Pybites

Awesome achievement, congrats Tanner! All the hard, consisten work paying off. And shout out to your coach Robin Beer as well, love seeing how you guys have worked together making it happen!

When I learned to program I got stuck in the avalanche of resources. 😱 I spent weeks if not months studying them, endlessly copying and running simple examples. 😵 The problem with that approach: I was not really learning, nor shipping any code! 💡 I had a breakthrough moment when colleagues expressed a need for a tool to analyze the vast amount of server telemetry data coming in. This was my ticket into becoming a programmer and I took it with both hands. 💪 The journey was tough and filled with obstacles, but working backwards from a complex app / project, I really learned what building and shipping software entailed. 💡 Building a project without knowing the skills is daunting and triggers a lot of imposter syndrome, but later I learned this is actually very common. As Patrick McKenzie said: "Every great developer you know got there by solving problems they were unqualified to solve until they actually did it." 🔥 And often this means you'll learn things on the job, as you're going. So drop the tutorials and start building!

In order to learn #python and #programming well, you have to build. But people often struggle what to build. To which I always say: "scratch your own itch". And it does not have to be big. A while ago for example, I wanted to find hex colors quickly from the command line (as opposed to browser google). And I wanted to do something with the amazing Rich library, so I built color-searcher. It's a little command line app to search for color hexes by name. It uses a color csv from a GitHub repo I forked and rich to display the matching colors in a nice table (example below). See this article for more details: https://lnkd.in/eEr7TF3a I even got some nice feedback from Rich' creator asking me if I could "convert the RGB to HSL and sort by the L component". Which goes to show that it's good to share your work and get feedback, your code will become better and you'll grow. So what to build next? - Scratch your own itch: what is something you do repeatedly and is boring; can it be automated? - Ditto but for friends/ family/ colleagues? - What is a common pain or need? (these projects can even grow into side hustles, we've seen this many times!) Taking this approach you come out with tangible projects and apps that will boost your profile showing you have the skills, and will help you land new opportunities more easily. Besides, getting stuck in tutorial purgatory, which happens a lot, is not fun, building real world apps is! Let me know what you'll build next. Good luck! Also let me know if you need any help ...

Yesterday I posted about Folium to plot cities. Did you know you can also make heatmaps with it? I did this the other day looking at my fitness data. Here some examples of steps around conferences/work visits @ Cleveland, Chicago and Eindhoven (Netherlands): As seen many times, the right Python package/ library saves you a ton of work and we're standing on the shoulders of giants. 😍 📈 Approach: - Apple data ❌ - did not include steps :( - Google data ✅ - via their Checkout service. 🎉 This gives you a bunch of tcx files, which I parsed with `parse_tcx_files` (using ` xml.etree.ElementTree` pandas; code at the end). Creating the heatmap required little code 💡 📈 ``` from folium.plugins import HeatMap heatmap = folium.Map() heat_data = [ [row["lat"], row["long"]] for _, row in df.iterrows() ] HeatMap(heat_data).add_to(heatmap) heatmap.save(output_file) ``` Have fun making your own heatmap, what would you use it for? GitHub repo: https://lnkd.in/dehhSRGu

One of the best things I've done in my twenties: doing various interrail trips. No better way to become independent and learn about other cultures. The 'deliberate practice' learning new languages taught me valuable lessons I replicated to programming ever since: - You have to practice in order to really learn. - You have to make (a lot of) mistakes in order to learn faster and more effectively. - You have to step outside of your comfort zone in order to grow. - Learning about other cultures and adapt is fascinating and a great skill. - Sometimes things don't go the way you planned and you'll have to fly with the changes. - Probably a bunch more ... Below a little Marvin AI Folium #python tip to plot the main cities I visited during the summer of 2002 on a map: https://lnkd.in/dBXrmK7w

When I first started with #Python, understanding objects and classes felt like a challenge. 🐍 If you've ever felt the same, this Newbie Bite video by Russell is for you! He breaks down classes in Python to help you master OOP. 💡 Video: https://lnkd.in/dYzfn-AW Classes are like blueprints and let you create custom objects tailored to your needs. 🌟 📈 I often prefer functions when starting a new project, but classes are a great when your code base grows and you want/ need to better encapsulate code and manage state. For a deeper dive into when to use classes, check out my article: https://lnkd.in/dTyp9mvN Let me know if this helps you get a better grip on Python's classes and OOP! New to #Python; do the newbies: https://lnkd.in/dJdKWE6y Already know Python and want to dive deeper into OOP? Take our learning path and write more idiomatic code: https://lnkd.in/g_JYfTg

Check out Pybites YouTube channel for our new series of Newbie Bite screencasts by Russell Helmstedter 😍 Great way to get the important #Python fundamentals down! 📈 Here is the latest one showing more techniques to effectively work with dictionaries 🐍 🚀 https://lnkd.in/dBTAUedi #pythonlearning #programming #coding

What are default arguments in #Python and how can they be handy? Learn about it in our extended Newbie Bites and today's screencast on our YouTube channel: https://lnkd.in/dYYC2gxY Keep in mind that default arguments are evaluated once when the module loads. Using a mutable structure (e.g. a list) will keep appending to the same default list. Instead, use `None` and initialize a new list inside the function:

Yesterday I spoke about `|` to merge dicts, but it also got added to type hints since v3.10, not needing the `typing` import anymore for these: - Unions can now be written as `X | Y` - Optional can now be written as `X | None` #python

Asking for help can be challenging for developers. We talk about this in our new @pybites podcast episode, explaining why it's important to ask for help soon and provide tips how to do this better. We also discuss wins books ... Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/dygSRKz9 #python #developer #mindset #podcast #career