Are you looking to advance your CircuitPython projects? Would you like a collection of resources and tools to help you along your path? This week on the show, Tod Kurt is here to discuss building projects with CircuitPython.

Tod has been working with embedded electronics for a long time and has been an active member of the Arduino community. He recently started to build projects using CircuitPython, and it has become his preferred prototype method.

He shares software resources, hardware tools, and advice about working with CircuitPython and embedded electronics. We discuss several of his music hardware projects and the libraries and modules that he uses for synthesis. He also shares a powerful online prototyping tool to plan your project before spending money or plugging in a soldering iron.

Course Spotlight: Python Basics: Reading and Writing Files

In this video course, you’ll learn how to move data back and forth between your Python programs and external software by reading and writing files. You’ll practice reading and writing data stored in the CSV file format, one of the most widely supported file formats for transferring tabular data.

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What are the unique challenges of a large Python code base? What techniques can you implement to simplify the management of a big project? This week on the show, Christopher Trudeau is here, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

We discuss a recent thread on Hacker News about working with a large Python code base. Christopher advises configuring tests and using tools to keep your code consistent across an organization. He also answers several questions about code complexity, typing, and leveraging third-party libraries.

We cover several other articles and projects from the Python community, including news from the Python Language Summit, Kivy for GUI development, the power of bit manipulation, the removal of unused import statements in your code, and a Python-based iOS project for adding reminders about links from a podcast.

Course Spotlight: Build Cross-Platform GUI Apps With Kivy

In this video course, you’ll learn how to build a cross-platform mobile application with Python and the Kivy GUI framework. You’ll discover how to develop an application that can run on your desktop as well as your phone. Then, you’ll package your app for Windows, Linux, and macOS.

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Have you thought about getting more involved in the Python community? Are you interested in volunteering for an event or becoming an organizer? This week on the show, we speak with organizers from this year’s PyCascades conference about making connections, learning new skills, and rationing your time.

We have three guests to discuss working on PyCascades 2023 and how they got involved in volunteering. Conference Chair Ben Berry, a site reliability engineer based in Seattle, is currently working on a private platform-as-a-service. Diversity Chair Madison Swain-Bowden is a senior data engineer out of Seattle, currently working at Automattic on the Openverse team. Sponsorship Chair Michael van der Kamp is a back-end engineer at Coffee Meets Bagel.

We discuss finding other volunteers, maintaining motivation, and connecting with sponsors. Our guests also share their stories of overcoming challenges, connecting with community, and finding fulfillment through volunteering.

This week’s episode is brought to you by Proxify.

Course Spotlight: Using pandas to Make a Gradebook in Python

With this course and Python project, you’ll build a script to calculate grades for a class using pandas. The script will quickly and accurately calculate grades from a variety of data sources. You’ll see examples of loading, merging, and saving data with pandas, as well as plotting some summary statistics.

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Do you need a refresher on using Docker with Python? Would you like to learn how to configure a continuous integration pipeline with modern tools and Docker? This week on the show, Christopher Trudeau is here, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

We share a Real Python tutorial from Bartosz Zaczyński about building continuous integration with Docker. Docker provides consistent environments for configuring, testing, and delivering Python applications. In this tutorial, you’ll get up to speed with current Docker and CI techniques.

We also speak with Bill Pollock from No Starch Press about Hacker Initiative. The public nonprofit gives back to and strengthens the hacking community. The 2023 grant cycle is currently open until August 15. We discuss the application process and projects from previous grant recipients.

We cover several other articles and projects from the Python community, including a news update and some resources on implementing metaclasses in Python, creating time machine-style backups, and scanning your project for vulnerabilities.

Course Spotlight: Metaclasses in Python

Metaclasses are an important but mysterious behind-the-scenes mechanism for instantiating classes in Python. In this video course, you’ll learn how Python’s metaclasses work in object-oriented programming.

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Would you like to speed up your Python machine-learning code dramatically? What if you only had to change a few keywords and add a couple of type hints on portions of your code? This week on the show, Christopher Trudeau is here, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

We discuss a new programming language named Mojo, which is a superset of Python. It aims to fix Python’s performance and deployment problems. The project has many interesting ideas and a leader who has helped to shape modern compiler technology.

We also share a pair of Real Python tutorials from Leodanis Pozo Ramos about object-oriented programming in Python. The first one is a deep dive into the creation of classes. It’s an excellent refresher for anyone looking to hone their OOP skills in Python.

The second tutorial covers the SOLID principles, which are five well-established standards for improving your object-oriented design. These principles guide you to create object-oriented code that is more maintainable, extensible, scalable, and testable.

We cover several other articles and projects from the Python community, including a news update, showing warnings when running Django, tracking the progress of your Python program, and a Markdown browser for your terminal.

This week’s episode is brought to you by Koyeb.

Course Spotlight: Using k-Nearest Neighbors (kNN) in Python

In this video course, you’ll learn all about the k-nearest neighbors (kNN) algorithm in Python, including how to implement kNN from scratch. Once you understand how kNN works, you’ll use scikit-learn to facilitate your coding process.

