PyDev of the Week: William Cox

PyDevOfTheWeek, Python

This week we welcome William Cox as our PyDev of the Week. William is a data scientist who has spoken at a few Python conferences. He maintains a blog where you can catch up on what’s new with him

Let’s spend a few moments getting to know William better!

Can you tell us a little about yourself (hobbies, education, etc):

I’ve always loved building things. I spent most of highschool building robots and running a blog about robots. I got a degree in electrical engineering thanks to this, and then went on to get a PhD in signal processing and digital communications. Outside of work I enjoy wood and metal working and being outdoors. Mostly though, I’m a full-time parent.
Continue reading PyDev of the Week: William Cox →

CodingNomads Tech Talk Series!

Python

Recently CodingNomads invited me on their Tech Talk series. CodingNomads does online code camps for Python and Java.

The Tech Talks are a series of videos that teach or talk about tech. In my case, I got to talk about my favorite programming language, Python!

The first talk I did was on wxPython. In this video, I show how to create a simple image viewer:

Amazingly, I was invited to do a second talk. This time, I decided it would be fun to do an intro to Jupyter Notebook.

CodingNomads is not a sponsor of Mouse vs Python. They are a neat group that kindly asked me to be a part of their series after I volunteered some of my time to mentor people for them over the summer.

PyDev of the Week: Jim Anderson

PyDevOfTheWeek, Python

This week we welcome Jim Anderson (@jimande75053775) as our PyDev of the Week! Jim is a contributing writer for Real Python. You can see some of the things that Jim works on in his spare time over on Github.

Let’s take a few moments to get to know Jim better!

Can you tell us a little about yourself (hobbies, education, etc):

I love to snowboard in the winter and I’m an avid bike commuter, though I’ll admit that sounds more impressive than it is – I only live 3 miles from work! I’ve got two grade-school aged daughters and a lovely wife, all of whom ski and give me grief for snowboarding.

I’ve been lucky enough to get to program for a living since I was a kid, mainly on low-level and embedded software, with a couple of brief turns doing enterprise-level band-end code.

Jm Anderson Continue reading PyDev of the Week: Jim Anderson →

Python 101: An Intro to Working with JSON

Python,

JavaScript Object Notation, more commonly known as JSON, is a lightweight data interchange format inspired by JavaScript object literal syntax. JSON is easy for humans to read and write. It is also easy for computers to parse and generate. JSON is used for storing and exchanging data in much the same way that XML is used.

Python has a built-in library called json that you can use for creating, editing and parsing JSON. You can read all about this library here:

It would probably be helpful to know what JSON looks like. Here is an example of JSON from https://json.org:

{"menu": {
  "id": "file",
  "value": "File",
  "popup": {
    "menuitem": [
      {"value": "New", "onclick": "CreateNewDoc()"},
      {"value": "Open", "onclick": "OpenDoc()"},
      {"value": "Close", "onclick": "CloseDoc()"}
    ]
  }
}}

From Python’s point of view, this JSON is a nested Python dictionary. You will find that JSON is always translated into some kind of native Python data type. In this article, you will learn about the following:

  • Encoding a JSON String
  • Decoding a JSON String
  • Saving JSON to Disk
  • Loading JSON from Disk
  • Validating JSON with json.tool

Continue reading Python 101: An Intro to Working with JSON →

Python 101 2nd Edition Released!

Books, Python

My latest book, Python 101 (2nd Edition), is now available on Leanpub (PDF, epub, mobi) and Amazon (paperback / Kindle).

I rewrote Python 101 almost completely from scratch. I used the original as a guide, but this book is completely fresh. It is based on Python 3.8 and covers lots of beginner and intermediate topics.

Python 101 has 4 sections:

  • Part I – The Python Language
  • Part II – Beyond the Basics (Intermediate material)
  • Part III – Practical Python (Sample apps and more)
  • Part IV – Distributing Your Code (PyPI, Windows and Mac executables)

Steven Lott, a popular author of Python books, wrote a book review for Python 101 on his blog. Check it out for his perspective.

Python 101 2nd Ed Kickstarter

PyDev of the Week: Débora Azevedo

PyDevOfTheWeek, Python

This week we welcome Débora Azevedo (@pydebb) as our PyDev of the Week! Débora is active in the PyLadies and DjangoGirls groups as well as teaching Python at PyLadies workshops. Let’s spend some time getting to know her better!

Can you tell us a little about yourself (hobbies, education, etc):

I’m an educator. I love teaching, and I’m working now as an English teacher in my state’s public network. But I have also taught Python in some PyLadies workshops. I’m doing my master’s degree in Innovation in Educational Technologies. For the past months, I’ve been working on developing educational software to assist deaf children in their literacy process from a bilingual perspective, considering that here in Brazil they learn Brazilian Sign Language and also written Portuguese. In my free time, I like to invest in the community (which has invested so much in me). From meetings online to translating blog posts and managing social media profiles, one thing worth pointing out about me is the involvement in the Python community here in Brazil, especially with PyLadies Brazil, which I contribute the most to. My most beloved hobbies are reading (love both Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), playing guitar and singing. I also write sporadically in my blog (in Portuguese). Continue reading PyDev of the Week: Débora Azevedo →