Hey Pythonista,
Happy Monday!
In this edition: your body, future of programming, Will McGugan interview (creator of Rich), on teaching programming, and functools.
Let's get straight into it.
1) Your body is your temple
"Treat your body like a temple, not a woodshed. The mind and body work together. Your body needs to be a good support system for the mind and spirit. If you take good care of it, your body can take you wherever you want to go, with the power and strength and energy and vitality you will need to get there."
- Jim Rohn
We know firsthand how addicting programming and problem solving is but taking one step back to spend that one hour a day on working out or being physically active, is actually many steps forward.
Not only in work productivity, but also in overall mood/happiness, fitness / quality of life.
2) The future of programming
Ever thought about AI and how it's going to affect us?
> Will ChatGPT (#AI tools) make the #developer extinct?
Not sure how representative 81 votes are but it's still quite a few.
Good news: only 7.4% think AI will replace devs.
We agree! We think we'll be in the game! But how that will look might be different...
23.5% of people thought AI will pivot dev roles.
The majority, 69.1% thinks AI only aids developers.
Two things:
- If you're not using AI tools, you're probably missing out on a tool that can make you (way) more productive.
- Not embracing these tools, you might fall behind. Yes, AI can produce low-quality code and hallucinate, but this is likely to improve with time.
As one of our coaches said: "You won't be replaced by AI, but you might get replaced by people using AI."
If you cannot keep up with the rapid changes in dev land, come talk with us. Throughout our coaching we'll show you how to use these tools in the practical context of building real world apps.
3) Hear from the creator of the awesome Rich library
We were pleased to chat with Will McGugan, the mastermind behind the Rich library and the founder of Textualize.
Will has significantly impacted the Python community and, in this episode we explore his journey, and you'll gain insights from a prolific open-source Python developer.
4) How to better teach programming
I (Bob) posted this on LinkedIn:
When teaching Python, or anything really, be ok with making mistakes. 💪
Showing your process of debugging, problem solving, and your unique approach to getting software written is what's insightful for people. 💡
It's a bit ironic (and why it took me a while to figure this out), but people learn way more when they see you figure it out when things go wrong. 📈
5) From the archive
Somebody asked the other day: "Is functools frequently used?"
I wouldn't say it's in my top 10 most-used Python Standard Library modules, but it can do some really cool things.
On that note, we talk about more Standard Library stuff on the blog, last week we published these two articles:
If you like to see more things covered on our blog (or YouTube) hit reply and let us know ...
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Have a splendid week and remember, join our community and hit us up there if you have any feedback or things you'd like to discuss:
Best,
Bob & Julian
P.S. If you currently think you know Python, but you feel your level of confidence when coding is not backing that up, come talk to us.
Having coached 150+ people 1:1, they've gained clarity on the important aspects of software development, learned how to write more robust code, and unlocked opportunities they thought they were not capable of (e.g. landing better paying jobs, building their own SaaS products, and contributing to open source). 📈
It all starts with a quick assessment call where we go over your goals and find the best way we can help you achieve them effectively.