How does the performance of an algorithm hold up when you put it into a realistic context? Where might Python code defy Big O notation expectations when using a profiler? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

Christopher shares an article about why real-world performance often defies Big O expectations. The piece starts with a task coded in Go and then optimized from O(n²) to O(n). Can an interpreted language like Python compete with a compiled language? Profiling the performance of both versions provides some interesting results.

We also share several other articles and projects from the Python community, including a news roundup, the fastest way to detect a vowel in a string, whether Python dictionaries are ordered data structures, an overview of Python’s enum module, a Python client library for Google Data Commons, and a project to convert plain ASCII to “smart” punctuation.

Course Spotlight: Building Enumerations With Python’s enum

In this video course, you’ll discover the art of creating and using enumerations of logically connected constants in Python. To accomplish this, you’ll explore the Enum class and other associated tools and types from the enum module in the Python standard library.

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What motivates someone to learn how to code as a scientist? How do you harness the excitement of solving problems quickly and make the connection to the benefits of coding in your scientific work? This week on the show, we speak with Ben Lear and Christopher Johnson about their book “Coding For Chemists.”

Christopher is an associate professor of chemistry at Stony Brook University. Ben is a professor of chemistry at Penn State’s Eberly College of Science. They’re long-time friends who decided to collaborate on a book after discussing the challenges of teaching coding to chemistry students.

The book targets chemists and other researchers who want to streamline common workflows with Python. It covers core Python concepts, data visualization, and data analysis topics by sharing common problems encountered in chemical research and presenting a complete Python-based solution for each problem.

We discuss how they collaborated on the book and decided what libraries and tools to include. We cover how LLM tools have affected classroom teaching and require new techniques to reinforce learning. We also dig into what motivates students to learn how to code.

Course Spotlight: Defining Python Functions With Optional Arguments

In this video course, you’ll learn about Python optional arguments and how to define functions with default values. You’ll also learn how to create functions that accept any number of arguments using args and kwargs.

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What goes into crafting an effective Python script? How do you organize your code, manage dependencies with PEP 723, and handle command-line arguments for the best results? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

We dig into a recent Real Python article about how to structure your Python scripts. It includes advice for adding inline script metadata as defined in PEP 723, which helps tools automatically create an environment and install dependencies when the script is run. The piece also covers choosing appropriate data structures, improving runtime feedback, and making your code more maintainable with constants and entry points.

We discuss a collection of software trends happening behind the scenes of the constant LLM news. The piece starts with local-first software, prioritizing processing and storing private data on personal devices rather than relying on the cloud. The other trends include common themes and tools we’ve shared over the past few years, including WebAssembly, SQLite’s renaissance, and improvements to cross-platform mobile development.

We also share several other articles and projects from the Python community, including a news roundup, the state of free-threaded Python, tips for improving Django management commands, advice for time management as a manager, a data science-focused IDE, and a project to check for multiple patterns in a single string.

Course Spotlight: SQLite and SQLAlchemy in Python: Move Your Data Beyond Flat Files

In this video course, you’ll learn how to store and retrieve data using Python, SQLite, SQLAlchemy, and flat files. Using SQLite with Python brings with it the additional benefit of accessing data with SQL. By adding SQLAlchemy, you can work with data in terms of objects and methods.

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What goes into scaling a web application today? What are resources for learning and practicing DevOps skills? This week on the show, Calvin Hendryx-Parker is back to discuss the tools and infrastructure for autoscaling web applications with Kubernetes and Karpenter.

Calvin is the co-founder and CTO of Six Feet Up, a Python and AI consultancy. He shares how they recently helped a client scale a web application that employs video, audio, and chat sessions. We dig deep into the tooling behind modern Kubernetes systems management and performance monitoring.

Calvin shares a project bootstrap tool for streamlining the development and deployment of a web application. The tool includes a complete blueprint for the infrastructure needed to get started.

We also dig into a collection of coding tools Calvin has been experimenting with. We discuss his recent IndyPy presentation, “Battle of the Bots,” which put several AI code assistants through their paces.

This episode is sponsored by AMD.

Course Spotlight: First Steps With LangChain

Large language models (LLMs) have taken the world by storm. In this step-by-step video course, you’ll learn to use the LangChain library to build LLM-assisted applications.

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Looking for a guide on getting started with marimo notebooks? How do you build a reproducible notebook for sharing or create a dashboard with interactive UI elements? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

We cover a recent Real Python article by Ian Eyre about using narimo notebooks. The tutorial covers installing Marimo, taking advantage of reactivity, building interactive dashboards, and managing a notebook’s environment through sandboxing. The piece ends by examining the limitations of traditional linear notebooks and how Marimo addresses them.

Christopher discusses an article about how to store the configurations for your Python scripts and projects. Whether you’re managing resource handles to a database, deployment variables, or credentials to external services, you’ll need a way to save and load the details into your Python project. The piece compares saving configurations in several common file formats or through environment variables.

We also share several other articles and projects from the Python community, including a news roundup, the discourse between generative AI coding proponents and detractors, catching memory leaks with your test suite, epigrams on programming, a command line tool to check packages on PyPI, and a collection of string, file, and object utilities.

This episode is sponsored by Six Feet Up.

Course Spotlight: Python Continuous Integration and Deployment Using GitHub Actions

With most software following agile methodologies, it’s essential to have robust DevOps systems in place to manage, maintain, and automate common tasks with a continually changing codebase. By using GitHub Actions, you can automate your workflows efficiently, especially for Python projects.

