Python Monthly (May 2020) | Zero To Mastery

**6th issue! If you missed the previous ones, you can read the previous 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 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 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 May as a Python Developer…

53 Python Interview Questions 🏔

Test your Python knowledge by trying out these 53 Python interview questions. You may learn a thing or two along the way. Let me know how you did!

Pandas Basketball ⛹️‍♀️

A fun project for you to try out while learning about the popular tool, Pandas. Learn to calculate and monitor NBA player streaks and have fun along the way.

If you are new to Pandas though, I recommend this tutorial to get started.

Project To Try This Weekend ⛲️

A fun project for you to try building this weekend. This time around, you will generate thousands of different lightsabers using Python.

Python Developer Survey 📊

A popular Python Developer survey to show you what the rest of the community is doing with Python. Some interesting findings!

Another one: This is probably the best developer survey that comes out once a year and a great indication of trends to watch out for in the coming months. This year's survey results do not disappoint. I will be writing about some of the interesting patterns soon, but for now, check out the results here. What are your thoughts?

Python Performance 🥁

An interesting discussion around the topic of performance with python in an interview format. The interview is with some smart figures in the python community (like core developers).

Using The Collections Module 🧱

One of the most popular modules in Python, the collections module, has some really useful features. Read this tutorial on how to use some of these features to improve your programs.

Go Beyong PEP8 🧼

Have you ever wondered: "What is good Python code?" You may have heard of PEP8 as the standard, but what if you wanted to go beyond and follow the best practices? This resource will break down everything for you.

Python vs JavaScript 👯‍♂️

A look at the 2 most popular languages in the world. The similarities and differences. It's a good idea to learn both but this article should do the trick in summarizing the key comparisons.

AI That Writes Python 🤖

OpenAI, the big player in AI research recently announced they were able to create a machine learning model that can write Python code. Will your job become obsolete? Probably not, but this is very cool.

Everything About Asyncio 🤔

Asyncio is one of the most popular modules in Python, and it recently became officially part of Python with version 3.8. Being able to do concurrency with this module brings about a lot of power to you as a programmer. Use these 3 resources to really master this amazing power:

Never Leave Github Again 🌊

NPM, Visual Studio Code, Github. Microsoft is on a tear with the web development world. Now they have introduced a feature to use a code editor straight on Github so that you never leave your favourite website again. Get the full Visual Studio Code experience without leaving GitHub.

PS. They also just opened up a beta version of code scanning which looks promising (never push your secrets to Github by mistake again!)

News Around the World 🗺

The sale of the .org registry to a private entity has been put on a hold after a loud community outcry. If you want more background on this, read it here.

Big Tech News 🏢

Amazon had a rollercoaster of a month. One of their Engineering VPs left Amazon due to their handling of some employees and wrote a public piece about them that went viral. Do you ever get confused by 4870127340127 services that AWS offers? Here is a resource that explains each one of them in a single line.
Facebook's iOS sdk crashed a lot of iphone apps that were using Facebook inside their app (like for Facebook logins). It made a lot of people freak out. They also launched a new chatbot that it claims is able to demonstrate empathy, knowledge and personality... too bad they used Reddit to train the machine learning model. Also Facebook bought Giphy for 400 million dollars. Yes... you read that right. The most insane value for a business that nobody probably thought would make any money.
Twitter will start allowing employees to work remotely from now on. The world of tech is changing with more and more remote work. Expect many companies to follow.
Big news out of Apple as they expand the Swift programming language to support Windows and Linux.
SoftBank and its Vision Fund isn't doing too well.
MongoDB is in hot water after a researcher claims that they don't have the data consistency claims that they make.
Research out of Google shows that 70% of security problems on the web are due to memory safety. This explains why languages like Rust are becoming more popular instead of C/C++ for low level programming.

Completely useless to your career but still great 🙃

Listen to a song at the same time with a complete stranger in the world.

Big month for space travel.

Best Resource of the Month 🥽

What does the modern Python development workflow look like? This is an article that goes a little over the top, but it shows you some of the "hyper" modern way you can develope Python programs. An interesting article with tools that you should be aware of. Enjoy the read and stay up to date!

Trick of the Month 🎩

pyc files can contain secrets and should not be checked in to source control. Use the standard Python .gitignore.
A search engine just for developers

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.