Why we aren't building an app this Christmas

Bite-Sized Python News & Updates

Switching off (mostly) for the holidays

Hey Pythonista,

There are only 2 weeks left in the year for us here at Pybites.

Like many companies and people out there, Bob, myself and the rest of the team will be disconnecting on 22nd December 2025 and returning on 5th January 2026.

With this kind of time off looming it's easy to do two things:

Commit to doing too much on your time off, or
Do absolutely nothing and lose momentum.

For instance, Bob and I have an idea for a new application we want to build, and we really want to dive into it over the holidays. In theory this is great, but we're most definitely over committing to something that's unachievable.

We both have families that we want to enjoy the holidays with, so building an entire app end-to-end is setting us up for a world of hurt.

Conversely, if we don't set any goals, I know we'll both be restless and feel like we're getting rusty.

Don't get me wrong, switching off for the holidays is important. We're just not wired to completely switch off for two weeks without doing anything.

We choose to live our lives with intention. Be completely present with the family by default, and work on ourselves when they've had enough of us 😆

So, over these holidays we're setting achievable goals for ourselves.

Bob has some coding projects he wants to tinker with.
I have some home automation to get sorted + some small Python scripts I'm keen to build and experimenting with.

What will you be working on?

Remember, scratching your own itch is the best way to grow as a developer!

Reply or join our community and share one small script you plan to write. If you're stuck, reply "STUCK" and tell me why.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

Julian

Jump into the Pybites Community

Exception groups in Python >= 3.11

New community member Yachint kicked off a weekly “notes from learning” series with a sharp breakdown of Exception Groups in Python 3.11.

Using a simple validate_user() example, he shows how traditional try/except fails fast and hides additional errors, while ExceptionGroup + except* lets you collect all validation issues at once and then handle them by type (e.g. ValueError vs TypeError) without losing context.

Unmatched exceptions aren’t silently swallowed either — they’re re-raised, which keeps error handling honest.

It’s a great pattern for form validation, concurrent tasks, and richer user feedback, and a nice reminder why moving to Python 3.11+ is worth it.

Learn more

Foundations Week 4 Spotlight – Juanjo Takes His Dev Journal “Pro”

This week Juanjo shifted from adding features to hardening his dev journal app.

He introduced a proper tests/ layout with pytest (covering DB, models, and CLI) so any change can be validated with a single command.

He also refactored the code into a real package (journal/ package, __main__.py, pyproject.toml, uv-ready), making it installable, modular, and future-proof.

It’s a textbook example of how our PDC Foundations program helps you move from “it works” scripts to tested, maintainable Python projects you could actually ship.

Full article (previous articles in series)

If you're new to Python or feel your skills are rusty, this is a great program to get up2speed with all modern Python + tooling you'll need to be proficient.

Learn more and apply

Mindset Corner – Christina on Imposter Syndrome

Christina has been leaning into mindset work (inspired by our coaching) and realised her imposter syndrome isn’t a flaw, it’s a signal she’s pushing beyond her comfort zone. As an overthinker and perfectionist, a deep dive into this topic really hit home: if you’re feeling like an imposter, it usually means you’re growing.

Guided by a talk on imposter syndrome and the book The Imposter Cure by Dr. Jessamy Hibberd, she’s learning that the goal isn’t to erase self-doubt, but to stop letting it dictate your actions. With practical tools to avoid self-sabotage, her message to the community is clear: if you’re wondering whether you deserve your seat at the table… you do!

Read Christina's post

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