What are the current Python graphical user interface libraries? Should you build everything in the terminal and create a text-based user interface instead? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

We cover a Real Python article that explores the Textual library. Textual is a Python toolkit and framework for creating attractive and functional text-based user interface (TUI) applications that run in the user’s terminal. The tutorial covers organizing layouts of widgets, styling components, and handling events and user actions within an application.

We continue our exploration of user interface options for your projects by discussing a recent article about Python GUI libraries. The piece compares the frameworks, showing a quick preview of how they look and sample code for a simple application. We share our thoughts and experiences with several of the libraries as we go through the collection.

We also share several other articles and projects from the Python community, including a news roundup, handling binary data in Python, exploring the rules terminal programs follow, using Microsoft Edge’s online text-to-speech service from Python, and a project for reading and writing compressed JSON.

Course Spotlight: Building a Code Image Generator With Python

In this step-by-step video course, you’ll build a code image generator that creates nice-looking images of your code snippets to share on social media. Your code image generator will be powered by the Flask web framework and include exciting packages like Pygments and Playwright.

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What goes into updating one of the most popular books about working with Python? After a decade of changes in the Python landscape, what projects, libraries, and skills are relevant to an office worker? This week on the show, we speak with previous guest Al Sweigart about the third edition of “Automate the Boring Stuff With Python.”

Al shares his thoughts on teaching Python and writing books over the past decade. In this third edition, he shares several new projects and updates to existing ones. We discuss Python tools for transcription, text-to-speech, notifications, and data storage.

We talk about the importance of debugging and improvements to Python error messages. He also shares a collection of resources, including conference talks, small projects, and Python libraries.

Course Spotlight: Exploring Scopes and Closures in Python

In this Code Conversation video course, you’ll take a deep dive into how scopes and closures work in Python. To do this, you’ll use a debugger to walk through some sample code, and then you’ll take a peek under the hood to see how Python holds variables internally.

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How can you simplify the management of your Python projects with one file? What are the advantages of using LazyFrames in Polars? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

We share a recent Real Python tutorial by Ian Currie about managing projects with a pyproject.toml file. This file simplifies Python project configuration by unifying package setup, managing dependencies, and streamlining builds.

Christopher continues his exploration of the Polars library by covering another Real Python tutorial about working with LazyFrames. He describes how LazyFrames don’t contain data but instead store a set of instructions known as a query plan.

We also share several other articles and projects from the Python community, including a news roundup, building a to-do app with Python and Kivy, working with DuckDB directly instead of using a DataFrame library, a discussion on fiction and nonfiction books about computer science, a terminal visual effects engine, and a full-stack platform for interactive data apps.

Course Spotlight: Everyday Project Packaging With pyproject.toml

In this Code Conversation video course, you’ll learn how to package your everyday projects with pyproject.toml. Playing on the same team as the import system means you can call your project from anywhere, ensure consistent imports, and have one file that’ll work for many build systems.

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Should you always start testing your code with unit tests? When does it make sense to look at integration or end-to-end testing as a first step instead? This week on the show, we speak with previous guest Eric Matthes about where to begin testing your code.

Eric is the author of the popular book Python Crash Course. Early in the development of the book, he decided to introduce testing and added a chapter on testing code with pytest.

Over the past couple of years, Eric has continued to consider when and where to test a project’s code. He thinks there are hazards to always starting with unit tests. The type of project and its audience should determine what kind of testing to employ initially.

We discuss using pytest to develop integration tests on multiple types of projects. We also explore fixtures and what goes into building a test suite. Eric also shares criteria for when and where it makes sense to add unit tests to a project.

Course Spotlight: Using Python’s assert to Debug and Test Your Code

In this course, you’ll learn how to use Python’s assert statement to document, debug, and test code in development. You’ll learn how assertions might be disabled in production code, so you shouldn’t use them to validate data. You’ll also learn about a few common pitfalls of assertions in Python.

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How do you learn the terms commonly used when speaking about Python? How is the jargon similar to other programming languages? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

We discuss a Python glossary recently created by Trey Hunner. Trey describes it as an unofficial glossary and Python jargon file. We dig into the terms and colloquial language often used when describing Python.

We cover a blog post celebrating 31 years of Python by compiling Python 1.0. The piece walks through the hoops of finding the source code and standing up an old version of Debian. Once compiled, they open the REPL and find it surprisingly capable.

We also share several other articles and projects from the Python community, including release news, a Python enhancement proposal roundup, managing Django’s queue, a course about NumPy techniques including practical examples, getting platform-specific directories, detecting which shell is in use, and a project for sorted container types.

This episode is sponsored by Postman.

Course Spotlight: NumPy Techniques and Practical Examples

In this video course, you’ll learn how to use NumPy by exploring several interesting examples. You’ll read data from a file into an array and analyze structured arrays to perform a reconciliation. You’ll also learn how to quickly chart an analysis and turn a custom function into a vectorized function.

