Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
5 stars. Python Distilled has a perfectly suited title: This book is for experienced programmers who want to learn Python and need the Python programming language's core syntax, standard library, and Pythonic idioms. However, if you're a developer who wants to add Python to your toolbox, I recommend Python Distilled as one of the first books you should read.
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
5 stars. Python in a Nutshell is an excellent book for professional developers who have some experience with Python but want to take the leap to being a senior Python developer, Python in a Nutshell is required reading.
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
If you are an instructor leading a Python programming workshop, getting third-party PyPI packages installed on students' machines with pip has several hurdles: navigating the command-line, operating system differences, distinguishing between pip and pip3, dealing with multiple versions of Python, misconfigured PATH environment variables, and virtual environments are all possible pitfalls.
You can avoid all of this and save time by using pipfromrepl, which allows you to install PyPI packages from the interactive shell. These same steps work no matter what the computer's Python setup is.
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
As you can tell from the lengthy title, there are many linting tools for Python. Some of them have near-identical names as each other. In November 2022, I upgraded my text editor to Sublime Text 4 and then took the opportunity to spend a few hours reviewing all of the Python linters I could find. After personally reviewing all of them, I've selected the following as must-haves: Pyflakes, Mypy, and Black. If you'd like additional tools, I also liked: Radon, Pyroma, and docformatter. I'm using Python 3.12.0. I don't care for my linter to point out when I stray from the certain dictates in the PEP 8 document, and my linter choices reflect that. You might have different needs and values than I, so in this blog post I give my reasoning and views for each linter.
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
I like to program computers. An army of a million file clerks wouldn't be as productive as my laptop running the right code. And my house only has one bathroom so the line would be quite long too...
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
JavaScript is not the only programming language you can run in the browser. Brython is a Python interpreter implemented in JavaScript so you can run Python code in your browser. This lets you have a Python interactive shell without having to install Python. You can also write Python code to interact with the DOM and create browser apps just like you could with JavaScript. The primary downside is that a browser must download about 6 megabytes of JavaScript files before it can run, which can be a significant delay. This blog post guides you through setting up Brython.
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
Installing Python is easy, but maybe you're on a smartphone/tablet, are on a library computer that doesn't let you install software, or can't install Python for some other reason. This article has a list of 10 free Python interpreters and interactive shells (also called REPLs) that you can access from a web browser.
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
Programming and hacking in movies often involves streams of ones and zeros flowing across the screen. This looks mysterious and impressive, but what do these ones and zeros actually mean? You're probably aware that binary numbers (numbers written using only the two digits, zero and one) have something to do with computers but don't know why.
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc