Expanding the International Python Community With the PSF

06/18/21 • 60 min

The popularity of Python is continuing to grow Developers across the globe are embracing the language. How is Python being used in all of these different countries? How does an organization like the Python Software Foundation (PSF) work toward the goals in its mission statement for supporting and growing this international community? This week on the show, we have Marlene Mhangami, a PSF board member and part of the Diversity and Inclusion Work Group.

Marlene lives in Zimbabwe on the continent of Africa. She has been organizing events not only locally in Zimbabwe but across all of Africa. She is the chair of Pycon Africa and has given talks at Pycon US, Pycon UK, and Pycon India.

She has been working locally as an organizer and educator. We talk about the challenges of teaching technology and programming to a population of young people. Some of these students don’t have access to computers.

She is also currently pursuing a computer science degree with the University of London. Along with her studies, she is also interning with NVidia. She is working with them on the RAPIDS project with a focus on the cuDF library.

Spotlight: Introduction to Sorting Algorithms in Python

In this course, you’ll learn all about five different sorting algorithms in Python from both a theoretical and a practical standpoint. You’ll also learn several related and important concepts, including Big O notation and recursion.

Topics:

00:00:00 – Introduction
00:02:05 – Connecting during PyCon 2021
00:03:08 – Roles with the Python Software Foundation (PSF)
00:05:39 – Python in Africa
00:10:31 – School overseas and return to Zimbabwe to build a Python community
00:13:47 – Teaching technology and Python to students who don’t have computers
00:22:14 – Sponsor: Digital Ocean’s App Platform
00:22:50 – Work with the PSF and building geographic diversity
00:27:49 – PSF work groups
00:32:10 – Organizing PyCon Africa 2019 and bringing a continent of communities together
00:35:51 – How is Python being used in Africa?
00:38:05 – Video Course Spotlight
00:39:24 – Working with NVidia RAPIDS and cuDF
00:43:57 – What are you excited about in the world of Python?
00:46:12 – What do you want to learn next?
00:52:45 – What is something you thought you knew about Python but were wrong about it?
00:59:41 – Thanks and goodbye

Show Links:

Level up your Python skills with our expert-led courses:

Support the podcast & join our community of Pythonistas

Spotlight: Introduction to Sorting Algorithms in Python

Topics:

00:00:00 – Introduction
00:02:05 – Connecting during PyCon 2021
00:03:08 – Roles with the Python Software Foundation (PSF)
00:05:39 – Python in Africa
00:10:31 – School overseas and return to Zimbabwe to build a Python community
00:13:47 – Teaching technology and Python to students who don’t have computers
00:22:14 – Sponsor: Digital Ocean’s App Platform
00:22:50 – Work with the PSF and building geographic diversity
00:27:49 – PSF work groups
00:32:10 – Organizing PyCon Africa 2019 and bringing a continent of communities together
00:35:51 – How is Python being used in Africa?
00:38:05 – Video Course Spotlight
00:39:24 – Working with NVidia RAPIDS and cuDF
00:43:57 – What are you excited about in the world of Python?
00:46:12 – What do you want to learn next?
00:52:45 – What is something you thought you knew about Python but were wrong about it?
00:59:41 – Thanks and goodbye

Show Links:

Level up your Python skills with our expert-led courses:

Support the podcast & join our community of Pythonistas

Previous Episode

Detecting Deforestation With Python & Using GraphQL With Django and Vue

Are you looking for an in-depth data science project to practice your skills on? Perhaps you would like to add new tools to your Python web development projects instead? This week on the show, David Amos is back, and he’s brought another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

David shares an article about how to go about detecting deforestation from satellite images. He covers how a data science team built a machine learning (ML) solution to do just that, using FastAI for the modeling and Streamlit to create a dashboard.

We also discuss a Real Python article about building a blog using Django, Vue.js, and GraphQL. GraphQL is a great tool to enhance your API to make it more flexible. The step by step project walks you through turning your Django blog data models into a GraphQL API.

We cover several other articles and projects from the Python community including, the tools and tech used to run a one-woman hardware company, visualizing data in Python using plt.scatter(), why the sad face when using Black, how to iterate over dataframe rows (and should you?), pipx is now a PyPA member project, and real-time lossless audio compression in Python with pyFLAC.

Spotlight: Explore Your Dataset With Pandas

In this step-by-step course, you’ll learn how to start exploring a dataset with Pandas and Python. You’ll learn how to access specific rows and columns to answer questions about your data. You’ll also see how to handle missing values and prepare to visualize your dataset in a Jupyter Notebook.

Topics:

00:00:00 – Introduction
00:02:11 – Build a Blog Using Django, Vue, and GraphQL
00:10:06 – Detecting Deforestation From Satellite Images
00:16:35 – Sponsor: Digital Ocean’s App Platform
00:17:11 – The Tools and Tech I Use to Run a One-Woman Hardware Company
00:29:13 – Visualizing Data in Python Using plt.scatter()
00:34:24 – Why the Sad Face?
00:40:20 – Video Course Spotlight
00:41:26 – How to Iterate Over DataFrame Rows (And Should You?)
00:48:31 – pyFLAC: Real-Time Lossless Audio Compression in Python
00:53:47 – pipx: Install and Run Python Applications in Isolated Environments
00:59:59 – Thanks and goodbye

Show Links:

Build a Blog Using Django, Vue, and GraphQL – In this step-by-step project, you’ll build a blog from the ground up. You’ll turn your Django blog data models into a GraphQL API and consume it in a Vue application for users to read. You’ll end up with an admin site and a user-facing site you can continue to refine for your own use.