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Once you’ve learned the vocabulary and syntax of the Python language, how do you progress into learning the right combinations to put into your code? How can Python’s built-in itertools library enhance your skills? This week on the show, we speak with Rodrigo Girão Serrão about teaching Python through his blog and his passion for the itertools library.

We discuss Rodrigo’s different approaches to writing on his blog. He likes to document smaller concepts about Python and building code in his “Today I Learned” series. He’s also been collecting advice about the best way to use core Python features in another series called “Pydon’ts.”

We cover his recent PyCon US tutorial about the built-in itertools module. The functions contained in the module create iterators for efficient looping. We discuss the categories of tools inside the collection and ways to simplify your code.

We also explore the concept of vocabulary versus idioms in writing. Idioms are a group of words that hold a symbolic meaning that goes beyond the literal meaning of the individual words. We dig into how that applies to learning Python and building a personal collection of programming idioms.

This episode is sponsored by AMD.

Course Spotlight: Working With Missing Data in Polars

In this video course, you’ll learn how to deal with missing data in Polars to ensure it doesn’t interfere with your data analysis. You’ll discover how to check for missing values, update them, and remove them.

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What are the ways you can manage multithreaded code in Python? What synchronization techniques are available within Python’s threading module? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

Christopher discusses his recent Real Python video course about thread safety. The course provides a quick overview of race conditions and how to use locks in your code. It then goes on to share a collection of additional synchronization primitives to make your code thread-safe.

We dig into a tutorial by Leodanis Pozo Ramos about managing Python projects with uv. The tutorial shows you how to quickly initialize a project, build the directory structure, add dependencies, and publish your package while practicing the commands inside uv.

We also share several other articles and projects from the Python community, including a news roundup, unraveling t-strings, what’s new in pip 25.1, an SVG-first plotting library, and a data modeling tool built on top of Polars and Pydantic.

Course Spotlight: Thread Safety in Python: Locks and Other Techniques

In this video course, you’ll learn about the issues that can occur when your code is run in a multithreaded environment. Then you’ll explore the various synchronization primitives available in Python’s threading module, such as locks, which help you make your code safe.

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What goes into making video courses at Real Python? How should you build an installable Django application? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

This week, the Real Python Podcast is experiencing several firsts. We recorded a show in front of a live audience for the very first time, and it happened in Dublin, Ireland—a place neither of us had visited before. I also got to meet Christopher Trudeau in person for the first time.

We’re sharing that live recording from the conference in this episode. We discuss how we create video courses at Real Python, and Christopher talks about his tutorial on how to write an installable Django application.

We also share a few summaries of the talks from the conference and projects from the Django community, including a news roundup, how decisions are made inside the Django Foundation, ways you can help with reviews, using the Django ORM with Marimo notebooks, maintaining a data-oriented project, how to get foreign keys horribly wrong, a project for simple deployment, and a project for adding extra buttons inside the Django Admin.

We would like to thank the audience members from Ireland who heard about DjangoCon by listening to the podcast. Thank you for attending the conference and for taking the time to say hello. We also appreciate those who asked us insightful questions at the end of the show.

We enjoyed exploring Dublin and recording the show in front of such a welcoming audience. We learned a ton from all the great talks given at the conference and made some new connections for future interviews.

This episode is sponsored by AMD.

Course Spotlight: How to Set Up a Django Project

In this course, you’ll learn the necessary steps that you’ll need to take to set up a new Django project. You’ll learn the basic setup for any new Django project, which needs to happen before programming the specific functionality of your project.

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What is the best way to record the Python dependencies for the reproducibility of your projects? What advantages will lock files provide for those projects? This week on the show, we welcome back Python Core Developer Brett Cannon to discuss his journey to bring PEP 751 and the pylock.toml file format to the community.

Brett has been working on a way to move beyond the requirements.txt file for over six years. He was on the show previously to discuss his work on PEP 665, which was rejected. He decided to continue to push forward, authoring PEP 751 last year, which was accepted at the end of March this year.

The PEP calls for a new file format to record your project’s dependencies. The goal was to have a standardized immutable record for what should be installed to reproduce your project in a virtual environment. He discusses working with other packaging projects and the compromises involved in creating a standard.

Course Spotlight: Using the Python subprocess Module

In this video course, you’ll learn how to use Python’s subprocess module to run and control external programs from your scripts. You’ll start with launching basic processes and progress to interacting with them as they execute.

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Are you looking for some projects where you can practice your Python skills? Would you like to experiment with building a generative AI app or an automated knowledge graph sentiment analysis tool? This week on the show, we speak with Raymond Camden about his journey into Python, his work in developer relations, and the Python projects featured on his blog.

Raymond is a developer evangelist and advocate who works with APIs, AI, and the web. He’s been expanding his developer knowledge by learning Python and documenting his journey through his blog and with the live-streaming show Code Break.

We discuss a couple of his recent Python projects. The first is building a resume review and revision system with generative AI and Flask. The other project uses Diffbot’s knowledge graph and Pipedream’s workflow tools to create an automated sentiment analysis tool.

This episode is sponsored by AMD.

Course Spotlight: What Can You Do With Python?

In this video course, you’ll find a set of guidelines that will help you start applying your Python skills to solve real-world problems. By the end, you’ll be able to answer the question, “What can you do with Python?”

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