the Python package index. Part of the magic behind pip is the dependency resolver, and there is a new version of it in the latest version of pip. This week on the show, we have Sumana Harihareswara and Georgia Bullen, who have been working on the recent releases of pip. Sumana is the project manager for pip, and Georgia has been working on pip’s user experience (UX). The resolver is how pip determines what to ...
Oct 02, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 29
