3 • 7600 • 33 • 121 • When Python Stacks Up
When I was a child, I used to pace up and down the corridor at home pretending to teach an imaginary group of people. It was my way of learning.
It still is.
I started writing about Python as a learning tool—to help me sort things out in my head, weave a thread through all the disparate bits of information, clarify my thoughts, make sure any knowledge gaps are filled.
I started The Python Coding Stack three years ago. That’s the first of the mystery numbers in the post’s title revealed! I had written elsewhere before, but at the time of starting The Stack, I felt I had found my own “Python voice”. I had been teaching Python for nearly a decade. I had written plenty of articles, but setting up The Python Coding Stack was a deliberate choice to step up. I was still writing articles primarily for my own benefit, but now I was also writing for others, hoping they would want to learn the way I do.
And 7,600 subscribers apparently do. Thank you for joining this journey, whether you were there three years ago or you joined a few days ago. If you just joined, there’s an archive of 121 articles, most of them long-form tutorials or step-by-step guides.
A special thank you to the 33 subscribers who chose to upgrade to premium and join The Club. It may only amount to 3 coffees per month for you, but it makes a difference to me. Thank you! I hope you’ve been enjoying the exclusive content for The Club members.
And perhaps, if a few more decide to join you in The Club (you can surely cut three coffees out of your monthly intake!), then this publication may even become self-sustainable. Your support can make a real difference—if you value these articles and want to see them continue, please consider joining now. At the moment, I give up a lot of my time for free to think about my articles, plan them, draft them, review them technically, review them linguistically, get them ready for publication, and then publish.
I mentioned my live teaching earlier. My written articles and my live teaching have a lot in common. One of the hardest things about teaching (or communication in general) is to place yourself in the learner’s mindset. I know, it’s obvious. But it’s hard.
A string of words can make perfect sense to someone who already understands the concept, but it’s hard to understand for someone learning it for the first time.
Going from A to B can be a smooth reasoning step for an expert, but requires a few more intermediate steps for a novice.
A trait that helps me in my teaching is my ability to recall the pain points I had when learning a topic. Everything is easy once you know it, but hard when you don’t. Remembering that what comes easily today was once hard is essential for teaching, whatever the format.
I often use my writing to help me with my live teaching. And, just as often, I discover a new angle or insight during live teaching that I then put down in writing. It’s a two-way street. Both forms of communication—live teaching and writing—complement each other.
All this to say that I enjoy writing these articles. They’re useful for me personally, and for my work teaching Python. And I hope they’re useful for you.
121 articles. The cliché would have me say that choosing favourites is like choosing a favourite child. But that’s not the case. There are articles I like less than others. So, I tried to put together a highlights reel of the past three years. Here we go…
The Centre of the Python Universe • Objects
A Stroll Across Python • Fancy and Not So Fancy Tools
The Curious Little Shop at The End of My Street • Python’s f-strings
If You Find if..else in List Comprehensions Confusing, Read This, Else…
Where Do I Store This? • Data Types and Structures
Clearing The Deque—Tidying My Daughter’s Soft Toys • A Python Picture Story
Hermione’s Undetectable Extension Charm: Revealed (Using Python)
bytes: The Lesser-Known Python Built-In Sequence • And Understanding UTF-8 EncodingWhere’s William? How Quickly Can You Find Him? • What’s a Python Hashable Object?
And here are the posts in The Club section of this publication, exclusive for premium subscribers: The Club | The Python Coding Stack
Happy 3rd Birthday to The Python Coding Stack. From just under a hundred people in the first week to 7,600+ today, this community has grown thanks to your enthusiasm.
Let’s keep up the momentum—consider joining The Club today! Your membership can help ensure The Python Coding Stack continues on its path, stronger than ever.
For more Python resources, you can also visit Real Python—you may even stumble on one of my own articles or courses there!
Also, are you interested in technical writing? You’d like to make your own writing more narrative, more engaging, more memorable? Have a look at Breaking the Rules.
And you can find out more about me at stephengruppetta.com