Python comes with its own code editor: IDLE (Integreted Development and Learning Environment). There is some lore that the name for IDLE comes from Eric Idle, an actor in Monty Python. An IDE is an editor for programmers that provides color highlighting of key words in the language, auto-complete, an “experimental” debugger and lots of […]
Python 101 – An Intro to IDLE Read More »
The Python programming language has several built-in types that it supports. One of my favorites is the dictionary. A dictionary is a mapping object maps hashable values to arbitrary objects (source). Other languages call dictionaries “hash tables”. They are mutable objects that you can change whenever you want to, unlike tuples. A dictionary’s keys must
Python 101: All About Dictionaries Read More »
Last week I was doing some Test Driven Development training and overheard someone mention another programming language that had a test runner that you could set up to watch your project directory and run your tests when the files changed. I thought that was a neat idea. I also thought I could easily write my
How to Run Python Tests “Continuously” While Coding Read More »
This week we welcome Luke Plant as our PyDev of the Week. Luke is one of the core developers of Django, a very popular Python web framework. Luke writes a blog with many articles about Django. If you’d like to see some of Luke’s contributions, then you will want to wander over to his Github
PyDev of the Week: Luke Plant Read More »
Last year I ran into a situation where I needed to know if a function had been called. Basically we were trying to prevent shutting down a Twisted event loop twice or starting two of them. Anyway, in my research I stumbled across a fun post on StackOverflow that showed a couple of ways to
Python – How to tell if a Function Has Been Called Read More »
My second book, Python 201: Intermediate Python, was just released as an online course over at Educative. I also have Python 101 on there as well. Educative is a pretty new educational website. It’s kind of like Code Academy except that they usually charge for access to all their courses. Note: This is NOT a
Python 201 is Now an Online Course Read More »
This week we welcome Dan Bader (@dbader_org) as our PyDev of the Week. Dan does a weekly Python Tricks newsletter / blog that’s a fun read. He has also authored a Python Tricks book. I always like checking out my interviewee’s Github page to see what they enjoy coding or writing about, so I encourage
PyDev of the Week: Dan Bader Read More »
People who are new to the Python programming language can get a bit confused about the difference between “==” (equality) and Python’s keyword “is” (identity). I have even seen experienced programmers who will find the difference subtle enough that they will introduce logic errors in their code do to a misunderstanding between the two. In
Python 101: Equality vs Identity Read More »
This week we welcome Victor Stinner as our PyDev of the Week! Victor is quite active in the Python community and is a core Python developer. You can see some of his contributions here. He is the author of eight accepted PEPs which you can also read about at the previous link. If you’re interested
PyDev of the Week: Victor Stinner Read More »
This week our PyDev of the Week is Petr Viktorin (@EnCuKou). Petr is the author of PEP 489 — Multi-phase extension module initialization and teaches Python for the local PyLadies in Czech Republic. You can some of what he’s up to via his Github page or on his website. Let’s take some time to get
PyDev of the Week: Petr Viktorin Read More »
This week we welcome Åukasz Langa (@llanga) as our PyDev of the Week! Åukasz is the author of PEP 443 — Single-dispatch generic functions. He also authors an interesting blog, although it’s not just a programming blog. You can see what Åukasz has been up to over on Github. Let’s take a few moments to
PyDev of the Week: Lukasz Langa Read More »
I review books for the i-programmer website from time to time and they recently gave me a copy of Murach’s Python Programming by Michael Urban and Joel Murach. This book is long at almost 600 pages and it’s pretty expensive for the paperback. For those of you with short attention spans, I give you the
Book Review: Murach’s Python Programming Read More »
The local Python users group, Pyowa, was restarted last night after a year and a half hibernation. I hadn’t been to one of their meetings in a few years, but I had decided at the end of 2016 to get it going again. Once the ball was rolling, we got multiple offers of sponsorships for
Pyowa Meeting (Feb 2017) Read More »
This week we welcome Michael Kennedy (@mkennedy) as our PyDev of the Week! Michael is an author and speaker. He is also a Python and MongoDB enthusiast, and an entrepreneur. He is the host of the popular Talk Python To Me podcast as well as the new Python Bytes Podcast. In 2016, he founded the
PyDev of the Week: Michael Kennedy Read More »
I try to write a retrospective of the previous year every year, usually for the first day of the new year. However due to tons of projects and family medical issues, I ended up pushing it to today. The year 2016 was pretty exciting. I wrote two books. The first was a sequel to my
Top Ten Articles of 2016 Read More »