Python Monthly 💻🐍

1st issue! That's right, you're right at the beginning of this journey! If there is enough interest, I will keep doing these every month so please share it with your friends!

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 Web, Data Science and Machine Learning field). 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 monthly newsletter is focused on keeping you up to date with the industry, keeping your skills sharp, without wasting your valuable time. I will be sharing the most important articles, podcasts and videos of the month. Think Tim Ferriss and the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) meeting the Software Development world. What’s the 20% that will get you 80% of the results?

What you missed in December as a Python Developer…

---

Python 3 Features You Should Use 🐍

New year is almost upon us. So that means you get with the times which is Python 3! We know that Python 2 will be sunset in 2020 so the best thing you can do is to familiarize yourself with some Python 3 best practices and tricks. Start by reading this.

Ps Python 3.8.1 is officially out!

Advanced Python Topics 🧬

Sure, this link refers to "intermediate" python topics, but the idea is that this resource introduces you to some non-beginner topics that are important for you to learn if you want to go beyond the basics. Bookmark this excellent resource.

The Best Talks of the Year 🎬

I was planning on releasing these for my Python Developer Year in Review in a few days (subscribe below to get notified when that is out), but I can't keep secrets. So here are my favourite tech talks from the year that I think everyone should watch. Some of them are long, but trust me on this: You will come out of it, a lot smarter than you started:

• Preventing the Collapse of Civilization. Software is getting better... or is it?
• Python Bytecode. What is it? This will blow your mind.

Poetry 1.0.0 Is Here! 🎈

A popular Python tool that makes Python packaging and dependency management easy. Their version 1 is officially out and I really recommend this tool for your next project.

Python Tips/Tricks 🧩

There are a lot of these articles out there, but this one does a great job on keeping things short and concise. Inversely, this one tells you what NOT to do in Python.

And here is a nice roundup of more obscure(rare) python tricks you may have not seen before.

Finally, here is a completely confusing list of tricks that you probably will never encounter in your day to day but still will blow your mind.

Django 3.0 Is Out 🍾

The popular web framework Django got a new makeover with the latest 3.0 release. Followed by a quick security fix.

If you want a quick recap of what has changed, you can watch this excellent video.

Bye Bye Guido 🎺

Guido van Rossum the inventor of Python is withdrawing from the Python Steering Council. The reason? Because being part of the council is not fun. You can read his reasoning here.

What's A Python Descriptor? 🦉

Descriptors are Python objects that implement a method of the descriptor protocol, which gives you the ability to create objects that have special behavior when they’re accessed as attributes of other objects. No idea what any of that means? Well, you can learn all about them here.

Python Performance 🚀

Everyone loves a good performance talk when it comes to anything programming. Python isn't always the fastest language to use, but there are small things you can do to make sure that you don't have performance bottlenecks. Check out this resource for some important things to keep in mind.

End to End Machine Learning 🤖

It's always tough to learn Machine Learning no matter how much you try. One of the best ways to learn something though is to see a product around the topic build from start to finish and with a real world application. Read this article to see how Python is used in Machine Learning and to build and fully production ready product.

Ps. In a few weeks I will be releasing a Full Machine Learning and Data Science Course... Zero to Mastery. Stay tuned!

Python On Hardware 🛰

Python became popular because it is developer friendly and it has applications all over the software world. One of the really interesting things you can now do with Python is using it for programming hardware devices like IoT with something called MicroPython. Someone even built their own business credit card with it.

How To Scrape? 🤔

Scrapy is a popular framework for scraping data with Python. In this tutorial, you can get a basic rundown of how to use this popular tool for all your data collection needs.

Funnest Way To Learn SQL 🌅

Hey, you still need to know SQL as a Python Developer. But the topic can sometimes be tough and not very interesting when you get started. How about learning it with a Murder Mystery?

Python Package Security ☔️

You should always be careful what library or package you add to any project. When it comes to Python, a few packages were seen stealing secret SSH keys and GPG keys. Always use packages you trust that have been verified by the community. You can read the details about one of them here.

Around the World 🗺️

• Well, there goes all of my Chinese audience (this will surely be blocked now): Uyghur facial recognition system in China for potential discrimination gets rolled out across the country.
• Kashmir WhatsApp users are getting kicked off of the service because of account inactivity... you know, because they don't have internet access.

Big Tech News 🏢

This year has not been a great year for the tech giants in North America with a lot of talk about their market dominance, privacy issues, and other anti-trust related issues:

• Google has a dominant position when it comes to search. Other options like Cliqz are trying to have more options for search engines, and there is a website showing you how NOT to Chrome. Finally, browsers like Brave are starting to increase their user base and of course FireFox is rolling out more and more security features to be anti Google. On another note, Google's co-founders have officially stepped down from their company to spend time swimming in their money pool. Pichai is the boss now.

On a brighter note, Google satellite images cover 98% of the global population now. Curious what the remaining 2% is located...They are also planning on taking over the dominant role in Cloud computing by 2023 and beat out Microsoft and Amazon. So expect big investments in Google Cloud in the coming years.

• Microsoft recently released the Xbox Series X

• Amazon is slowly taking over the logistics and delivery business of UPS and FedEx. Over half of their Amazon packages are now delivered by them (Amazon). They are getting a little sneaky with FedEx.

• Facebook is building their own operating system for VR and AR.

• Apple may be working on its own satellites.

• Lyft lets your rent cars now.

• Amazon, Google, Apple, Ikea, Samsung and others team up to develop an open source smart home standard for their IoT devices so that things work well together. We will see if the kids play nice.

Outside of North America...

• TikTok has some privacy concern and this person did a rundown of some of the privacy issues discovered in this popular app.

Completely useless to your career but still great 🙃

Ever wondered how to write the Hello World program in 100s of programming languages besides Python? Wonder no more!

Best Resource of the Month 🥽

Some things are really hard to learn when you are just starting out and you don't have too much real world experience. Luckily every once in a while there comes an article that is able to teach important concepts that are crucial when you start to think like a senior developer. This article is one of those and teaches you how to structure your Python projects. And this one teaches you how to have a proper code style.

One more... and this one is a little future hint of something I'm working on geared towards efficient learning. Something that I think will be more and more important in the future for any career. From the Article: "When I was in college, a particularly earnest philosophy grad student once told me that he never cared what grade he got in a class, only what he learned in it. This stuck in my mind because it was the only time I ever heard anyone say such a thing."

Trick of the Month 🎩

Here are some evil bash commands you should NOT run in your own or your friend's terminal. Use this knowledge responsibly.

See you next month and Happy New Year!

By the way, my full time job is to teach people to code 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 of my courses by visiting the courses page.