Python Monthly Newsletter 💻🐍

Welcome to the 58th 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 September 2024 as a Python Developer…

Python History 📟

Python 3.13 is coming out soon and it's a big deal. Before it comes out, you should learn a little history about the GIL which is a big discussion topic in the Python world this year. Enjoy this history lesson.

Template Method 🧱

Template Method is a design pattern. This is useful when you have a series of steps that need to be executed in a specific order, but the implementation of some steps may vary. A design pattern is usually a tried and tested construct for solving a common problem with code. Here is how to use it using Python.

Python Built-Ins 🧮

A good guide going over the most useful Python built-in functions. If you haven't used some of these before, this article will give you good examples of how you might use them in your code: Layman's Guide to Python Built-in Functions

Weekend Project Idea 🧰

Python has evolved, and simply defaulting to Requests is no longer an option. While Requests remains a solid choice for short synchronous scripts to call onto APIs, newer libraries like HTTPX and AIOHTTP are better suited for modern Python, especially when it comes to asynchronous programming.

Learn how to use these newer tools and build something this weekend using this guide.

Python Drama 💣

Us programmers are known to be.. umm... opinionated. Here is some Python soap opera for those who want a little gossip.

Passwords are Hard 🪜

This is a great question: how do you safely share passwords especially in a company? What follows is an interesting discussion around best practices that will surely make you a little smarter.

News Around the World 🗺

• All is well in the world and people don't care about elections or wars. Everyone is happy.

Big Tech News 🏢

• Big tech news is all AI news these days. The big story is OpenAI. First off, OpenAI co-founder Sutskever's new safety-focused AI startup SSI raises $1 billion. He left OpenAI under secret circumstances, but most people agree it's due to the direction OpenAI was taking. A few other big players left after OpenAI announced they want to become a for-profit company.

• OpenAI’s new o1 chain-of-thought models released this month is actually very impressive and a promising direction. Here is why it's a big deal.

• Infinity.ai is doing something very cool. Infinity is a video foundation model that allows you to craft your characters and then bring them to life. Bring any historical figure to life.

• Nvidia keeps making money but they had a big shock this month: the DOJ is looking at an Anti Trust case against them.

• Google released Illuminate: Transform your content into engaging AI‑generated audio discussions...this is very cool. Goodbye podcasts?

• TSMC’s first Arizona chips are now in production, and Apple is ready to be the first with mobile processors made using the foundry’s 5nm process in America. Big geopolitical implications here.

• Meta released Orion, previously codenamed Project Nazare, which they say is the most advanced pair of AR glasses ever made.

• Meta also released Llama 3.2, which includes small and medium-sized vision LLMs (11B and 90B), and lightweight, text-only models (1B and 3B) that fit onto edge and mobile devices, including pre-trained and instruction-tuned versions. People are REALLY excited about this and the performance for the models.

Completely useless to your career but still great 🙃

• Experience the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing. Seriously, this may be the coolest thing you see this month.

• How long can you do nothing?

Best Resource of the Month 🥽

People cannot stop talking about AI in our industry. This is the biggest topic of discussion and many opinions vary on the future of tech and tech workers. So why not follow an actual scientific study looking at this: The Effects of Generative AI on High Skilled Work: Evidence from Three Field Experiments with Software Developers. This study evaluates the impact of generative AI on software developer productivity by analyzing data from three randomized controlled trials conducted at Microsoft, Accenture, and an anonymous Fortune 100 electronics manufacturing company/

You can see the discussion around this study here.

Want to know my thoughts on all of this? I've talked about it here (you need to be logged in to view).

Trick of the Month 🎩

• CodeViz - You spend half your day reading code. Visualize & navigate your codebase, from architecture to functions. Looks promising!

• Make hand-drawn style wireframes quickly and easily for free: https://frame0.app/

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.