Lessons Learned From Four Years Programming With Python

The Real Python Podcast

What are the core lessons you’ve learned along your Python development journey? What are key takeaways you would share with new users of the language? This week on the show, Duarte Oliveira e Carmo is here to discuss his recent talk, “Four Years of Python.”

Duarte works at the crossroads of machine learning, data science, and software engineering. He began using Python in his graduate studies and never looked back. In 2021, he wrote a blog post about some of the valuable lessons he’s learned. Then he decided the lessons and concepts in the post might make a good conference talk.

We cover the steps in his process of crafting the presentation, practicing it at a smaller conference, and finally presenting it at PyCon Italia last year. We also dig into the four major themes of the talk. Along the way, we share a collection of resources to help you continue learning on your Python journey.

Course Spotlight: Building a URL Shortener With FastAPI and Python

In this video course, you’ll build an app to create and manage shortened URLs. Your Python URL shortener can receive a full target URL and return a shortened URL. You’ll also use the automatically created documentation of FastAPI to try out your API endpoints.

Topics:

• 00:00:00 – Introduction
• 00:02:38 – Four years of Python
• 00:04:18 – Why did you create a blog?
• 00:06:19 – A singular vs wide focus for the blog
• 00:09:19 – Pitching the talk to conferences
• 00:13:02 – Resources for preparing your talk
• 00:16:03 – What was your programming and Python background?
• 00:19:00 – Sponsor: InfluxData
• 00:19:47 – Reading is better than Googling
• 00:26:23 – What are some of your favorite docs?
• 00:28:48 – Thoughts on GPT and Copilot
• 00:31:45 – Keep it stupid simple
• 00:36:07 – What’s extensible code?
• 00:38:29 – Video Course Spotlight
• 00:39:54 – Learning testing techniques & testing data science code
• 00:46:05 – Continuous learning
• 00:51:46 – What do you use for RSS?
• 00:53:06 – Resources for machine learning
• 00:57:20 – What are you excited about in the world of Python?
• 00:58:57 – What do you want to learn next?
• 01:00:55 – How can people follow the work you do?
• 01:01:20 – Thanks and goodbye

Show Links:

• Four years of Python - Duarte O.Carmo
• Four years of Python - Duarte Carmo - YouTube
• Practices of the Python Pro
• Pelican 4.8.0
• “One for Them, One for Me” - Blank Check Movies From Famous Directors
• PyData
• NumFOCUS: A Nonprofit Supporting Open Code for Better Science
• Proposing a Talk - PyCon US 2023
• pandas documentation - pandas 1.5.3 documentation
• scikit-learn 1.2.2 - User guide - documentation
• FastAPI - Tutorial - User Guide
• Using FastAPI to Build Python Web APIs - Real Python
• Python 3.11.2 Documentation
• Kindle Highlights Newsletter
• Reeder 5
• Welcome to Feedly
• Normconf: The Normcore Tech Conference
• Tech Blog - ★❤✰ Vicki Boykis ★❤✰
• Sebastian Raschka - Blog
• Blog of a data person. - koaning.io
• Machine Learning Design Patterns - Book
• The Practical AI Podcast - Changelog
• tidytuesday: Official repo for the #tidytuesday project
• PyCon.DE & PyData Berlin, 2023 - PyConDE & PyData Berlin 2023
• PyCon Italia - 2023
• ruff - PyPI
• Effective Python › The Book: Second Edition
• Episode #3: Effective Python and Python at Google Scale - The Real Python Podcast
• Duarte O.Carmo
• Talks - Duarte O.Carmo
• Duarte O.Carmo - LinkedIn

Level up your Python skills with our expert-led courses:

• Python REST APIs With FastAPI
• Splitting Datasets With scikit-learn and train_test_split()
• Building a URL Shortener With FastAPI and Python

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