Python Development Tools and 2017 Industry Insights

Overview of Episode 19

In this episode, hosts Michael Kennedy and Brian Aukin explore key updates within the Python ecosystem, ranging from new debugging utilities to significant industry trends reported by the Stack Overflow Developer Survey.

Key Tools & Utilities

• Better Exceptions: A clever hook that provides color-coded and highly readable terminal output for Python debugging. The project saw rapid community adoption, including the addition of Python 3 support in less than eight hours.
• Box: A convenient utility that allows developers to access dictionary elements using dot notation instead of repetitive bracket syntax.
• Hy (H-Y): An interesting Lisp implementation that compiles into Python's abstract syntax trees, enabling developers to use the entire Python standard library within a Lisp environment.

Insights & Education

• Stack Overflow 2017 Survey: Data from 64,000 developers reveals that Python is currently among the most desired technologies. Notably, while the industry still faces gender diversity challenges, there is a positive trend of increasing female participation among developers with less than one year of experience.
• Essential Statistics: A recommended resource for data scientists looking to build a firmer grasp of statistical foundations in a Python context.

Python 3.6.1 Maintenance

"There's a surprising number of changes given the time frame between 361 and 360... there's a lot of fixes and optimizations for core."

The latest maintenance release of Python 3.6.1 includes approximately 60 combined fixes for the core language and standard library, improving stability and performance for production environments.