Brett Cannon
Python core developer. Works on Python at Microsoft/Azure Data Group. Tall, snarky Canadian.
Why Python 3 exists
Or, the whole unicode/str/bytes thing was done for a reason
This month I held a Q&A at PuPPy (the Puget Sound Python users group) that eventually led to me explaining why Python 3 came into existence and the whole string/bytes deal. I ended up receiving a compliment on the explanation which somewhat surprised me since I naively assumed people knew at this point why Python 3 was created. In . . .
Posted in: programmingpython
If I were designing Python's import from scratch
Or, Lessons learned from implementing import
Talk to any developer that inherits some large, old code base that has developed semantics as time has gone on and they will always have something they wished they could change about the code they inherited. After inheriting import in Python, I too have a list of things I would love to see changed in how it works to make it a bit more sane . . .
Posted in: programmingpython
Try to not use the Python C API directly
Or, help make it easier to get rid of the GIL
If there is one persnickety thing people ask of python-dev it is for the GIL to go away. People view it as this great bugaboo of performance that hinders CPython in a world where single-core chips are becoming extremely rare. Whether the GIL is really a performance killer as some people believe (it really depends on the type of work you want . . .
Posted in: cprogrammingpython
Trying out Jupyter Notebooks
Or, my experience porting the "Porting Python 2 code to Python 3" HOWTO to a notebook
I happen to be on the team at Microsoft which recently launched an in-preview Jupyter Notebook service in Azure ML Studio. Before this I had heard of Jupyter Notebooks (nee IPython Notebooks) but I had never bothered installing the requisite software to give them a shot. Perhaps it was knowing that scientists seemed to be the major users of . . .
Posted in: programmingpython
Cover image credit: http://goo.gl/photos/re3FDeopYikjWfbK8
You can also find Brett Cannon on Twitter, GitHub and Stackoverflow. Get in touch by Email.
