Python Monthly Newsletter 💻🐍

Welcome to the 60th issue of Python Monthly!

If it’s your first time here, welcome, I like you already. If you want the full back story on this monthly newsletter, head here.

The quick version: I curate and share the most important Python articles, news, resources, podcasts, and videos.

Think the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) meeting the Python world. I give you the 20% that will get you 80% of the results.

If you're a long time reader, welcome back old friend.

Alright, let's not waste any valuable time and jump right into this month's updates.

Here's what you missed in November 2024 as a Python Developer…

State of Python 3.13 🎆

CPython 3.13 was released last month and this release is the most performance-oriented in some time. Some of the main drivers of these performance gains are:

1. CPython can now run in free-threaded mode, with the global interpreter lock (GIL) disabled
2. A brand new just-in-time (JIT) compiler has been added
3. CPython now bundles the mimalloc allocator out of the box

In this article, you will learn about the free-threaded mode, enjoy.

Opposite of Cloud Native 🪞

Should you go all-in on the cloud? What is the opposite of cloud-native? This article explores this.

Those on the side of “build for the cloud” often frame this as cloud-native. By that, they mean you should look at every single service offered by your cloud provider when architecting your application and generally the more services you pull together the better... But is that actually better?

Python Puzzles 💡

Bored at work? Instead of working, why not just play around with some Python puzzles to improve your problem solving skills. I'm sure your boss won't mind.

Octoverse Results Reveal 🐙

There are 2 big annual surveys in our industry:

1. The Stackoverflow survey
2. The Octoverse survey which is done by the team at Github

The results for 2024 Octoverse are in and there are some interesting insights in the report. I recommend everyone read through everything to stay on top of the industry trends.

Some of my highlights:

• Python is now the most used language on GitHub: In 2024, Python overtook JavaScript as the most popular language on GitHub, while Jupyter Notebooks skyrocketed—both of which underscore the surge in data science and machine learning on GitHub.

• A.I. adoption is growing significantly: The use of AI tools like GitHub Copilot is on the rise, with 73% of open source respondents reporting they use these tools for coding or documentation.

About GPU Computing 🤖

Trust me on this one. Read it.

Most programmers have some understanding of the basics of CPUs and sequential programming because they grow up writing code for the CPU, but many are less familiar with the inner workings of GPUs and what makes them so special.

Over the past decade, GPUs have become incredibly important because of their pervasive use in deep learning and these AI tools we keep hearing about. Today, it is essential for every software engineer to possess a basic understanding of how they work. This article helps you get this understanding.

Threads vs Async/Await 🛠

An interesting article around the topic of Threads vs Async/Await.

Which is better? When should one be used over the other?

This is programming language agnostic and an interesting read for any programmer out there to upgrade their knowledge base of programming theory.

News Around the World 🗺

• Evidence of oldest known alphabetic writing was unearthed in ancient Syrian city. some 500 years older than other known discoveries.

• Not much more to report. Everyone is happy in the world... right?

Big Tech News 🏢

• Big news out of OpenAI is the new ChatGPT Search: Get fast, timely answers with links to relevant web sources... this is a big Google search competitor.

• Out of all the big tech companies, I like Apple because their focus on security is much more tied into their product. What does that mean? It means that they are more interested in providing data protection than most other tech companies (because their main revenue isn't advertising). Their latest announcement is really exciting: Private Cloud Compute... they never store your data and it's the best model for AI privacy so far.

• This is big news: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome in their push to enforce antitrust measures against Google search. If this happens, this could have rippling effects.

• Big news out from Starlink: Starlink direct to cell is coming, and I'm excited about it.

• OpenAI, Google and Anthropic are starting to reach their limits. A new report suggests they are struggling to build more advanced AI and they are seeing diminishing returns from their costly efforts to develop newer models.

• Amazon is planning to invest another $4 billion in Anthropic. This is an interesting deal for Amazon because as one hackernews user mentions:

Curious if anyone knows the logistics of these cloud provider/AI company deals. In this case, it seems like the terms of the deal mean that Anthropic ends up spending most of the investment on AWS to pay for training.

Does anthropic basically get at cost pricing on AWS? If Amazon has any margin on their pricing, it seems like this $4B investment ends up costing them a lot less, and this is a nice way to turn a cap ex investment into AWS revenue.

Response:

Yes exactly.

This was the brilliance of the original MSFT investment into OpenAI. It was an investment in Azure scaling its AI training infra, but roundabout through a massive customer (exactly what you’d want as a design partner) and getting equity.

I’m sure Anthropic negotiated a great deal on their largest cost center, while Amazon gets a huge customer to build out their system with.

-- tyre

Completely useless to your career but still great 🙃

• Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube” that allowed users to upload videos directly to YouTube from the Photos app. This has now created an interesting corner of the internet: IMG_0416

• Netlify just got to 5 million developers, and to celebrate they built this incredible web experience... I spent way too much time playing with this.

Best Resource of the Month 🥽

A nice and short one for this month, but it's a goodie: Algorithms we develop software by.

The article talks about some good heuristics you can use throughout your career, and I have to admit, I agree with all of these points.

This also reminds me of an important principle on learning. I feel a lot of the newer generation developers are missing this as they look for the "easy way"... which is a bad mentality to have. Why?

There are a lot of videos on YouTube/TikTok etc. that give the appearance of education, but if you look closely they are really just entertainment. This is very convenient for everyone involved: the people watching enjoy thinking they are learning (but actually they are just having fun). The people creating this content also enjoy it because fun has a much larger audience, fame and revenue.

But as far as learning goes, this is a trap. This content is an epsilon away from watching the Bachelorette. It's like snacking on those "Garden Veggie Straws", which feel like you're eating healthy vegetables until you look at the ingredients.

Learning is not supposed to be fun.

It doesn't have to be actively not fun either, but the primary feeling should be that of effort. It should look a lot less like that "10 minute full body" workout from your local digital media creator and a lot more like a serious session at the gym. You want the mental equivalent of sweating. It's not that the quickie doesn't do anything, it's just that it is wildly suboptimal if you actually care to learn.

-- Andrej Karpathy

Trick of the Month 🎩

• Claude (my A.I. tool of choice) recently released Claude for Desktop. It's really good and it's what I use 99% of the time now.
• For Mac users only, but a nice couple of little tricks for the command line.

See you next month everyone... also share this with your friends... pretty please! ❤️

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