In this meeting, we talked about:
January 20, 2021
Python news and updates
Popular Python YouTube channels
“Noise” in other programming languages
The role of code autoformatters like black
Organizing tooling environments with tools like pipx
Tools and methods for organizing knowledge
January 27, 2021
How to use the assert statement
How to write a test from scratch
What is a testing framework and why should you use one
How to use unittest
How to use pytest
February 3, 2021
What a mock object is
Why you sometimes need mock objects in your tests
How to create mock objects in Python
What you can do with a mock object
February 17, 2021
Python news and updates
The new match-case statement coming to Python
Real Python’s NLP resources
Methods for scheduling Python programs to run
February 24, 2021
Python news and updates
Installing your own package for testing with pytest
The difference between setup.py and pyproject.toml
The importance of teaching in mastering Python
Accessing values in a Pandas DataFrame
March 3, 2021
Python news and updates
Why some classes inherit from object
What underscores (_) mean in class attribute names
What the difference is between attributes, methods, and properties
How to use class methods
March 10, 2021
Python news and updates
Real Python’s new home page
What are *args and **kwargs
How to use static methods
How to use choices in a Django model
When to use a class vs. just writing functions
March 17, 2021
Python news and updates
How to configure the default Python path in VS Code
When to use OOP vs. functional programming
What self is and why and when it is used
How to exit a possibly infinite while loop
March 24, 2021
Python news and updates
Python Basics paperback
Shallow copy vs. deep copy
And more!
March 31, 2021
Python news and updates
Setting attributes on functions
FastAPI and Pydantic
Asynchronous databases
And more!
April 7, 2021
Python news and updates
How Python Basics came to be
Why Python Basics doesn’t have an index
Why Python Basics doesn’t have an “Eastern Economy” edition yet (but will soon!)
April 14, 2021
Python news and updates
How Python developers use static typing in the wild
What are some of the best tools currently for packaing Python projects
Why are some projects behind the Python release schedule and only support old or outdated versions
How to host Python apps with persistent file storage
April 21, 2021
What’s new on Real Python
Where to find code to read to level up your Python skills
Why [0xfor x in (1, 2, 3)] returns [15]
What cookiecutter templates there are for data science, Django, and Flask
How Python is used in mobile development
What the Beeware project is
April 28, 2021
Python news and updates
Getting started with open source
Member Dennis Smith’s Maryland COVID vaccination tracker
Member Santi’s RSVP mobile app
Running the different versions of Python using Docker
And more!
May 5, 2021
Python news and updates
How Python integers have ulminited precision
Why floating point numbers do not have unlimited precision
How to to decimal arithemetic with any precision using the Decimal class
How to find the maximum floating point value on your computer
And more
May 12, 2021
How to use Zoom webinar features
What are dunder methods
How to determine the type of an object
When and why you should use dunder attributes and dunder methods
And more!
May 19, 2021
Python news and updates
Preserving argument introspection when using decorators
Using pyinstaller on macOS Big Sur and some alternatives, such as Briefcase
Connecting FastAPI to Postgres: SQLAlchemy vs. TortoiseORM
And more!
June 2, 2021
Python news and updates
What the difference is between string literals and f-strings
How to handle non-ASCII character encodings in PostgreSQL using psycopg2
How to use absolute imports in conda environments in VSCode and is this even possible?
And more!
June 9, 2021
Python news and updates
Tips for finding study partners
Resource for setting up a development environment on macOS
Tracking changes in CSV files
Optimal number of cores in ThredPoolExecutor
And more!
June 16, 2021
Python news and updates
Why you can’t make comments after a line continuation character
How to use parentheses to implicitly concatenate strings
What some of the alternative Python REPLs are
How to get started contributing to open source
Where to find realistic data for Python projects
And more!
June 23, 2021
Python news and updates
How to organize code into modules and packages
What to do to prepare for jobs in data analytics
How one Real Python member got his first Python developer job
And more!
June 30, 2021
Python news and updates
Composition vs. inheritance in Python
Resources for data engineering and data analysis
Hosting a Pelican site on GitHub Pages
And more!
July 7, 2021
Python news and updates
Do you need to learn Jupyter Notebook as a beginner?
Is building a Django portfolio site a good beginner project?
How do you sort a dictionary in Python 3?
What are some good resources for learning git?
And more!
July 14, 2021
Python news and updates
What is structural pattern matching in Python 3.10?
What is pyproject.toml and why should you use it?
How do you automatically run a Linux command from Python?
And more!
July 21, 2021
Python news and updates
What is a REST API and what are some good resources to learn about them?
What is FastAPI and do you need to learn Django or Flask first?
How do you send an email with a subject line using Python?
And more!
July 28, 2021
Python news and updates
What are mutable default arguments and why are the bad?
What are some of the modern tools used for packaging Python projects?
Can you update SQL database rows with pandas.to_sql()?
And more!
August 4, 2021
Python news and updates
How do you set an HTTP header in a urlib request?
What is ChainMap in Python?
How do you send an email with a PDF attachment in Python?
And more!
August 11, 2021
Python news and updates
How do you get started with logging in Python?
How do you learn to write cleaner Python code?
What is a linter and why should you use one?
And more!
August 18, 2021
Python news and updates
What should I learn after learning Tkinter?
What’s the next step after reading Python Basics?
What skills do you need to be a full-time Python developer?
And more!