Installing packages with Python is just one pip install command away. That’s one of the many great qualities that the Python ecosystem has to offer. However, you may have downloaded a third-party package once that didn’t work out for you in one way or another. For example, the package didn’t support the Python version that you were using in your project, or the package didn’t do what you expected it to do. By understanding the characteristics of a high-quality Python […]

February is the shortest month, but it brought no shortage of activity in the Python world! Exciting developments include a new company aiming to improve cloud services for developers, publication of the PyCon US 2023 schedule, and the first release candidate for pandas 2.0.0. In the world of artifical intelligence, OpenAI has continued to make strides. But while the Big Fix has worked to reduce vulnerabily for programmers, more malicious programs showed up on PyPI. Read on to dive into […]

Mutable data types are another face of the built-in types in Python. The language provides a few useful mutable collection types that you can use in many situations. These types allow you to change the value of specific items without affecting the identity of the container object. In the following sections, you’ll learn about lists, which are arguably the classic example of a mutable type in Python. To complete your tool kit of mutable types, you’ll learn about dictionaries and […]

Python namespace packages are an advanced Python feature. You may have heard them mentioned in relation to the __init__.py file. Specifically, if you don’t include at least an empty __init__.py file in your package, then your package becomes a namespace package. For the most part, namespace packages and regular packages won’t behave differently when it comes to using them in your project. In fact, you’ve probably accidentally forgotten to include an __init__.py file in at least one package but didn’t […]

Python’s iterators and iterables are two different but related tools that come in handy when you need to iterate over a data stream or container. Iterators power and control the iteration process, while iterables typically hold data that you want to iterate over one value at a time. Iterators and iterables are fundamental components of Python programming, and you’ll have to deal with them in almost all your programs. Learning how they work and how to create them is key […]

The main data structure that you’ll use in NumPy is the N-dimensional array. An array can have one or more dimensions to structure your data. In some programs, you may need to change how you organize your data within a NumPy array. You can use NumPy’s reshape() to rearrange the data. The shape of an array describes the number of dimensions in the array and the length of each dimension. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to change the shape […]

The terminal can be intimidating to work with when you’re used to working with graphical user interfaces (GUIs). However, it’s an important tool that you need to get used to in your journey as a Python developer. And once you level up your skill of using the terminal, it becomes an extremely powerful tool in your repertoire. With just a few commands in the terminal, you can do tasks that are impossible or at least very tedious to do in […]