All posts by Mike

PyDev of the Week: Maria McKinley

PyDevOfTheWeek, Python

This week we welcome Maria McKinley (@twiteness) as our PyDev of the Week. Maria is a Senior Software Engineer at the Walt Disney Company and will be a speaker at PyCascades 2019. She is also teaching the Python Certificate Program at the University of Washington Continuing Education. You can read more about her on her website as well. Let’s spend a few moments getting to know her better.

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

I have a BS in Physics from the University of Washington, and taught myself how to code while working in Neuroscience labs at the same University. I got to work on some amazing research projects, while discovering how much I enjoyed writing code. In October 2015 I started working at the Walt Disney Company as a Senior Software Engineer. I also teach Python, both at the University of Washington and within Disney. And I’m a mom. All of that keeps me pretty busy, but I also try to set aside time for reading, exercise, playing boardgames, and art. Continue reading PyDev of the Week: Maria McKinley →

Creating a Calculator with wxPython

Python, wxPython,

A lot of beginner tutorials start with “Hello World” examples. There are plenty of websites that use a calculator application as a kind of “Hello World” for GUI beginners. Calculators are a good way to learn because they have a set of widgets that you need to lay out in an orderly fashion. They also require a certain amount of logic to make them work correctly. For this calculator, let’s focus on being able to do the following:

  • Addition
  • Subtraction
  • Multiplication
  • Division

I think that supporting these four functions is a great starting place and also give you plenty of room for enhancing the application on your own. Continue reading Creating a Calculator with wxPython →

Less than 2 Days to Go on wxPython Book Kickstarter

Books, Python,

My latest book, Create GUI Applications with wxPython, is coming along nicely. I just wanted to let my readership know that the Kickstarter for it is coming to a close in a little less than 2 days.

If you’d like to get a copy at a cheaper price than it will be when it is released in May later this year, the Kickstarter is really the way to go. You can check out the current table of contents in this post from last week.

Thanks for your support!

PyDev of the Week: Paolo Melchiorre

PyDevOfTheWeek, Python

This week we welcome Paolo Melchiorre (@pauloxnet)as our PyDev of the Week! Paolo is a core developer of the Django web framework. He has spoken at several different Python-related conferences in Europe and also writes over on his blog. Let’s take a few minutes to get to know him better!

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

Paulo Melchiorre

I graduated with a degree in Computer Science from the University of Bologna. My thesis was about Free Software and since then I’ve been a Free Software advocate.

I’ve been a GNU/Linux user for 20 years and now I’m a happy user of Ubuntu.

In 2007 I attended my first conference, the Plone Conference, and since then I’ve attended many other pythonic conferences in Europe.

In 2017 I presented a talk at PyCon Italy and at EuroPython and since then I have been a conference speaker for local and international events, both in Italian and in English.

Giving a talk at EuroPython 2017
Giving a talk at EuroPython 2017

I’ve lived and worked in Rome and London, and since 2015 I’ve been a remote worker located in my hometown of Pescara in Italy, which is close to the beach and the mountains.

I love nature and spending my time swimming, snowboarding or hiking, but also traveling with my wife around the world.

I like improving my English skills by reading fiction books or listening to audiobooks, watching TV series and movies, listening to podcasts and attending local English speaking meetups.

I answer questions at stack overflow, tweet at @pauloxnet and occasionally post at paulox.net. Continue reading PyDev of the Week: Paolo Melchiorre →

Getting Started with JupyterLab

Python,

JupyterLab is the latest package from Project Jupyter. In some ways, it is kind of a replacement for Jupyter Notebook. However the Jupyter Notebook is a separate project from JupyterLab. I like to think of JupyterLab as a kind of web-based Integrated Development Environment that you an use to to work with Jupyter Notebooks as well as using terminals, text editors and code consoles. You might say JupyterLab is a more powerful version of Jupyter Notebook.

