December 16, 2019

Riding The Rising Tides Of Python

44 minutes

Summary

The past two decades have seen massive growth in the language, community, and ecosystem of Python. The career of Pete Fein has occurred during that same period and his use of the language has paralleled some of the major shifts in focus that have occurred. In this episode he shares his experiences moving from a trader writing scripts, through the rise of the web, to the current renaissance in data. He also discusses how his engagement with the community has evolved, why he hasn’t needed to use any other languages in his career, and what he is keeping an eye on for the future.

Announcements

Hello and welcome to Podcast.__init__, the podcast about Python and the people who make it great.

When you’re ready to launch your next app or want to try a project you hear about on the show, you’ll need somewhere to deploy it, so take a look at our friends over at Linode. With 200 Gbit/s private networking, scalable shared block storage, node balancers, and a 40 Gbit/s public network, all controlled by a brand new API you’ve got everything you need to scale up. And for your tasks that need fast computation, such as training machine learning models, they just launched dedicated CPU instances. Go to pythonpodcast.com/linode to get a $20 credit and launch a new server in under a minute. And don’t forget to thank them for their continued support of this show!

You listen to this show to learn and stay up to date with the ways that Python is being used, including the latest in machine learning and data analysis. For even more opportunities to meet, listen, and learn from your peers you don’t want to miss out on this year’s conference season. We have partnered with organizations such as O’Reilly Media, Dataversity, Corinium Global Intelligence, Alluxio, and Data Council. Upcoming events include the combined events of the Data Architecture Summit and Graphorum, the Data Orchestration Summit, and Data Council in NYC. Go to pythonpodcast.com/conferences to learn more about these and other events, and take advantage of our partner discounts to save money when you register today.

Your host as usual is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Pete Fein about his voyage on the rising tide of Python

Interview

Introductions

How did you get introduced to Python?

I understand that you have used Python exclusively in your professional life. What other languages have you been exposed to and taken inspiration from?

What are some of the projects that you have been involved with which you are most proud of?

How has the community and your involvement with it changed over the years?

In your experience, how has the growth in the size and breadth of the community impacted its accessibility to newcomers?

You have been using Python and participating in the community for quite some time now, and there have been significant changes in both within that period. What are some of the most significant technological shifts that you have noticed and been a part of?

How have those shifts influenced the direction of your career?

As you have moved through the different phases of your career with different areas of focus, what are some of the aspects of the work which have remained constant?

What have been the biggest differences across the different problem domains?

What are some of the aspects of the language or its ecosystem which you feel are lacking or don’t get enough attention?

What are some of the industry trends which you are keeping a close eye on and how do you anticipate them influencing the direction of the community and your career in the upcoming years?

Keep In Touch

Consulting Website

Personal Website

@wearpants on Twitter

wearpants on GitHub

Picks

Tobias

Matomo Analytics

Pete

FastAPI

PyDantic

Closing Announcements

Thank you for listening! Don’t forget to check out our other show, the Data Engineering Podcast for the latest on modern data management.

Visit the site to subscribe to the show, sign up for the mailing list, and read the show notes.

If you’ve learned something or tried out a project from the show then tell us about it! Email [email protected]) with your story.

To help other people find the show please leave a review on iTunes and tell your friends and co-workers

Join the community in the new Zulip chat workspace at pythonpodcast.com/chat

Links

Chicago

Scheme

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

David Beazley

Podcast Episode

Twiggy logging library

Jesse Noller

Log4J

Debian

RedHat

StructLog

Elliot

Podcast Episode

Logbook

Armin Ronacher

Podcast Episode

Pittsburgh Python Meetup

Boltons library

Elixir

ChiPy Chicago Python user group

Subversion

Ruby On Rails

Django

Data Engineering

Data Engineering Podcast

Internet of Things

Pittsburgh

Artificial Pancreas Project

Eric Holscher

Read The Docs

Podcast Episode

Circuit Playground Express

CircuitPython

Podcast Episode

Rust Language

PyOhio

PyGotham

The intro and outro music is from Requiem for a Fish The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

...more

View all episodes

By Tobias Macey

4.4

100100 ratings