PyCoder's Weekly 2024 Top Articles & Missing Gems
The Real Python Podcast
Polar Syntax vs. Pandas: A Data Filtering Comparison
This chapter explores the simplicity of using polar syntax for data filtering when compared to pandas, illustrated through a practical example involving Washington counties. It also discusses the evolution of Python tools for data manipulation, emphasizing improvements in design and functionality through interviews with industry leaders.
PyCoder’s Weekly included over 1,500 links to articles, blog posts, tutorials, and projects in 2024. Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week to help wrap it all up by sharing some highlights and uncovering a few missing gems from the pile.
We share the top links that PyCoder’s readers explored this year and uncover trends across all the articles and stories. We also highlight a few gems that we didn’t cover on the show and a couple that explore the overall themes of the year.
We hope you enjoy this review! We look forward to bringing you another year filled with great Python news, articles, topics, and projects.
Course Spotlight: Programming Sockets in Python
In this in-depth video course, you’ll learn how to build a socket server and client with Python. By the end, you’ll understand how to use the main functions and methods in Python’s socket module to write your own networked client-server applications.
Topics:
- 00:00:00 – Introduction
- 00:01:47 – New releases and updates
- 00:03:07 – PyCon US 2025 Registration Open
- 00:03:18 – PyCon Austria 2025 Call for Papers
- 00:03:36 – PSF Year End Fundraiser - Membership Drive
- 00:04:31 – Mr. Trudeau on Flying High with Flutter
- 00:05:29 – We’re on Bluesky - follow us!
- 00:07:44 – Build Captivating Display Tables in Python With Great Tables
- 00:08:45 – Overview of the Module
itertools - 00:09:23 – Customize VS Code Settings
- 00:10:34 – Modern Good Practices for Python Development
- 00:11:55 – Asyncio Event Loop in Separate Thread
- 00:12:38 – Python Protocols: Leveraging Structural Subtyping
- 00:13:06 – Thoughts on the top links
- 00:22:29 – Video Course Spotlight
- 00:23:40 – Why I’m Switching From pandas to Polars
- 00:29:29 – Lessons Learned Reinventing the Python Notebook
- 00:32:47 – What’s a Python Hashable Object?
- 00:36:10 – uv: Python Packaging in Rust
- 00:38:26 – CI/CD for Python With GitHub Actions
- 00:40:07 – Thanks and goodbye
News:
- NumPy Release 2.2.0
- Django Security Releases Issued: 5.1.4, 5.0.10, and 4.2.17
- Python 3.13.1, 3.12.8, 3.11.11, 3.10.16, and 3.9.21 Released
- Python Insider: Python 3.14.0 alpha 3 is out
- PyCon US 2025 (Pittsburgh, PA) Registration Open
- PyCon Austria 2025 (Eisenstadt) Call for Papers
- PSF Year End Fundraiser - Membership Drive
Top PyCoders Links 2024:
- Build Captivating Display Tables in Python With Great Tables – Do you need help making data tables in Python look interesting and attractive? How can you create beautiful display-ready tables as easily as charts and graphs in Python? This week on the show, we speak with Richard Iannone and Michael Chow from Posit about the Great Tables Python library.
- Overview of the Module
itertools– This article proposes the top three iterators that are most useful from the moduleitertools, classifies all of the 19 iterators into five categories, and then provides brief usage examples for all the iterators in the moduleitertools. - Customize VS Code Settings – In this course, Philipp helps you customize your Visual Studio Code settings to switch from a basic cluttered look to a clean presentable look. This is not just pleasant on the eyes, but also gives you a nice user interface if you want to share on a Zoom call or screen recording.
- Modern Good Practices for Python Development – This is a very detailed list of best practices for developing in Python. It includes tools, language features, application design, which libraries to use and more.
- Asyncio Event Loop in Separate Thread – Typically, the asyncio event loop runs in the main thread, but as that is the one used by the interpreter, sometimes you want the event loop to run in a separate thread. This article talks about why and how to do just that.
- Python Protocols: Leveraging Structural Subtyping – In this tutorial, you’ll learn about Python’s protocols and how they can help you get the most out of using Python’s type hint system and static type checkers.
Featured Links:
- Why I’m Switching From pandas to Polars – Ari is switching from pandas to Polars and surprisingly (even to himself) it isn’t because of the better performance. Read on for the reasons why.
- Lessons Learned Reinventing the Python Notebook – Marimo is an open source alternative to Jupyter notebooks. This article is by one of marimo’s creators, talking about the design decisions made when creating it.
- What’s a Python Hashable Object? – You can ignore reading about hashable objects for quite a bit. But eventually, it’s worth having an idea of what they are. This post follows Winston on his first day at work to understand hashable objects
uv: Python Packaging in Rust – uv is an extremely fast Python package installer and resolver, designed as a drop-in alternative to pip and pip-tools. This post introduces you to uv and shows some of its performance numbers. Associated HN discussion.- CI/CD for Python With GitHub Actions – With most software following agile methodologies, it’s essential to have robust DevOps systems in place to manage, maintain, and automate common tasks with a continually changing codebase. By using GitHub Actions, you can automate your workflows efficiently, especially for Python projects.
Additional Links:
- Flying High with Flutter
- The State of Python 2024 – This is a guest post on the PyCharm blog by Talk Python host Michael Kennedy who talks about the current state of Python in 2024. Topics include language usage, web frameworks,
uv, and more. - Django 2024 Year in Review – Carlton is a core contributor to Django and this post talks about what happened in 2024 with your favorite web framework.
- Episode #193: Wes McKinney on Improving the Data Stack & Composable Systems
- Episode #224: Narwhals: Expanding DataFrame Compatibility Between Libraries
- Episode #230: marimo: Reactive Notebooks and Deployable Web Apps in Python
- Episode #203: Embarking on a Relaxed and Friendly Python Coding Journey
- Ruff: A Modern Python Linter for Error-Free and Maintainable Code
- Rodrigo 🐍🚀: Python folks, here’s an update on all the Python starter packs — Bluesky
- Christopher Bailey (@digiglean.bsky.social) — Bluesky
- Christopher Trudeau (@cltrudeau.bsky.social) — Bluesky
- Stephen Gruppetta (@stephengruppetta.com) — Bluesky
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