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…

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…

Learn why floating-point errors are common, why they make sense, and how to deal with them in Python — Floating-point numbers are a fast and efficient way to store and work with numbers, but they come with a range of pitfalls that have surely stumped many fledgling programmers — perhaps some experienced programmers, too! The classic example demonstrating the pitfalls of floats goes like this: Seeing this for…

Disclosure: some of the links in this article are affiliate links. Learning a new skill is exciting. But learning how to learn is a skill that we’re never really taught. This is a real tragedy and one that hasn’t gone unnoticed. There are plenty of self-help gurus with courses designed…

An iconic nebula and the woman who discovered it. — Located approximately 1,500 light-years away in the constellation of Orion is a faint dust cloud that has captured the imaginations of millions of astronomy enthusiasts since its discovery in 1888. …

Below its clouds, Venus is a hot and hellish planet full of mystery. — On February 7 and 8, 1974, as NASA’s Mariner 10 spacecraft sped away from Venus, it pointed its imaging camera back towards the planet and captured this deceptively tranquil picture of the second planet from the sun. The wispy clouds in the image blanket Venus’s surface from an altitude of…