Libraries like NumPy and Pandas let you switch data types, which allows you to reduce memory usage. Switching from numpy.float64 (“double-precision” or 64-bit floats) to numpy.float32 (“single-precision” or 32-bit floats) cuts memory usage in half. But it does so at a cost: float32 can only store a much smaller range of numbers, with less precision. So if you want to save memory, how do you use float32 without distorting your results? Let’s find out! In particular, we will: Explore some […]

The Python standard shell, or REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop), allows you to run Python code interactively while working on a project or learning the language. This tool is available in every Python installation, so you can use it at any moment. As a Python developer, you’ll spend a considerable part of your coding time in a REPL session because this tool allows you to test new ideas, explore and experiment with new tools and libraries, refactor and debug your code, and […]

Linear algebra is an important topic across a variety of subjects. It allows you to solve problems related to vectors, matrices, and linear equations. In Python, most of the routines related to this subject are implemented in scipy.linalg, which offers very fast linear algebra capabilities. In particular, linear models play an important role in a variety of real-world problems, and scipy.linalg provides tools to compute them in an efficient way. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to: Study linear systems […]

If you need to speed up Python, Cython is a very useful tool. It lets you seamlessly merge Python syntax with calls into C or C++ code, making it easy to write high-performance extensions with rich Python interfaces. That being said, Cython is not the best tool in all circumstances. So in this article I’ll go over some of the limitations and problems with Cython, and suggest some alternatives. A quick overview of Cython In case you’re not familiar with […]

Python’s assignment operators allow you to define assignment statements. This type of statement lets you create, initialize, and update variables throughout your code. Variables are a fundamental cornerstone in every piece of code, and assignment statements give you complete control over variable creation and mutation. Learning about the Python assignment operator and its use for writing assignment statements will arm you with powerful tools for writing better and more robust Python code. Assignment Statements and the Assignment Operator One of […]

Processing large amounts of data with Pandas can be difficult; it’s quite easy to run out of memory and either slow down or crash. The Polars dataframe library is a potential solution. While Polars is mostly known for running faster than Pandas, if you use it right it can sometimes also significantly reduce memory usage compared to Pandas. In particular, certain techniques that you need to do manually in Pandas can be done automatically in Polars, allowing you to process […]

If you’re working with geospatial data in Python, then you might want to quickly visualize that data on a map. Python’s Folium library gives you access to the mapping strengths of the Leaflet JavaScript library through a Python API. It allows you to create interactive geographic visualizations that you can share as a website. You’ll build the web map shown below, which displays the ecological footprint per capita of many countries and is based on a similar map on Wikipedia. […]