How do you prepare a scientific Python project for sharing with others? Could you use some best practices and guidance for packaging, documentation, and testing? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. We talk about the creation of the Scientific Python Library Development Guide. The guide was finalized during the 2023 Scientific Python Developer Summit and is a resource for modern packaging. It includes sections of tut...
Oct 27, 2023•57 min•Ep. 178
You may remember a recent Python Package Index (PyPI) announcement about hiring a full-time security engineer. We’ve also mentioned several current security initiatives from PyPI. This week on the show, we talk with Mike Fiedler about accepting this new role and securing accounts on PyPI. Mike talks about how he started as a contributor to PyPI and eventually became a maintainer. We dig into why he fits this new role well and what his responsibilities are. We discuss the initiative to secure acc...
Oct 20, 2023•59 min•Ep. 177
What fundamental developer skills are new Python users missing? What best practices might developers without a computer science background be lacking? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. Christopher opens our discussion by sharing a recent social media thread about teaching software engineering best practices to scientists and others without a computer science background. We talk about software design philosophy and...
Oct 13, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 176
Python 3.12 is here! Our regular guests, Geir Arne Hjelle and Christopher Trudeau, return to discuss the new version. Geir Arne coordinated a series of preview articles with several members of the Real Python team this year, and his showcase tutorial, “Python 3.12: Cool New Features for You to Try,” came out on October 2. Christopher’s video course was posted the next day, covering the topics from the article with visual examples of Python 3.12 in action. Geir Arne and Christopher collaborated t...
Oct 06, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 175
What can you learn from feeding an entire book on Python programming into ChatGPT-4 and asking it to provide a technical review? What are the potential pitfalls of using an LLM as a learning tool? This week on the show, author Al Sweigart talks about his recent experiments using ChatGPT and Python. Al wanted to test how well an LLM could understand the computer science concepts covered in his recent book, The Recursive Book of Recursion . We talk about the positive and negative results of this t...
Sep 29, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 174
Have you thought about contributing to an open-source Python project? What are possible entry points for intermediate developers? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. We discuss a recent article by Stefanie Molin called “5 Ways to Get Started in Open Source.” Christopher shares his experience with suggesting features and potential bug fixes. We talk about common entry points for beginners and provide additional resou...
Sep 22, 2023•48 min•Ep. 173
When choosing a tool for profiling Python code performance, should it focus on the CPU, GPU, memory, or individual lines of code? What if it looked at all those factors and didn’t alter code performance while measuring it? This week on the show, we talk about Scalene with Emery Berger, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Emery talks about his background in memory management and his collaboration on Hoard, a scalable memory manager system used in Mac OS X. We...
Sep 15, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 172
Are you writing efficient Python with as few lines of code as possible? Are you familiar with the many built-in language features that will simplify your code and make it more Pythonic? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. We discuss a recent post from Bob Belderbos titled “Make Each Line Count, Keeping Things Simple in Python.” We provide many of our favorite Pythonic examples and the language mistakes that we’ve le...
Sep 08, 2023•51 min•Ep. 171
What should you consider when picking a font for coding in Python? What characters and their respective glyphs should you check before making your decision? This week on the show, we talk with Real Python author and core team member Philipp Acsany about his recent article, Choosing the Best Coding Font for Programming. Philipp shares some of his background as a font engineer and graphic designer. We talk about how font design tools were his introduction to programming in Python. We discuss how t...
Sep 01, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 170
How can you improve a classification model while avoiding overfitting? Once you have a model, what tools can you use to explain it to others? This week on the show, we talk with author and Python trainer Matt Harrison about his new book Effective XGBoost: Tuning, Understanding, and Deploying Classification Models. Matt talks about the process of developing the book and how he wanted it to be an interactive experience for the reader. He explains the concept of gradient boosting and provides metap...
