Can you believe it? We're at the end of 2024. The year has gone by extremely fast, at least for me. I thought it would be fun to look back and summarize what I've done this year — and also describe my plans for 2025.
LernerPython
This was the first full year of my LernerPython membership program. I was delighted and grateful to see so many people join me, including those who gave me suggestions and advice on how to improve it.
Members not only have access to my recorded courses, but they can attend twice-monthly live office hours, where they can ask any questions that are on their mind. It was great fun to field questions from people around the world — including those that I didn't know how to answer, which spurred me on to learn new things.
Members were also invited to two monthly lectures, on topics ranging from PyArrow to Polars to FastAPI to Python assignment. I recently started a series on using and configuring the Unix shell, and am already planning new topics, including several suggested by members.
I also moved discussion to Discord, which has definitely increased the number of people asking participating and asking questions.
Over the coming months, I'll be moving LernerPython to a new platform, one that'll make it easier to keep track of your learning goals and accomplishments. Once that is out of the way, I plan to record a slew of new courses, as well as re-record a number that could use a refresh.
If you want to improve your Python skills, then I hope you'll give LernerPython.com a look! And if you're the Python expert at your company, and want someone else (i.e., me) to field the questions that colleagues are throwing at you, I'll be happy to help field them for you.
Corporate training
I continued to do a fair amount of corporate training this year. Three of my largest and best-known clients are Apple, Cisco, and Western Digital — but I also worked with a number of startups and financial firms. About half of my training is now about data analysis with Pandas, rather than core Python. And there's a smattering of Git training in there, as well.
I also continue to teach on O'Reilly's learning platform, with my "Python in Five Weeks," "Object-oriented bootcamp," and "Coprogramming with Generative AI" classes all drawing many participants.
If your company is looking to improve its Python and/or Pandas fluency, then you please don't hesitate to be in touch. I've been teaching live, online classes using WebEx/Zoom/Teams for more than a decade, and can accommodate a wide variety of time zones from my home office. A (mostly) complete list of my courses is at https://lerner.co.il/courses .
Bootcamp
I launched two new cohorts of my Python Data Analysis Bootcamp (PythonDAB) this year, helping more people than ever to jump-start their understanding of Python, Git, and Pandas. We meet twice each week, collaborating on coding exercises while improving everyone's fluency. I have great fun working with bootcamp participants, and am already starting to think about the seventh cohort, which will launch in May of 2025.
Conferences
I love attending conferences — I get to meet interesting and smart people from around the world, and also learn quite a lot. This year, I participated in a number of them, including:
- PyCon US — I gave a talk ("Times and dates in Pandas"), a tutorial ("All about decorators"), and sponsored the conference as well, telling people about my LernerPython membership program, corporate training, books, and other educational products. I'll be back in Pittsburgh this coming May, and hope that one or more of my talk proposals will be accepted.
- Euro Python — I gave a talk ("The PyArrow revolution in Pandas"), and also volunteered as a session chair. Euro Python is always a fun and interesting conference, and I'm looking forward to returning to Prague for a third time in a row. I'll add that volunteering was easy and fun, and made the conference that much more exciting and worthwhile. I encourage you to do so, as well!
- PyCon Taiwan — I was in Taiwan several years ago, and fell in love with the place. I get to practice my Chinese in a place with oodles of delicious vegetarian food and spectacular nature? So I was delighted to return to Taiwan this year for PyCon TW, giving a talk ("What happens when we import a module?"), a tutorial ("Practical decorators"), and a tutorial disguised as a sprint ("Let's create a dictionary!"). I had a marvelous time at the conference, which I also sponsored. I also got to do some delightful hiking through the mountains outside of Taipei and Taichung while there.
- PyData TLV — The second-ever PyData Tel Aviv took place in October, and it was once again terrific to attend. I gave a talk on "Times and dates in Pandas," and also sponsored the conference. Much as I love to travel, it was nice to have a conference a 30-minute drive from my house. Kudos to the organizers for requiring that every speaker give a "dry run" practice version of the talk one week before the conference, which raised the level of the talks.
- Python Ho — I gave a keynote address ("What makes Python hard?") and a talk ("How to sort anything") for the Python Ho (https://2024.pythonho.com/) conference in Ghana. I sadly had to participate online, but you can be sure that I'm still hoping to get to Ghana one of these days. Thanks so much to the organizers for inviting me.
I also gave a number of talks to user groups and podcasts, including for "vBrownBag" and Python New Zealand.
