Python Monthly 💻🐍

**10th 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 September as a Python Developer…

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Python Data Structures 🧱

Data structures are the pillars of programming. Without data structures in our programming languages, we would have unorganized, not very performant code (or at least it makes our life really hard without them). Luckily for you, here is a guide for the commonly used Python data structures.

Learn **= and -= 🛰

Did you know the above two things are actually called augmented arithmetic assignment in Python? Learn what they do and how it can help you write possibly cleaner code.

Python To Start The Day ⏰

Why learn Python if you aren't going to make your repetitive daily tasks easier? Here is a nice little article on how you can use Python and bash commands to make your morning routine just a little bit easier.

Cost Of Running a 55k Website 💰

What is the cost of running a website that has 55,000 monthly users? This is a great insight into the cost, but also a look at the technology and tools you need if you want to finally start that company you always dreamed of starting.

Writing Like A Python 🐍

Python programmers know that you should write your code in a "pythonic" way. Here is a breakdown of some of the "pythonic" ways to write code that you may not see often in other programming languages.

Observable Python 🤹‍♀️

Reactive programming is a paradigm that has really gained traction in the last couple of years. It is a way to write event driven code. The name comes from the fact that a reactive code is composed of entities that react to events being emitted by sources. These entities apply transformations on these events, and return other events as a result. So these entities - named operators - can be chained together, to create computation graphs. Sounds confusing? Don't worry, this article breaks it down.

Weekend Project Idea 🎏

Ever wanted to start your own business? Well, this may help you: Develop and sell a Python API — from start to end tutorial. Even if you aren't looking to start a business, this is an in-depth look at how to use programming to make something useful that people can benefit from and want to pay money for.

Mugatu of Data Charts 🎨

Who knew that making your data pop was such a big deal? Well, it is. A small adjustment like this can really make you shine amongst your colleagues. How to pick more beautiful colors for your data visualizations.

Python and Space 🛸

Microsoft has put out this free learning path using Python and space exploration. Haven't tried it yet, but it looks pretty fun.

Sync vs Async 🧬

I feel like we write about this every month, but that is because it is an important topic. Here is a breakdown of what the two things mean, and how each one of them has pros and cons. You should decide what you need based on your needs.

It's more complicated than one is better than the other.

Inside CPython 🔮

If you have been following this newsletter, you know that "Python" as we call it, is a language specification. The python you are actually running on your computer is probably the cpython library and the virtual machine that reads and executes your python code. Here is a deep dive into how it all works.

P.S. this is one of the reasons you can call C/C++ programs so easily with Python.

Run Python Everywhere 🛵

Want to write python code that runs on iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS, Linux, Web, and tvOS using rich, native user interfaces? Using this tool you can build multiple apps with one codebase, with a fully native user experience on every platform. Pretty incredible.

Exceptions As Control Flow 🚏

This is an interesting idea. What if we use try and except instead of if and else?

Python For Kids 👨‍👧‍👦

Do you want your child to be the greatest programmer this world has ever seen? Why not start them early with this? I don't have kids so I don't know what I'm talking about, but it can't be a bad idea to teach them how to program from an early age right?

What's In 3.9 💺

As the title suggests, here is what we have coming with the newest version of Python: 3.9.

News Around the World 🗺

• I had nothing to put in here for this month (without depressing everyone) so here is the most useful article of all time for this month: New Emoji Added

Big Tech News 🏢

• Google is shutting down Chrome Webstore Payments. Google shutting/ending products/tools is a monthly occurrence by now. On a more serious note, Google is probably going to get an antitrust case against them very soon.

• Facebook is going back in time and going back to its campus roots.

• Apple had their big fall event where they announced a bunch of new things. Also, Apple is in a big saga right now with companies like Epic, Basecamp, Spotify, who are complaining that they shouldn't be paying the 30% in app purchase tax that Apple imposes. Apple recently made some changes in their app review process.

• Nvidia is acquiring ARM for $40 billion. This is huge news with a massive impact for the future of computing. For discussions on why this may be a bad thing for the industry, enjoy this.

• Microsoft underwater data center is out of the water after 2 years. In more exciting news, they just signed an exclusive license to use the technology behind OpenAI's GPT3.

• Cloudflare is joining forces with Wayback Machine to make the web more reliable. A great way to support a non-profit like Wayback Machine.

• Amazon is getting into the online gaming business: Luna. They also have an indoor security drone now. When you have all that money, I guess you have to spend it somehow.

• TikTok saga continues in the US. Nobody is really sure what is going on there and the news changes every day. So for now here is an article that will probably become outdated very soon.

Completely useless to your career but still great 🙃

Two massive black holes just rattled earth after 7 billion years. Carry on with your day.

Want to become a Linux sysadmin just because the title sounds cool? Well here is a free tutorial.

How the earth looked back in the day.

Best Resource of the Month 🥽

NumPy has been a staple library in the Python world. It is hands down one of the most useful and most used libraries out there, and most Data Science or Machine Learning engineers cannot live without it. Something fascinating happened this month: The prestigious journal Nature featured an overview of this 15-year-old programming library. What is the big deal and why should you care? More importantly, what does the future hold for NumPy? This is a must read!

Trick of the Month 🎩

• Read HTML tables on the web with pandas!

• How to hack people who post pictures of their boarding passes on social media. Just kidding. Don't do that. Still, this is what happens to people that share too much.

See you next month everyone!

By the way, my full time job is to teach people how to code and get hired 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.