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How do Python virtual environments work under the hood? How does understanding these concepts help you with managing them for your projects? This week on the show, CPython core developer Brett Cannon returns to discuss his recent articles about virtual environments and the Python packaging landscape.

Brett talks about his recent article “How Virtual Environments Work.” He was researching the topic to solve an issue with a Linux Python distribution that doesn’t provide the tools to create virtual environments. We talk about how he solved the problem by creating a tiny library named microvenv.

We also take a look at the Python packaging ecosystem. Brett talks about the early days of Python, when these tools didn’t exist. He contrasts that with the current packaging solution explosion and how each one attempts to solve unique problems. We also discuss the Python Packaging User Survey and the plans for packaging summits at PyCon US. Note that we recorded this episode two weeks before PyCon US 2023.

Course Spotlight: Getting the Most Out of the Python Standard REPL

In this video course, you’ll learn how to use the Python standard REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop) to run your code interactively. This tool will allow you to test new ideas, explore and experiment with new tools and libraries, refactor and debug your code, try out examples, and more.

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How can you ensure that you’ve appropriately declared your project’s required dependencies? How do you determine what dependencies are missing from a third-party project that you can’t run? This week on the show, Christopher Trudeau is here, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

We discuss a new Python dependency checker called FawltyDeps. The tool helps you determine if you’ve declared too few or too many packages for your project.

Christopher has brought several developer resource collections: a list of assured open-source Python packages from Google, test databases with interesting datasets, and multiple Django third-party packages.

We cover several other articles and projects from the Python community, including a news update, advice on how to pitch yourself as a guest to a podcast, how to submit articles and projects to PyCoders Weekly, PyPI’s introduction of trusted publishers and organizations, a tool for tracking package history, a pixel art paint program written in Python, and a project for efficient string matching with regular expressions.

Course Spotlight: Publishing Python Packages to PyPI

In this video course, you’ll learn how to create a Python package for your project and how to publish it to PyPI, the Python Package Index. Quickly get up to speed on everything from naming your package to configuring it using setup.cfg.

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Are you familiar with the different versions of WebAssembly? Could WASM be the “write once, run everywhere” solution that developers have searched for? Where does distributing Python applications fit in the narrative? This week on the show, we have CPython core developer Brett Cannon to discuss his recent articles about WebAssembly and MVPy.

Brett has completed his syntactic sugar series, which we discussed in a previous episode. He details the origin of the series and his process of unearthing a minimum viable version of Python. Brett shares how he updated his PyCon US talk on the subject after feedback from presenting it at PyCascades.

We also dig deep into WebAssembly, specifically WebAssembly System Interface (WASI). Brett explains the concept of a “platform target triple” and the importance of defining which system CPython is compiled for. We also discuss WebAssembly becoming a ubiquitous distribution system.

Course Spotlight: Python Basics: Building Systems With Classes

In this video course, you’ll learn how to work with classes to build complex systems in Python. By composing classes, inheriting from other classes, and overriding class behavior, you’ll harness the power of object-oriented programming (OOP).

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What can you do if your text manipulation in Python is slowing you down? Are there faster alternatives using a compiled extension? This week on the show, Christopher Trudeau is here, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

Christopher shares a recent article by Itamar Turner-Trauring called “Speeding Up Text Processing in Python (Is Hard).” The piece compares the performance of string-matching scenarios using several alternatives to pure Python that rely on compiled extensions.

We also discuss a recent Real Python tutorial by Stephen Gruppetta on when to use .__repr__() vs .__str__() in Python. We cover the use cases for these special methods and the intended audiences for the strings they produce.

We share several other articles and projects from the Python community, including a news update, an article on the functional power of Python’s reduce(), a call to ban 1+N in Django, a friendly project to fetch your data files, and a tool for tracking your work from the shell.

Course Spotlight: Unicode in Python: Working With Character Encodings

In this course, you’ll get a Python-centric introduction to character encodings and Unicode. Handling character encodings and numbering systems can at times seem painful and complicated, but this guide is here to help with easy-to-follow Python examples.

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Are you exploring automation of your repetitive business tasks with Python? How are you going to share your helpful tools with co-workers? This week on the show, Sampo Ahokas from Robocorp is here to discuss robotic process automation (RPA) and distribution of these robots.

Sampo is a co-founder and VP of engineering at Robocorp. We talk about using Robot Framework, an open-source RPA tool, to develop bots that implement your existing Python skills. Sampo shares example projects and additional resources for new users.

We discuss the typical difficulties of sharing automation tools with a team and trying to avoid the dreaded “works on my machine” problem. Sampo describes how their group worked to develop a Conda-based tool for creating shareable packages and environments.

Course Spotlight: Manipulating ZIP Files With Python

In this video course, you’ll learn how to manipulate ZIP files using Python’s zipfile module from the standard library. Through hands-on examples, you’ll learn how to read, write, compress, and extract files from your ZIP files quickly.

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