Aug 25, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 169
Have you ever encountered strange behavior when trying something new in Python? What are common quirks hiding within the language? This week on the show, Christopher Trudeau is here, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. We discuss a recent blog post that lists a collection of quirky Python behaviors. We share a few examples with explanations but leave several as puzzles to dig into. Christopher transitions our discussion into Python features that can be difficult to ...
Aug 11, 2023•49 min•Ep. 168
What are the new ways to describe your data in pandas 2.0? Will the addition of Apache Arrow to the data back end foster the growth of data interoperability? This week on the show, we talk with pandas core developer Marc Garcia about the release of pandas 2.0. Marc shares his background and work on pandas. We discuss the history of data representation in pandas and the need to move beyond NumPy. We also talk about how Apache Arrow only solves some of the issues. We dig into the potential of an A...
Aug 04, 2023•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 167
What are all the different versions of Python? You may have heard of Cython, Brython, PyPy, or others and wondered where they fit into the Python landscape. This week on the show, Christopher Trudeau is here, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. Christopher shares an article from the Bite Code blog about all the different forms that Python can take. CPython is the reference implementation of the language, which is what we usually discuss. He lists several alternative...
Jul 28, 2023•46 min•Ep. 166
Are you getting the most out of your Postgres database? What features could you leverage to improve your Python project? This week on the show, Craig Kerstiens from Crunchy Data is here to discuss getting the most out of Postgres. Craig shares his years of PostgreSQL expertise with advice on getting more from the platform. We talk about rich data types for describing ranges, geospatial data, and JSON. Craig shares tools for accessing performance statistics from the command line and strategies fo...
Jul 21, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 165
What principles should you consider when designing a Python library? How do you construct a library API that’s understandable and easy to use? This week on the show, Christopher Trudeau is here, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. We share an article about building library APIs. The piece provides advice for package structure, naming, error handling, and more. The author guides you toward Pythonic principles by comparing clunky vs elegant design examples. Christophe...
Jul 14, 2023•51 min•Ep. 164
How much Python do you need to learn to start creating projects? What’s a good balance of information and hands-on practice? This week on the show, Eric Matthes is here to discuss his book Python Crash Course. As a former high school science, math, and programming teacher, Eric saw something missing in the programming publishing landscape. We discuss the guiding questions that inspired the book’s development and the title. Eric covers how the crash course takes readers through a fast-paced intro...
Jul 07, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 163
What advice can you extract from the Zen of Python? How can these nineteen guiding principles help you write more idiomatic Python? This week on the show, Christopher Trudeau is here, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. Christopher shares a Real Python tutorial by Bartosz Zaczyński titled “What’s the Zen of Python?” We talk about the poem’s origin and ways to access the Zen within Python. We also discuss how different sections provide contradictory advice for what m...
Jun 30, 2023•50 min•Ep. 162
Are you looking to advance your CircuitPython projects? Would you like a collection of resources and tools to help you along your path? This week on the show, Tod Kurt is here to discuss building projects with CircuitPython. Tod has been working with embedded electronics for a long time and has been an active member of the Arduino community. He recently started to build projects using CircuitPython, and it has become his preferred prototype method. He shares software resources, hardware tools, a...
Jun 23, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 161
What are the unique challenges of a large Python code base? What techniques can you implement to simplify the management of a big project? This week on the show, Christopher Trudeau is here, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. We discuss a recent thread on Hacker News about working with a large Python code base. Christopher advises configuring tests and using tools to keep your code consistent across an organization. He also answers several questions about code comp...
Jun 16, 2023•49 min•Ep. 160
Have you thought about getting more involved in the Python community? Are you interested in volunteering for an event or becoming an organizer? This week on the show, we speak with organizers from this year’s PyCascades conference about making connections, learning new skills, and rationing your time. We have three guests to discuss working on PyCascades 2023 and how they got involved in volunteering. Conference Chair Ben Berry, a site reliability engineer based in Seattle, is currently working ...
