Python Developer Trends, Modern Best Practices & AI Music

2019 Python Developers Survey Analysis

This episode dives into the extensive findings of the 2019 PSF/JetBrains Python survey. Key takeaways include:

• Language Dominance: 84% of respondents cite Python as their primary language.
• Evolving Use-Cases: While web development saw a slight decline in popularity (-4%), data analysis and machine learning continue to dominate the professional landscape.
• Software Ecosystem: Python 3 adoption has reached a 90% threshold, marking a shift away from legacy codebases.
• Tooling Trends: Flask has surpassed Django in popularity among survey participants, and PyTest remains a leader in the testing domain.
• Operational Trends: Containers (47%) have overtaken VMs as the preferred way to run production code.

Modernizing Python Workflows

Beyond statistics, the hosts discuss essential modern Python paradigms:

• Hypermodern Python: A deep dive into a comprehensive series on best practices covering linting, testing, type hinting, and CI/CD.
• Context Managers: A spotlight on Context Managers, explaining how to move beyond simple class implementations to cleaner, decorator-based approaches and sophisticated HTTP request handling.
• Notebook Version Control: Introduction to nbstripout, a tool that effectively removes metadata from Jupyter Notebooks to prevent annoying merge conflicts on GitHub.

Emerging Tech and Community Updates

"I mean, to me, they sound like sort of bad recordings of an artist... but it was created by an AI, which is insane."

• OpenAI Jukebox: A fascinating look at an AI model capable of generating original music in the style of famous artists, complete with lyrics.
• PSF Governance: Updates on the 2020 Python Language Summit and an open call for nominations for the Python Software Foundation board of directors.