Anyway, here are a few of the things that JupyterLab is capable of:

  • Code Consoles – These are coding scratchpads that you can use for running code interactively, kind of like Python’s IDLE
  • Kernel-backed documents – These allow you to enable code in any text file (Markdown, Python, R, etc) that can then be run in the Jupyter kernel
  • Mirrored Notebook cell outputs – This let’s you create simple dashboards
  • Multiple views of the same document – Gives you the ability to live edit documents and see the results in real-time

JupyterLab will allow you to view and handle multiple types of data. You can also display rich output from these formats using various visualizations or Markdown.

For navigation, you can use customizable keyboard shortcuts or key maps from vim, emacs and even SublimeText.

You can add new behavior to your JupyterLab instance via extensions. This includes theming support, file editors and more. Continue reading Getting Started with JupyterLab →

Table of Contents for Creating GUI Applications Book

Books, Python, wxPython,

We are coming into the last week of the Kickstarter and I thought I would give you all a quick update. I finished writing up the chapter on creating a calculator today and got started on chapter 7.

Creating GUI Applications with wxPython

I also wanted to let you know what the current table of contents looks like right now:

  • Chapter 1 – Intro to wxPython
  • Chapter 2 – Creating an Image Viewer
  • Chapter 3 – Enhancing the Image Viewer
  • Chapter 4 – Creating a Database Viewer
  • Chapter 5 – Database Editing with wxPython
  • Chapter 6 – Calculator
  • Chapter 7 – Archiver (tarball creation utility)
  • Chapter 8 – MP3 Tag Editor
  • Chapter 9 – XML Editor
  • Chapter 10 – NASA Image Downloader / Search Tool
  • Chapter 11 – PDF Merger / Splitter

There will also be a chapter on creating executables and installers for your application and a couple of appendixes.

Thanks so much for your support!

Mike

PyDev of the Week: Ali Spittel

PyDevOfTheWeek, Python

This week we welcome Ali Spittel (@ASpittel) as our PyDev of the Week! Ali is a blogger and speaker and enjoys teaching about tech. You can see what code she’s been writing over on Github. Let’s take a few moments to get to know Ali better!

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

Hey! I’m Ali. I am a software engineer at DEV, an awesome community of programmers that I was a member of for a while before joining. Outside of work, I rock climb and hang out with my puppy, Blair. I’m also really involved in the DC tech community, which is incredible.

I’m mostly self-taught as far as programming goes — I was a government major at Hamilton College, but I took a few computer science classes and fell in love with it. Here we are! Continue reading PyDev of the Week: Ali Spittel →

Python 201 and Python RegEx Bundle

Python
I recently had the opportunity to partner with Sundeep Agarwal, the author of Python re(gex)? to create a bundle with my second book, Python 201: Intermediate Python.

The Python Regex book covers Regular Expressions in Python. While only 50 pages in length, it has lots of examples that you can use to learn all about using Regular Expressions in your own code. You can check out the Github repo and see what kind of code is in the book.

You can find the bundle on Leanpub.

wxPython Applications Book Table of Contents Update

Python
I am currently working on a new book entitled Creating GUI Applications with wxPython that you can support on Kickstarter. This is the current table of contents for the book:

  • Chapter 1 – Intro to wxPython
  • Chapter 2 – Creating an Image Viewer
  • Chapter 3 – Enhancing the Image Viewer
  • Chapter 4 – Creating a Database Viewer
  • Chapter 5 – Database Editing with wxPython
  • Chapter 6 – Calculator
  • Chapter 7 – Archiver (tarball creation utility)
  • Chapter 8 – MP3 Tag Editor
  • Chapter 9 – XML Editor
  • Chapter 10 – NASA Image Downloader / Search Tool
  • Chapter 11 – PDF Merger / Splitter

There will also be a chapter on creating executables and installers for your application and a couple of appendixes.

I am doing a second stretch goal to add up to 3 additional chapters to the book. Check out the Kickstarter for more information.