Python has something called wildcard imports, which look like from module import *. This type of import allows you to quickly get all the objects from a module into your namespace. However, using this import on a package can be confusing because it’s not clear what you want to import: subpackages, modules, objects? Python has the __all__ variable to work around this issue. The __all__ variable is a list of strings where each string represents the name of a variable, […]

When it comes to fighting climate change, I strongly believe that getting involved in politics is one of the most useful things you can do. But given how energy-intensive software is these days, writing more efficient software also seems worth doing, especially if your software is used at scale. However, whenever efficiency is brought up, Jevons Paradox rears its head. Writing in the 19th century, Jevons pointed out that increased efficiency in the use of coal didn’t decrease the amount […]

Watch Now This tutorial has a related video course created by the Real Python team. Watch it together with the written tutorial to deepen your understanding: Making HTTP Requests With Python The Requests library is the de facto standard for making HTTP requests in Python. It abstracts the complexities of making requests behind a beautiful, simple API so that you can focus on interacting with services and consuming data in your application. Throughout this tutorial, you’ll see some of the […]

Python makes extensive use of a type system known as duck typing. The system is based on objects’ behaviors and interfaces. Many built-in classes and tools support this type system, which makes them pretty flexible and decoupled. Duck typing is a core concept in Python. Learning about the topic will help you understand how the language works and, more importantly, how to use this approach in your own code. In this tutorial, you’ll learn: What duck typing is and what […]

Climate change is impacting the whole planet, and getting worse every year. So you want to do something—but you’re not sure what. If you do some research you might encounter an essay by Bret Victor—What can a technologist do about climate change? There’s a whole pile of good ideas in there, and it’s worth reading, but the short version is that you can use technology to “create options for policy-makers.” And working on clean energy or efficiency is definitely a […]

You may often want to make your Python programs more interactive by responding dynamically to input from the user. Learning how to read user input from the keyboard unlocks exciting possibilities and can make your code far more useful. The ability to gather input from the keyboard with Python allows you to build programs that can respond uniquely based on the preferences, decisions, or data provided by different users. By fetching input and assigning it to variables, your code can […]

If you’re doing computations on a GPU, NVIDIA is the default, alongside its CUDA libraries. Some libraries like PyTorch support do support AMD GPUs and Macs. But from the re-implementations of NumPy, SciPy, and Pandas in the RAPIDS project, to Numba’s GPU support, NVIDIA has best software support in the Python world. Sticking to NVIDIA-specific software has some downsides, however: It won’t run on modern Mac laptops. Testing in CI is more difficult: you need custom runners that have NVIDIA […]

While reading the Python documentation, you may have found fragments of BNF notation (Backus–Naur form) that look something like the following: What’s the meaning of all this strange code? How can this help you in understanding Python concepts? How can you read and interpret this notation? In this tutorial, you’ll get to know the basics of Python’s BNF notation and learn how to take advantage of it to get a deep understanding of the language’s syntax and grammar. To get […]