Which reminds me: I love speaking at conferences and with user groups. If you want me to speak at your event, either in person or online, let me know by replying to this message.
Newsletters
I continue to publish three newsletters each week:
- Better Developers (https://BetterDevelopersWeekly.com), with about 30,000 subscribers, is about Python and software engineering. I continue to write about topics that I see people struggling to understand, as well as some that I personally want to understand and explore in greater depth.
- Bamboo Weekly (https://BambooWeekly.com), my newest newsletter, poses data-analysis questions based on current events every Wednesday, and my complete solutions every Thursday. I have about 5,000 subscribers to this list; free subscribers get the first two questions and answers each week, while paid subscribers get all of the questions and answers, access to the Jupyter notebook I used to solve the problems, and invitations to our monthly office hours. If you're looking to improve your Pandas skills with real-world data sets, you should look into Bamboo Weekly.
- Trainer Weekly (https://TrainerWeekly.com), my smallest newsletter, describes the business of being a corporate trainer. I describe my pedagogical, logistical, and business successes, failures, lessons, and insights.
I also wrote a guest post ("Software engineers training other software engineers") in Gergely Orosz's excellent "Pragmatic Engineer" newsletter about my career as a trainer. If you want to know more about what I do and how I do it, check it out!
Books
My long-awaited Pandas Workout (https://PandasWorkout.com) book, with 200 exercises to improve your Pandas fluency, was published earlier this year via Manning Books. I'm delighted with how it turned out, and have received lots of nice notes from people around the world who are using it to improve their Pandas skills.
My Python Workout (https://PythonWorkout.com) book, also published with Manning, with 200 exercises to improve your Python skills, has continued to sell well. Moreover, new editions came out this year in Korean and traditional Chinese, which was exciting.
I'm happy to say that I'm working on a new, second edition of Python Workout, with a number of updates and revisions to reflect the current state of Python. I hope to see it done by the end of 2025.
Thanks to those of you who bought these books, and especially those who took the time to write a review on Amazon. Those reviews really do help to get the word out about books.
Social media
I've been active on three social media platforms over the last year:
- My YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/reuvenlerner) reached 20,000 followers earlier this year. In 2024 alone, I posted more than 20 new videos about Python and Pandas. I have a long list of new topics that I plan to explore in the coming year, and I'm always looking for new ones — so if there's something you want me to talk about, please let me know.
- I've frequently posted on my LinkedIn (https://LinkedIn.com/in/reuven/) page about questions that people ask in my courses, as well as letting people know about things I'm doing. I had a long series earlier this year about artificial intelligence, programming, and how I use AI in my day-to-day work, and will likely turn that into a longer essay or course.
- I've been increasingly active on Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/lernerpython.com), writing about Python and Pandas. The fact that Bluesky doesn't penalize posters for external links is very attractive to people like me, who not only want to engage there but also share links to external sources without fear of having our posts downgraded. If you're new to Bluesky and want to find Python trainers, authors, and speakers, I've prepared a "starter pack" that you can use to get started: https://go.bsky.app/M5WjB4s
New course: Hands-on Python
People often ask me where they can find projects that'll help them improve their Python skills, as well as add to the portfolio they can use when looking for jobs?
This kind of query always resonated with me, because my graduate studies in education centered around "constructionism," the idea that you learn best when building things that have personal meaning — and even more so when you do this in a mentored group.
I'm thus excited to pre-announce my "Hands-on Python" courses, which I'll be launching more formally in the coming weeks. Each course will be about six weeks long, and will outline a project on which you should work. I'll be your mentor, and along with our Discord discussion group, we'll have weekly Zoom meetings at which everyone will share their progress — and get feedback from me and other members of the cohort.
Cohorts will be small (10-15 people), and will only be open to members of my LernerPython membership program. I plan to run a number of these each year, each with a different focus, such as the command line, Web, or a library distributed on PyPI. The goal is to have you learn by doing, while being part of a community that supports and challenges you.
I'll be sending more info about Hands-on Python in the coming weeks, but I'm quite excited to see where it takes us.
Summary
As you can see, it has been a busy year for me. But I feel quite fortunate that I can earn a living helping other people improve their careers with Python and related software.
That said, I couldn't do this without your support. Thanks for subscribing, and for sharing your suggestions with me. I really appreciate all of the messages I get from people around the world.
I wish you only the best in the coming New Year.
Reuven