Python Monthly (March 2020)

4th 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 you missed them, you can read the first 3 issues of the Python Monthly 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 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 March as a Python Developer… 🦠

The Best Python Package Ever 🎷

Sure, this won't increase business value (or will it?), and there is probably 324927349734 unnecessary use cases for it, but to me, this is one of the most entertaining packages I have ever seen. Enjoy playing with it here.

How To Use C/C++ in Python 🧬

One of the big benefits of Python is that we have the ability to use C and C++ code with our Python code. How? Using Python Bindings. Python bindings allow you to call functions and pass data from Python to C or C++, letting you take advantage of the strengths of both languages. It's a really powerful feature for advanced use cases and it is good to know how it works. Don't worry, it isn't as hard as you may think.

List 101 + Dict 101 🚪

Everything you ever wanted to know about Lists in Python all in one place with code examples. Not much else to say here. A great thing to review once in a while.

While we are at it, here is the same thing but for Dicts

Python Trees 🐍 🌳

No, we aren't talking about snake filled trees which would be terrifying. We are talking about an important data structure: Trees. This video shows you how to build one using Python and why they are so useful.

Build An Alexa Skill 🚀

A nice project idea for the weekend: build an Alexa voice command skill using Python from scratch to production. What are you going to build?

Jupyter Notebooks Landscape 🏔

This is a great series going over the current landscape of a person using Jupyter Notebooks. In this case, that means a lot of Data Scientists and Machine Learning engineers, but a great read overall to get a high level view of the current practices.

Well Designed Architectures 🏗

An interesting read outlining the principles necessary to design something with good architecture in mind:

Easy to navigate
Easy to modify
Easy to identify side effects
Easy to avoid side effects

This applies to all programming languages.

Django Changes Its Governance Model 🔥

Yep, that title pretty much sums it up. Making some changes in how Django is being managed by contributors and community members. You can read the details here.

Play With COVID 19 Data 🦠

With the whole world's focus on this pandemic, here are some resources for you to use your Python skills to do things like analyze data and build tools around this problem:

Ps we are doing a monthly community coding challenge around this here

ASGI vs WSGI 🤔

An example of how the two models work with Django and some of the historical context around why there are two options when building servers. I highly recommend this read.

Downloading With Python 🎚

An incredible list of all the ways you can download things with Python. Each of these options give you different pros and cons so it is good to be aware of them all.

News Around the World 🗺

Ok, ok, ok... we can't really escape this big piece of news this month that is affecting everyone around the world: COVID 19. Schools have shut down, physical workplaces are going remote, economy is in shambles. Stay safe out there everyone!
India is allowed to trade cryptocurrencies after a ruling was overturned from 2 years ago.
Really strange news around the library core-js.

Big Tech News 🏢

A really interesting survey (only done for Americans) to show the general perception of the public on the big tech companies. I was really surprised to see some of these results.
Ex-Google and Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski must pay Google $179 million. Why? For those that don't know him, he kind of did sketchy things: stealing 14,000 documents from Google containing proprietary information about the company’s self-driving program..."allegedly". Speaking of self driving cars, Waymo (Alphabet company) just announced their latest autonomous driver tech.
Google Cloud Platform announced something people are not happy about. Their GKE clusters that allow you to use Kubernetes on Google servers are adding management fee costs. People are not happy.
Apple had an exciting month: they updated its App Store guidelines to allow iOS app developers to send ads using push notifications. They announced a new iPad Pro and a new keyboard, and a new Macbook Air.
Intel had another security vulnerability discovered on their x86 chip. This is a big one since hardware is hard to update, so all chips have this vulnerability. Bad blow to Intel. The chips are vulnerable during boot-up, so they can't be patched with a firmware update. What can you do? Luckily you just have to not let any bad actors close to your device as the vulnerability can only be used by having physical proximity to the device. Things then got even worse.
Don't worry AMD chips also had their own issues discovered.
Amazon's big first move here. They are trying to be able to sell their software to all grocery stores and retailers in the future. Keep an eye on this. Think AWS for physical retail.
Did you know that Oracle is suing Google? It has been going on for a while, but this article is a nice history lesson of where this battle comes from. It's super interesting.
Bill Gates stepped down from the board of Microsoft so he could focus more on philanthropy. An appropriate time due to this pandemic.
Zuck from Facebook gave us his take on the world today.

Completely useless to your career but still great 🙃

Explore different art pieces from museums around the world from the comfort of your home.

Best Resource of the Month 🥽

Although this isn't necessarily a resource directly affecting you as a Python developer, it is one of the most incredible documentaries I have watched on the power of computing and where we are right now in the world. While you are in quarantine or at your house, take the time to watch this... you will not regret it.

Trick of the Month 🎩

Pretend you're a secret spy and send self destructing messages to your friends with https://burn.link/.
Stream radio of popular services like Netflix, Hulu, HBO, etc...

And remember, dealing with isolation is not suppose to be easy. Stay safe out there and take care of yourself. This may help. See you next month everyone!

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.