Aaron Maxwell on the power of Python

In this episode of the O’Reilly Programming Podcast, I talk all things Python with Aaron Maxwell, presenter of the live online training courses Python: Beyond The Basics, and Python: The Next Level. He is also the author of the book Powerful Python: The Most Impactful Patterns, Features and Development Strategies Modern Python Provides.

Discussion points:

• The importance of writing code that others developers want to use, and how Python’s features (particularly its object model hooks) enable developers to write more useful code
• What Python decorators do, and how the process of learning to write Python decorators can help a developer master understanding of Python as a whole
• How Python generators are an excellent tool for implementing highly scalable software
• The ever-increasing transition from Python Version 2 to Version 3: Maxwell notes that over the last year, the percentage of his course attendees who say they are coding in Version 3 has increased from 20% to more than 50%.
• Python’s popularity is fueled by its use by people who are not professional software engineers. Maxwell says that “Python is a language that people who are not trained in programming can quickly pick up and be productive with.”

Other links:

• The Oriole online tutorial Magically Crafting Your Own Python Syntax, presented by Aaron Maxwell
• The video What are f strings in Python and how can I use them?
• The video How do I handle missing dictionary keys in Python?
• Pandas, the Python data analysis library