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John's Python Blog has ended

By John Lekberg on December 25, 2020.

Don't worry -- I planned a limited run from the beginning.

Stay up to date on my projects

If you want to stay up to date on what I'm doing:

• Sign up for my mailing list.
• Visit my News page.

Keep learning Python

Don't let this be the end of your Python-learning journey. Here's what I recommend:

• Read the documentation at Python.org:
  • Start with The Python Tutorial.
  • Skim through The Python Standard Library to be aware of the different built-in modules and datatypes that Python supports.
  • Read and quiz yourself on The Python Language Reference, especially "Data model" and "Execution model". This will clarify misconceptions you may have about Python's runtime behavior.
• Read "Fluent Python: Clear, Concise, and Effective Programming" by Luciano Ramalho (ISBN 978-1491946008).

The story behind the blog

NEW YORK CITY, December 20, 2019 -- As I walked home after work, I decided to start a blog.

I had no plans for the evening, so I sat down to think. I picked a bench overlooking the Hudson River, across from Jersey City. I took out my notepad and started to sketch out my thoughts:

I had tried and failed at this before. I think I failed because I didn't have a clear goal. And I didn't share much of that writing with other people, so I had received little feedback.

I sat for a while. The sun set and the wind chilled my fingers, so I put my notepad away and stuffed my hands into my pockets. I wanted to stay there until I figured out my goal.

I decided that, for the next year, I would publish weekly articles about Python.

NEW YORK CITY, December 25, 2020 -- 52 articles later, I succeeded: I finished the blog!

I learned that even if my writing isn't "perfect", it's still valuable. I overcame my perfectionism by sticking to the schedule: one article a week. But, during the writing process, I also procrastinated, stayed up late, and had to omit material that I couldn't complete in time.

Before my next project begins, I'm taking a short break. Stay tuned!

Thank you for reading

Thank you for reading my blog.

In particular, Arielle Domantay, Stefan Lance, and Oscar Martinez provided frequent, valuable feedback. Here are their favorite articles:

• Arielle: "Building a command line tool to modify The Legend of Zelda's color palette."
• Stefan: "Solving the Cabbage-Goat-Wolf problem using Python."
• Oscar: "Solving the Stable Matching problem in Python."

I'm also grateful for the readership of: Sam Alexander, Daniel Bassett, Emma Brown, Kai Chen, Darby Fitzsimons, Mark GM, David Jin, Michael Kovarik, Erik Lekberg, Daniel Lewis, Jimmy Liang, T. L., Simon Mescal, Alexander Panos, Michal Porteš, Andrew Santorella-Doyle, Andrew Treadway, M. Veloso, and Gaibo Zhang.

(If you spot any errors or typos on this post, contact me via my contact page.)