Detecting Deforestation From Satellite Images – How would you go about detecting deforestation — a contributor to climate change — from satellite images? In this article, you’ll learn how one team built a machine learning (ML) solution to do just that, using FastAI for the modeling and Streamlit to create a dashboard. The article discusses methodology and results, and is a great read about building an ML solution. The project code is available on GitHub.

The Tools and Tech I Use to Run a One-Woman Hardware Company – Winterbloom makes open-source, boutique synthesizers. There’s a lot that goes into running a hardware company. Someone has to design the hardware, code the firmware, write the documentation, not to mention administrate the company. Winterbloom does all of this with just one engineer — Stargirl Flowers. Learn what tools and tech Stargirl uses to run her company, and how Python fits into the big picture in more ways than one.

Visualizing Data in Python Using plt.scatter() – In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create scatter plots in Python, which are a key part of many data visualization applications. You’ll get an introduction to plt.scatter(), a versatile function in the Matplotlib module for creating scatter plots.

Why the Sad Face? – The Black autoformatter adopts some conventions that might surprise you the first time you use it. One of those conventions — the “sadface dedent” — moves closing parentheses in function signatures and other block headers to their own lines. This creates a line containing nothing but “):”, which looks like a sad face emoji. Łukasz Langa, Black’s creator, explains w...

Next Episode

Practicing Python With CSV Files and Extracting Values With "filter()"

Are you ready to practice your Python skills some more? There is a new set of practice problems prepared for you to tackle, and this time they’re based on working with CSV files. This week on the show, David Amos is back, and he’s brought another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

David shares an article about functional programming with a focus on the “filter” function. The tutorial covers how to process an iterable and extract the items that satisfy a given condition. It also covers combining filter with other functional tools, and compares it to coding with Pythonic tools like list comprehensions and generator expressions.

We cover several other articles and projects from the Python community including, Excel, Python, and the future of data science, a Bayesian analysis of Lego prices in Python, why can’t comments appear after a line continuation character, teaching Python on the Raspberry Pi400 at the public library, a cross-platform editor designed for writing novels built with Python and Qt, and a text user interface with rich as the renderer.

Spotlight: Python vs JavaScript for Python Developers

Python and JavaScript are two of the most popular programming languages in the world. In this course, you’ll take a deep dive into the JavaScript ecosystem by comparing Python vs JavaScript. You’ll learn the jargon, language history, and best practices from a Python developer’s perspective.

Topics:

00:00:00 – Introduction
00:02:29 – Excel, Python, and the Future of Data Science
00:07:50 – Python Practice Problems: Parsing CSV Files
00:17:09 – Sponsor: Digital Ocean’s App Platform
00:17:45 – A Bayesian Analysis of Lego Prices in Python With PyMC3
00:23:02 – Why Can’t Comments Appear After a Line Continuation Character?
00:28:40 – Python’s filter(): Extract Values From Iterables
00:34:57 – Video Course Spotlight
00:36:24 – How I Teach Python on the Raspberry Pi 400 at the Public Library
00:46:23 – novelWriter: Cross-Platform Editor Designed for Writing Novels Built With Python and Qt
00:48:02 – textual: A Text User Interface With Rich as the Renderer
00:54:58 – Thanks and goodbye

Show Links:

Excel, Python, and the Future of Data Science – What’s the most widely used tool in data science? Is it pandas or NumPy? Is it the Python language itself? Not really. It’s Excel. You might argue that data scientists aren’t using Excel as their primary tool, and you might be right. But Excel enables non-technical users, like small business owners, to gain insights into their data. In this article, Anaconda CEO Peter Wang discusses his goal of making Python and PyData the “conceptual successor” to Excel.

Python Practice Problems: Parsing CSV Files – In this tutorial, you’ll prepare for future interviews by working through a set of Python practice problems that involve CSV files. You’ll work through the problems yourself and then compare your results with solutions developed by the Real Python team.

A Bayesian Analysis of Lego Prices in Python With PyMC3 – Follow along with this in-depth analysis of LEGO prices to see Bayesian analysis in action. Along the way, you’ll how pooled and unpooled linear models can be used to determine if a LEGO set is fairly priced. The article is quite technical, so experience with Bayesian statistics is recommended.

Why Can’t Comments Appear After a Line Continuation Character? – Chaining together many object methods can create long tines that break the PEP 8 79-character line length recommendation. You can use \ to break the chain of methods onto individual lines, but if you want to leave comments at the end of some of the lines, you’re out of luck. There’s another pattern, though, that solves this.

Python’s filter(): Extract Values From Iterables – In this step-by-step tutorial, you’ll learn how Python’s filter() works and how to use it effectively in your programs. You’ll also learn how to use list comprehension and generator expressions to replace filter() and make your code more Pythonic.

How I Teach Python on the Raspberry Pi 400 at the Public Library – Community-based programming courses are a great way to introduce folks to computer programming that otherwise may not have the...