The answer might surprise you — What do you think is the output of the following Python code? Questions like this make me want to immediately open a Python REPL and try the code out because I think I know what the answer is, but I’m not very confident in that answer. Here’s my line…

Curiosity is not an immutable trait. You can learn how to be more curious — It's easy to be complacent about curiosity. Our lives are filled with stress. We craft routines around that stress. Sometimes those routines turn life into an inescapable turnstile. It isn't easy to be curious when your life depends on keeping the wheel turning. I spend a lot of my time…

I ditched my MacBook Pro for an iPad Pro. Here’s how I code in Python on my iPad — When Apple released the M1 iPad Pros in March of 2021, I traded in my MacBook Pro to get the latest tablet. I’d already been using a Mac Mini as my daily workhorse, so I wasn’t concerned about my day-to-day coding workflow. …

There’s a lot more to numbers than just their values. — If you’ve done any coding in Python, there’s a good chance that you’ve used a number in one of your programs. For instance, you may have used an integer to specify the index of a value in a list. But there’s much more to numbers in Python than just their…

A simple and powerful framework for ironing out confusing code — Everyone wants to write clean code. There are whole books about it! But you don’t need to read a book to write cleaner code right now. There’s one “trick” that every coder can learn to make their code less confusing. The key is this: Every Line Does Only One Thing One line, one task. But don’t…

When to start learning them and 6 books to get you started — You can do a lot with very little. Modern, high-level languages abstract away lots of details. You don’t need to know the difference between selection sort, bubble sort, merge sort, and quicksort, for instance, to use Python’s sorted() function. It just works. Do you really need to learn how to…

3 ways to break free from your dependence on coding tutorials — Are you fine following along with coding tutorials, but feel stuck starting anything alone? You, my friend, are stuck in tutorial hell. I thought I’d share some ideas I’ve used myself to boost creativity and build independence. Most of the suggestions I’ve heard for getting out of this situation are…

Or, how to explore the cosmos without leaving home — I understand entirely if “love” isn’t something that math evokes in you. It didn’t for me, either, until I was in my early twenties. As a high school student, I felt relieved when I completed the required math credits and could skip calculus my senior year. Had anyone told me…

Revisiting the popular beginner game — When you learn to program for the first time, you look for — or, perhaps, are assigned — projects that reinforce basic concepts. But how often do you, once you’ve attained more knowledge and experience, revisit those beginner projects from the perspective of an advanced programmer? In this article, I…