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How do you make compelling visualizations that best convey the story of your data? What methods can you employ within popular Python tools to improve your plots and graphs? This week on the show, Matt Harrison returns to discuss his new book “Effective Visualization: Exploiting Matplotlib & Pandas.”

As a data scientist and instructor, Matt has been teaching the concepts of managing tabular data and making visualizations for over 20 years. Matt shares his methodology for taking a basic plot and then telling a compelling story with it. We discuss why you should limit your plot types to a few that your audience is familiar with.

We cover the resources built into pandas and Matplotlib and some of the libraries’ limitations. Matt talks about the professionally produced plots that inspired him and the process of recreating them. He also answers questions about finding data sources to practice these techniques with.

This episode is sponsored by Postman.

Course Spotlight: Using plt.scatter() to Visualize Data in Python

In this course, you’ll learn how to create scatter plots in Python, which are a key part of many data visualization applications. You’ll get an introduction to plt.scatter(), a versatile function in the Matplotlib module for creating scatter plots.

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What is behavior-driven development, and how does it work alongside test-driven development? How do you communicate requirements between teams in an organization? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

In this episode, we expand on our software testing discussion from two weeks ago by adding behavior-driven development concepts. Christopher describes how BDD correlates with test-driven development and how it fosters collaboration within a team. We discuss building acceptance tests written in plain language and a handy tool for creating them.

We also share several other articles and projects from the Python community, including a news roundup, using regular expressions in Python, dealing with missing data in Polars, monkey patching in Django, first steps with Playwright, 3D printing giant things with a Python jigsaw generator, and a query language for JSON.

This episode is sponsored by Postman.

Course Spotlight: Regular Expressions and Building Regexes in Python

In this course, you’ll learn how to perform more complex string pattern matching using regular expressions, or regexes, in Python. You’ll also explore more advanced regex tools and techniques that are available in Python.

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Are you looking for fast tools to lint your code and manage your projects? How is the Rust programming language being used to speed up Python tools? This week on the show, we speak with Charlie Marsh about his company, Astral, and their tools, uv and Ruff.

Charlie started working on Ruff as a proof of concept, stating that Python tooling could be much faster. He had seen similar gains in JavaScript tools written in Rust. The project started as a speedy linter with a small ruleset. It’s grown to include code formatting and over 800 built-in linting rules.

Last year, the team at Astral started working on a Python package and project manager written in Rust. As a single tool, uv can replace pip, pip-tools, pipx, poetry, pyenv, and more. We discuss how uv can install and manage versions of Python and run scripts without thinking about virtual environments or dependencies.

Charlie talks about growing the team at Astral over the past couple of years. We also discuss the funding model Astral has adopted and sustaining open-source software.

This episode is sponsored by Postman.

Course Spotlight: Python Basics: Installing Packages With pip

Python’s standard library includes a whole buffet of useful packages, but sometimes you need to reach for a third-party library. That’s where pip comes in handy. In this video course, you’ll learn how to pip install packages.

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What goes into creating automated tests for your Python code? Should you focus on testing the individual code sections or on how the entire system runs? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

We discuss a recent article from Semaphore about unit testing vs. integration testing. Christopher shares his experiences setting up automated tests for his own smaller projects. He also answers questions about building tests in an existing codebase and integrating tests across systems.

We also share several other articles and projects from the Python community, including a news roundup, improving default line charts to journal-quality infographics, why hash(-1) == hash(-2) in Python, data cleaning in data science, ways to work with large files in Python, a lightweight CLI viewer for log files, and a tool for mocking the datetime module for testing.

This episode is sponsored by Postman.

Course Spotlight: Testing Your Code With pytest

In this video course, you’ll learn how to take your testing to the next level with pytest. You’ll cover intermediate and advanced pytest features such as fixtures, marks, parameters, and plugins. With pytest, you can make your test suites fast, effective, and less painful to maintain.

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What are the current large language model (LLM) tools you can use to develop Python? What prompting techniques and strategies produce better results? This week on the show, we speak with Simon Willison about his LLM research and his exploration of writing Python code with these rapidly evolving tools.

Simon has been researching LLMs over the past two and a half years and documenting the results on his blog. He shares which models work best for writing Python versus JavaScript and compares coding tools and environments.

We discuss prompt engineering techniques and the first steps to take. Simon shares his enthusiasm for the usefulness of LLMs but cautions about the potential pitfalls.

Simon also shares how he got involved in open-source development and Django. He’s a proponent of starting a blog and shares how it opened doors for his career.

This episode is sponsored by Postman.

Course Spotlight: Advanced Python import Techniques

The Python import system is as powerful as it is useful. In this in-depth video course, you’ll learn how to harness this power to improve the structure and maintainability of your code.

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