#131: Python 3 has issues (over on GitHub)

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Brian #1: PEP 581 (Using GitHub issues for CPython) is accepted

• PEP 581
• The email announcing the acceptance.
• “The migration will be a large effort, with much planning, development, and testing, and we welcome volunteers who wish to help make it a reality. I look forward to your contributions on PEP 588 and the actual work of migrating issues to GitHub.” — Barry Warsaw

Michael #2: Replace Nested Conditional with Guard Clauses

• Deeply nested code is problematic (does it have deodorant — err comments?)
• But what can you do? Guard clauses!
• See Martin Fowler’s article and this one.

      # BAD! 
      def checkout(user):
          shipping, express = [], []
          if user is not None:
              for item in user.cart:
                  if item.is_available:
                      shipping.append(item)
                      if item.express_selected:
                          express.append(item)
  
          return shipping, express
  

    # BETTER! 
    def checkout(user):
        shipping, express = [], []
        if user is None:
            return shipping, express

        for item in user.cart:
            if not item.is_available:
                continue

            shipping.append(item)
            if item.express_selected:
                express.append(item)

        return shipping, express

Brian #3: Things you’re probably not using in Python 3 – but should

• Vinko Kodžoman
• Some of course items:
  • f-strings
  • Pathlib (side note. pytest tmp_path fixture creates temporary directories and files with PathLib)
  • data classes
• Some I’m warming to:
  • type hinting
• And those I’m really glad for the reminder of:

• enumerations

      from enum import Enum, auto
      class Monster(Enum):
          ZOMBIE = auto()
          WARRIOR = auto()
          BEAR = auto()
  
      print(Monster.ZOMBIE)
      # Monster.ZOMBIE
  

• built in lru_cache: easy memoization with the functools.lru_cache decorator.

      @lru_cache(maxsize=512)
      def fib_memoization(number: int) -> int:
          ...
  

• extended iterable unpacking

      >>> head, *body, tail = range(5)
      >>> print(head, body, tail)
      0 [1, 2, 3] 4
      >>> py, filename, *cmds = "python3.7 script.py -n 5 -l 15".split()
      >>> cmds
      ['-n', '5', '-l', '15']
      >>> first, _, third, *_ = range(10)
      >>> first, third
      (0, 2)
  

Michael #4: The Python Arcade Library

• Arcade is an easy-to-learn Python library for creating 2D video games. It is ideal for people learning to program, or developers that want to code a 2D game without learning a complex framework.
• Minesweeper games, hangman, platformer games in general.
• Check out Sample Games Made With The Arcade Library too
• Includes physics and other goodies
• Based on OpenGL

Brian #5: Teaching a kid to code with Pygame Zero

• Matt Layman
• Scratch too far removed from coding.
• Using Mu to simplify coding interface.
  • comes with a built in Python.
  • Pygame Zero preinstalled
• “[Pygame Zero] is intended for use in education, so that teachers can teach basic programming without needing to explain the Pygame API or write an event loop.”
• Initial 29 line game taught:
  • naming things and variables
  • mutability and fiddling with “constants” to see the effect
  • functions and side effects
  • state and time
  • interactions and mouse events
• Article also includes some tips on how to behave as the adult when working with kids and coding.

Michael #6: Follow up on GIL / PEP 554

• Has the Python GIL been slain? by Anthony Shaw
• multithreading in CPython is easy, but it’s not truly concurrent, and multiprocessing is concurrent but has a significant overhead.
• Because Interpreter state contains the memory allocation arena, a collection of all pointers to Python objects (local and global), sub-interpreters in PEP 554 cannot access the global variables of other interpreters.
• the way to share objects between interpreters would be to serialize them and use a form of IPC (network, disk or shared memory). All options are fairly inefficient
• But: PEP 574 proposes a new pickle protocol (v5) which has support for allowing memory buffers to be handled separately from the rest of the pickle stream.
• When? Pickle v5 and shared memory for multiprocessing will likely be Python 3.8 (October 2019) and sub-interpreters will be between 3.8 and 3.9.

Extras

Brian:

• PyCon 2019 videos are available
  • So grateful for this. Already watched a couple, including Ant’s awesome talk about complexity and wily.
• pytest and hypothesis show up in the new Pragmatic Programmer book.

Michael:

• 100 Days of Web course is out!
• Effective PyCharm book
• New release of our Android and iOS apps.

Jokes

• MK → Waiter: Would you like coffee or tea? Programmer: Yes.