Python Monthly 💻🐍 January 2020
Tags: news, python, productivity, machinelearning
Published: 2020-02-03 17:57:27

**2nd issue ever! That's right, you're right at the beginning of this journey! If there is enough interest, I will keep doing these every month so please sign up for this newsletter [here](https://zerotomastery.io/blog/python-monthly-january-2020/?utm_source=devto&utm_medium=PM)!**

### If it’s your first time here… (otherwise, skip this part)

Being a Python developer is a fantastic career option. Python is now the most popular language with lots of growing job demand (especially in Web, Data Science and Machine Learning field). You have many job opportunities, you can work around the world, and you get to solve hard problems. One thing that is hard, however, is staying up to date with the constantly evolving ecosystem. You want to be a top-performing python developer, coder, programmer, software developer, but you don’t have time to select from hundreds of articles, videos and podcasts each day.

This monthly newsletter is focused on keeping you up to date with the industry, keeping your skills sharp, without wasting your valuable time. I will be sharing the most important articles, podcasts and videos of the month. Think [Tim Ferriss](https://medium.com/u/56d3bc91794f) and [the Pareto Principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle) (80/20 rule) meeting the Software Development world. What’s the 20% that will get you 80% of the results?

### What you missed in January as a Python Developer…

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### Everything About Python Timers ⏱
[A great writeup](https://realpython.com/python-timer/) of all the ways you can time, measure and monitor your code in Python. It goes from the basics all the way to advanced. You probably don't need to know all of them though.


### Async Python Web Ecosystem  🧬
Unlike the standard WSGI, ASGI, the Asynchronous Standard Gateway Interface is starting to pick up steam in the industry as it promises to bring asynchronous execution like Node.js and Go allow for backend services. You can read about the [development of this space here](https://florimond.dev/blog/articles/2019/08/introduction-to-asgi-async-python-web/).

### Learn Machine Learning 🤖
Want to learn Data Science and Machine Learning? Well, lucky for you, [I just released a course with my friend Daniel](https://links.zerotomastery.io/mlds_30). It's pretty good if I say so myself. Also, don't judge me for self promoting in this newsletter. How else am I going to afford the new [LEGO international space station](https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/21/lego-made-an-international-space-station-kit-including-space-shuttle-and-robotic-arm/)?

### Visual Guide to Dictionaries 🎬
[A visual guide to how Python Dictionaries work](https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/python-dictionaries-detailed-visual-introduction/). It's one of the most fundamental data structure in Python (and many other languages) so understanding how to use their full power is a must.

### Who Likes Performance? 🚀
Performance talk in front of any programmer is like catnip for a cat. You immediately want to hear more right? Well, [here is another great article](https://martinheinz.dev/blog/13) discussing performance in Python.


### Cool Python Libraries/Tools 🧩
The popular library for Data Science (and working with data frames), Pandas, [has released version 1.0.0](https://dev.pandas.io/docs/whatsnew/v1.0.0.html)!

[Python web scraper](https://github.com/PaulMcInnis/JobFunnel) that scrapes job listings around the web and filters based on whatever criteria you want. Automate your job applications!

Fully featured HTTP library for Python3: [HTTPX](https://www.python-httpx.org/).

[CleverCSV](https://github.com/alan-turing-institute/CleverCSV) is a Python package for handling messy CSV files.

JetBrains just released a [free font specifically for programmers](https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/mono).


### Copying and Mutating Data 🧬
Copying data is wasteful and uses up the limited memory that you have on a device. Mutating data is dangerous and can lead to weird bugs. So can you avoid these things? Not entirely, but there.......

**... wait where is the rest? Read the full version of this newsletter on our blog [here](https://zerotomastery.io/blog/python-monthly-january-2020/?utm_source=devto&utm_medium=PM). If there is enough interest, I will keep doing these every month so please sign up to our newsletter while you're there!**