Python’s collections module has another great subclass of dict known as OrderedDict. As the name implies, this dictionary keeps track of the order of the keys as they are added. If you create a regular dict, you will note that it is an unordered data collection: >>> d = {‘banana’: 3, ‘apple’:4, ‘pear’: 1, ‘orange’: […]
Python 201 – OrderedDict Read More »
We’re halfway through the Kickstarter campaign for my new book, Python 201 and we’re a little over halfway to my first stretch goal. If you know anyone who would like to add to their Python skills, be sure to post a link to the campaign to your social website(s) of choice. I also added a
Python 201 Kickstarter Campaign Update – New Cover Preview Read More »
The collections module has another handy tool called defaultdict. The defaultdict is a subclass of Python’s dict that accepts a default_factory as its primary argument. The default_factory is usually a Python type, such as int or list, but you can also use a function or a lambda too. Let’s start by creating a regular Python
Python 201 – The handy defaultdict Read More »
This week we welcome Massimo DiPierro (@mdipierro) as our PyDev of the Week! Massimo is the inventor and lead developer of web2py, but he’s also contributed to lots of other projects which you can see on his github profile. He is also the author of the following books: Annotated Algorithms in Python: with Applications in
PyDev of the Week: Massimo DiPierro Read More »
Python’s collections module has specialized container datatypes that can be used to replace Python’s general purpose containers. The one that we’ll be focusing on here is the namedtuple which you can use to replace Python’s tuple. Of course, the namedtuple is not a drop-in replacement as you will soon see. I have seen some programmers
Python 201: namedtuple Read More »
I noticed that CodeEval put out a post that Python is their most popular programming language for 5 years in a row! Admittedly, their Python usage has dropped 14% while others have gained, but Python has still managed to stay in the lead.
Python Most Popular For 5 Years Straight on CodeEval Read More »
This week we welcome Hynek Schlawack (@hynek) as our PyDev of the Week! Hynek is an avid member of the Python community and a fellow of the Python Software Foundation. He has contributed to many projects and writes his own Python blog. Let’s spend some time getting to know him better! Can you tell us
PyDev of the Week: Hynek Schlawack Read More »
I am happy to announce my latest project, which is the sequel to my Python 101 book: Python 201 – Intermediate Python. I am launching a Kickstarter campaign to help fund its publication so if you’re interested in supporting, you can do so here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/34257246/python-201-intermediate-python If you already know the basics of Python and now
ANN: Python 201 Book Kickstarter Read More »
This week we welcome Chris Moffitt (@chris1610) as our PyDev of the Week! Chris has been an active writer about Python on his blog and a speaker at DjangoCon. Let’s spend a few moments getting to know him better. Can you tell us a little about yourself (hobbies, education, etc): I currently live near St.
PyDev of the Week: Chris Moffitt Read More »
One of the first items you learn as a beginner Python programmer is how to import other modules or packages. However, I’ve noticed that even people who have used Python casually for multiple years don’t always know how flexible Python’s importing infrastructure is. In this article, we will be looking at the following topics: Regular
Python 101: All about imports Read More »
This week we welcome Brett Cannon (@brettsky) as our PyDev of the Week. He is a Python core developer (since 2003!) and a Python blogger. Brett has been a speaker at PyCon for several years. You can check out some of his talks on YouTube (for example How to make your code Python 2/3 compatible).
PyDev of the Week: Brett Cannon Read More »
Today one of my coworkers came and got me so that I could explain some weird Python code they’d found. It dealt with cmake, but since it was internal code, I won’t be able to show it here. Instead, I wrote up something that has the same issues so you can see what I consider
Python: An Example of Bad Monkey Patching Read More »
A cache is a way to store a limited amount of data such that future requests for said data can be retrieved faster. In this article, we’ll look at a simple example that uses a dictionary for our cache. Then we’ll move on to using the Python standard library’s functools module to create a cache.
Python: An Intro to caching Read More »
This week we welcome Cyrille Rossant (@cyrillerossant) as our PyDev of the Week! Cyrille is one of the core developers behind the VisPy project. He is also the author of several Python books like Learning IPython for Interactive Computing and Data Visualization and IPython Interactive Computing and Visualization Cookbook. His blog is also well worth
PyDev of the Week: Cyrille Rossant Read More »
Reportlab is really nice tool for creating PDFs in Python. A little known fact is that they now support adding charts or graphs to your PDF. Previously if you wanted that functionality, you would have to do all the drawing code yourself. Unfortunately, the Reportlab guide doesn’t really explain how to use their charts, what
Reportlab – How to Add Charts / Graphs Read More »