Python Monthly 💻🐍

17th issue! If you missed the previous ones, you can read the previous issues of my monthly Python newsletter here.

If it’s your first time here… (otherwise, skip this part)

Being a Python developer is a fantastic career option. Python is now the most popular language with lots of growing job demand (especially in the fields of Web, Data Science and Machine Learning). You have many job opportunities, you can work around the world, and you get to solve hard problems.

One thing that is hard, however, is staying up to date with the constantly evolving ecosystem. You want to be a top-performing python developer, coder, programmer, software developer, but you don’t have time to select from hundreds of articles, videos and podcasts each day.

This is the best Python newsletter for you if you want to keep up to date with the industry and keep your skills sharp, without wasting your valuable time.

I curate and share the most important articles, news, resources, podcasts and videos of the month.

Think Tim Ferriss and the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) meeting the Python world. What’s the 20% that will get you 80% of the results?

Let's dive in. Here's what you missed in April 2021 as a Python Developer…

The Norway Problem 🇳🇴

countries:

• GB
• IE
• FR
• DE
• NO

There is an interesting problem that happens when you encounter Norway. Using Python, explore this weird problem and see how to solve it.

Weekend Project Idea 🎏

What better way to spend your weekend than to actually contribute to the Python language. Sounds too hard to do? Don't worry, it's not as bad as you may think and this guide will walk you through the steps so you can call yourself a "contributor".

Beating Real Estate With Python 🏡

Beat the Berlin Rental Market With a Python Script shows you the real world application of your programming skills. The hardest part is figuring out what problem you want to solve through coding.

What is Werkzeug? 🛶

Werkzeug is a collection of libraries that can be used to create a WSGI (Web Server Gateway Interface) compatible web application in Python.

A WSGI server is necessary for Python web applications since a web server cannot communicate directly with Python. WSGI is an interface between a web server and a Python-based web application.

Put another way, Werkzeug provides a set of utilities for creating a Python application that can talk to a WSGI server. Learn about it here.

Python Packages in 2021 🛢

Creating packages in Python for other programmers around the world is not as tough as you may think. You just have to follow these steps: How to make an awesome Python package in 2021.

Free Python Books 📗

For those learners that prefer books over video content for learning python, well I have some good news for you! Here is a massive list of free Python books that you can get access to. Enjoy.

PyCharm 2021.1 🎨

The #1 code editor for Python developers got a nice upgrade. Try out new out-of-the-box collaborative development tool, auto-import for module member completion, and enhanced WSL support.

Flask 2.0 Testers 🔬

Flask 2.0 will be coming out soon and you can help the team test the new big update and helping out the community! Check out the details here to make your contribution.

Python 3.10 Errors 💡

Improved error messages are coming to Python! Small little update but small things like this is what continues to make the language great.

Run Python In Web Browser 🤳

How can you run Python on the web like we can with JavaScript? Did you know there was something called Pyodide? Pyodide consists of the CPython 3.8 interpreter compiled to WebAssembly which allows Python to run in the browser. Exciting times...

OrderedDict vs dict in Python 🥇

Sometimes you need a Python dictionary that remembers the order of its items. In the past, you had only one tool for solving this specific problem: Python’s OrderedDict. It’s a dictionary subclass specially designed to remember the order of items, which is defined by the insertion order of keys.

This changed in Python 3.6. The built-in dict class now keeps its items ordered as well. Because of that, many in the Python community now wonder if OrderedDict is still useful. A closer look at OrderedDict will uncover that this class still provides valuable features.

News Around the World 🗺

• There seems to be a security breach every day now. A few happened this month. Always a good idea to use https://haveibeenpwned.com/ to check if your data is safe and sound

• Brave browser is removing FLoC capabilities from their browsers for security reasons. If you don't know what FLoC is, we have talked about it in the last 2 issues in this newsletter. You can use this Chrome plugin to block FLoC. If you keep going down the rabbit hole, then you will end up here like I did

• A very interesting and entertaining read of what exactly happened with the SolarWinds. A 'Worst Nightmare' Cyberattack: The Untold Story Of The SolarWinds Hack

• Signal's CEO Just Hacked the Cops' Favorite Phone Cracking Tool and Became a Legend

Big Tech News 🏢

• The big news of the month was the resolution in courts between Oracle and Google. It has been a battle, years in the works, with important consequences for the ruling. For now most people think the "right" company won. Google copying [11,000 lines of Java code for Android is fair use]. Read the full details here. API reimplementation is fair use as a matter of law, meaning that the decision applies to all APIs we have

• Facebook founder cares about privacy

• Amazon is building its own chips! Watch out Intel, AMD, Apple and Google. They also just forked their own version of ElasticSearch + Kibana and called it OpenSearch

• Neuralink is doing weird Neuralink things with monkeys

• Alibaba is having a tough 2021 with all the problems they are encountering with government regulations. Alibaba hit with $2.8 billion fine in China antitrust case

• Microsoft is spending lots of money lately. Although their deal to purchase Discord fell through, they still spent $16 billion buying this company. They also released some new surface laptops

• Apple had their big conference where they released a bunch of new products including the new AirTag

Completely useless to your career but still great 🙃

• Did you know that Microsoft coffee was an actual thing?

• Probably the best website ever. Can you create something like this?

• Biggest Google Earth update in years: Travel through time.

Best Resource of the Month 🥽

Sometimes life feels like a never ending grind towards learning, improving and productivity. You're always looking for more. However, remember that you are not behind.

Trick of the Month 🎩

• Code with Mu: a simple Python editor for beginner programmers

• Instant Python Refactoring tool. Free tier available

• There is a new browser in town: Mighty which makes chrome 10x faster

• Become a more productive developer

See you next month everyone!

By the way, I teach people how to code and get hired in the most efficient way possible as the Lead Instructor of Zero To Mastery Academy. You can see a few of my courses below or see all ZTM courses here.