Python Resources
Introduction
Whenever I start learning a new programming language I like to find good book and blog authors, good conference videos (and ideally find conferences I might be able to attend), find some podcasts to listen to, and find new people to follow on Twitter.
I’m currently getting to know Python so whilst this post outlines my initial discoveries is also a request for help. If you have any suggestions for me please let me know via Twitter. I’ll either update this post or create a new one once I’ve gained some more exposure to the Python community.
Books
One of the problems I’ve faced is in finding books targeted towards existing developers who want to learn Python as opposed to books written for people new to development. The Python Software Foundation has a list of possible resources but it is, if anything, slightly overwhelming.
So far I’ve tended to look at existing sample code to get a feel of the language rather than relying on one single source of information but I have bought a few books.
Today a copy of Fluent Python by Luciano Ramalho (Twitter) was delivered. This is a big, heavy tome (just over 750 pages) but it seems to be comprehensive and covers what I think are intermediate and the more advanced areas of the language.
Since one of the first projects I want to tackle in Python is a REST API I picked up a copy of Flask Web Development by Miguel Grinberg (Twitter and Blog). It’s very well written and I’m learning a lot from it. It’s not specifically about building REST APIs but it is a great Flask guide and Miguel has created a more follow-up video course called Building Web APIs with Flask which I’ve also bought.
Another project I want to tackle involves sanitising, cleaning and processing a large volume of data and then presenting it in a web interface and to help with this I have bought a copy of Data Visualization with Python and JavaScript by Kyran Dale (Twitter). I’ve had a quick skim of the beginning and it looks great.
I’ve also bought a copy of Effective Python by Brett Slatkin (Twitter and Blog) which looks good but I’ve only dipped into it briefly.
Blogs & Email Digests
Nothing yet so I’d love some suggestions.
Conference Videos & Speakers
There are a lot of PyCon (see below) videos on YouTube which is fantastic. I’m going to watch some as and when I get time but if people have recommendation about any particularly good ones I’d love to hear about them.
So far I’ve not watched many videos, mainly due to time, but I did come across Raymond Hettinger (on Twitter as raymondh) who is very engaging and his talks are packed full of useful information whilst being funny and energetic. Some of his videos that I’ve watched and would recommend are:
- Being a Core Developer in Python from PyBay2016
- Beyond PEP 8 from PyCon 2015
- Python’s Class Development Toolkit from PyCon US 2013
Conferences
I’ve not come across a vast amount here apart from PyCon which seems to consist of one big annual conference in North America and lots of smaller conferences which take place all over the world. I’m going to see if I can make it to PyCon UK which takes place at the end of October in Cardiff which is only a couple of hours away from where I live.
Podcasts
So far I’ve only listened to a couple of episodes from a single podcast. I don’t have a huge amount of time to listen to them because I don’t have a commute but I do try to make time for really good ones.
Talk Python To Me caught my attention because it is still being produced and it has a good and varied back-catalogue of episodes (112 as I write this). The two episodes I’ve listened to so far have been very interesting and one, Adding a full features Python environment to Visual Studio Code ties in with my blog post about Visual Studio Code where the guest is Don Jayamanne who created the Python extension most people use.
This is another area where I’m severely lacking. So far I’m following:
- Guido van Rossum (gvanrossum)
- Raymond Hettinger (raymondh)
- Miguel Grinberg (miguelgrinberg)
- Get Python (getpy)
- Python Software (ThePSF)
Suggestions for interesting people to follow would be fantastic.