Jun 09, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 159
Do you need a refresher on using Docker with Python? Would you like to learn how to configure a continuous integration pipeline with modern tools and Docker? This week on the show, Christopher Trudeau is here, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. We share a Real Python tutorial from Bartosz Zaczyński about building continuous integration with Docker. Docker provides consistent environments for configuring, testing, and delivering Python applications. In this tutorial...
Jun 02, 2023•53 min•Ep. 158
Would you like to speed up your Python machine-learning code dramatically? What if you only had to change a few keywords and add a couple of type hints on portions of your code? This week on the show, Christopher Trudeau is here, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. We discuss a new programming language named Mojo, which is a superset of Python. It aims to fix Python’s performance and deployment problems. The project has many interesting ideas and a leader who has he...
May 26, 2023•55 min•Ep. 157
How do Python virtual environments work under the hood? How does understanding these concepts help you with managing them for your projects? This week on the show, CPython core developer Brett Cannon returns to discuss his recent articles about virtual environments and the Python packaging landscape. Brett talks about his recent article “How Virtual Environments Work.” He was researching the topic to solve an issue with a Linux Python distribution that doesn’t provide the tools to create virtual...
May 12, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 156
How can you ensure that you’ve appropriately declared your project’s required dependencies? How do you determine what dependencies are missing from a third-party project that you can’t run? This week on the show, Christopher Trudeau is here, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. We discuss a new Python dependency checker called FawltyDeps. The tool helps you determine if you’ve declared too few or too many packages for your project. Christopher has brought several dev...
May 05, 2023•38 min•Ep. 155
Are you familiar with the different versions of WebAssembly? Could WASM be the “write once, run everywhere” solution that developers have searched for? Where does distributing Python applications fit in the narrative? This week on the show, we have CPython core developer Brett Cannon to discuss his recent articles about WebAssembly and MVPy. Brett has completed his syntactic sugar series, which we discussed in a previous episode. He details the origin of the series and his process of unearthing ...
Apr 28, 2023•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 154
What can you do if your text manipulation in Python is slowing you down? Are there faster alternatives using a compiled extension? This week on the show, Christopher Trudeau is here, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. Christopher shares a recent article by Itamar Turner-Trauring called “Speeding Up Text Processing in Python (Is Hard).” The piece compares the performance of string-matching scenarios using several alternatives to pure Python that rely on compiled ext...
Apr 14, 2023•43 min•Ep. 153
Are you exploring automation of your repetitive business tasks with Python? How are you going to share your helpful tools with co-workers? This week on the show, Sampo Ahokas from Robocorp is here to discuss robotic process automation (RPA) and distribution of these robots. Sampo is a co-founder and VP of engineering at Robocorp. We talk about using Robot Framework, an open-source RPA tool, to develop bots that implement your existing Python skills. Sampo shares example projects and additional r...
Apr 07, 2023•50 min•Ep. 152
Have you ever installed a Python package without knowing anything about it? What best practices should you employ to ensure the quality of your next package installation? Christopher Trudeau is back this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. We also have Python Software Foundation executive director, Deb Nicholson, to share details about PyCon US 2023. We cover a recent Real Python tutorial by Philipp Acsany on evaluating the quality of Python packages. The piec...
Mar 31, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 151
What are the core lessons you’ve learned along your Python development journey? What are key takeaways you would share with new users of the language? This week on the show, Duarte Oliveira e Carmo is here to discuss his recent talk, “Four Years of Python.” Duarte works at the crossroads of machine learning, data science, and software engineering. He began using Python in his graduate studies and never looked back. In 2021, he wrote a blog post about some of the valuable lessons he’s learned. Th...
Mar 24, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 150
Have you explored Python’s collections module? Within it, you’ll find a powerful factory function called namedtuple(), which provides multiple enhancements over the standard tuple for writing clearer and cleaner code. This week on the show, Christopher Trudeau is here, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects. Christopher discusses his Real Python video course about writing more Pythonic code using namedtuple(). With namedtuple(), you can create immutable sequence types t...
Mar 17, 2023•53 min•Ep. 149
