Bas' Take on Tech: Tech Decline, Eternal Youth, Tony's Thoughts
Hi there,
thanks for reading my tech newsletter about the recent buzz, Python, and DevOps.
In this issue, Tony Cappellini shares his thoughts about “Fluent Python”.
Have a great week ahead!
🗞️ Buzz
Still, the economy doesn’t make any sense at all. We have been facing huge layoffs in tech companies, especially in Silicon Valley, recently, with Apple being one of the few exceptions.
Microsoft warns its investors about a decline in Azure’s growth. And even the revenue of ransomware scammers goes down. Jokes aside, it gets worse: Smartphone sales reached a 10 years-low, according to CNBC. Unsurprisingly, Venture Capital investments seem to plummet, too.
Apple seems to increase production capacity in India. However, this step is probably motivated more by geopolitical considerations than by an overall increase in production capacity.
Gergely wrote an interesting take on the “Tech Winter” in his “Pragmatic Engineer” newsletter.
⏮️ Reverse Ageing
“Project Blueprint” – This is the name of Bryan Johnson’s attempt to reverse ageing. An investment of just $2 million per year, 100 pills each morning, and a food and exercise regimen that looks more like a punishment than recreational sports, apparently led to a self-reported rejuvenation of 5 years.
His publication of the plan led to a wide range of media coverage and comments on social media. Interestingly, another hyped study by anti-ageing professor David Sinclair was published in January, too.
All of these results are highly debated and most probably speculative. Last year, I tested some (obviously not all) of these ideas myself, and anecdotally confirmed an improvement in epigenetic age, too. Overall, we will see a lot more research and capital expenditure on this trend, but there is still a long way to go to see sustainable results, just as in autonomous driving.
☕️ In other news
Driven by concerns about health impact, the discussion about gas stoves was probably one of the most absurd ones this year so far. However, contrary to the extensive media coverage in January, the debate is obviously been going on for a decade already. It seems settled for the moment, at least in regard to a ban.
Chip Huyen, the co-founder of Claypot AI, wrote an interesting article about what companies look for in a resume.
🎥 Video Content
I started my Twitter account, where I share content about Python, DevOps, and Databases, almost exactly one year ago.
Now, it’s time to get to the next level: I want to share video content on these topics, too. I have a long list of topics I want to cover in some short 15-20 mins videos – now I just need to find the time to produce them.
If you want to be among the first to get notified when I release my first video, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel!
📝 Tony’s Perspective
Tony Cappellini has been a Python developer since 2000. He is working on software tools used in firmware development of hard disk drives. I met him last year in San Francisco through the Baypiggies mailing list. His favourite Python book is “Fluent Python” by Luciano Ramalho. I asked him to write a quick review of this book. Here is his answer:
The 2nd edition of “Fluent Python” is even better than the first edition, in that all of the changes that went into the 2ns edition are clearly illustrated so that users with the previous book can easily focus on the changes.
Fluent Python is not an entry-level book and it does not teach you how to use Python from the ground up. These books are for intermediate-advanced uses of Python who want in-depth looks into how and why Python works.
Luciano Ramalho has done an outstanding service to the Python community by writing “Fluent Python”. Weighing in at 983 pages, this book will keep your interest time and time again as you are solving more-advanced coding issues in Python.
The 2nd edition covers Python 3.10 so it is recent enough to use for many years to come.
This book is not one that you will sit down and read cover to cover, as many of the topics go deep and require a lot of time and practice to incorporate into your mental workflow.
I have not found another book on Python that goes as deep nor explains topics so masterfully.
I have been using Python since 2000 and have learned so much from Fluent Python.
I highly recommend reading this book to everyone who wants to broaden their understanding of Python. Sadly, O’Reilly no longer sells these books direct to the public, so one cannot buy the book in electronic form. I have done this in the past with most of my books to make it easier when searching for keywords.
🚀 What else?
I have changed this newsletter from “occasional” to at least once every two weeks. The new format not only contains curated news and insights from the tech world but also sets the stage for fellow developers.
I will ask people about their journeys in the tech world and also in life. I’m pretty sure there is much to learn from listening to other people’s experiences, and I am excited to share that with you!
Of course, I need your help with this.
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Best,