James Powell: So you want to be a Python expert? | PyData Seattle 2017
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN calls it one of the best technical talks and the clearest explanation of decorators, generators and context managers.
What it is
James Powell's nearly two-hour PyData talk builds up Python's data model, decorators, generators and context managers, coding live in Vim. It aims to take intermediate programmers toward real Python expertise.
Recommended by 6 HN commenters across 6 different months, 2020 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec mattst88 · 2020-05 · on “Resources to Learn Python in 2020”
I work professionally in C/C++ and the instances I needed to use Python I always felt like I was missing the core understanding of the language and was writing C in a different syntax. I found James Powell's PyData 2017 talk "So you want to be a Python expert?" ( [this video] ) to be incredible at helping me to gain that core understanding of the language. It's legitimately the best technical talk I think I've seen and I can't recommend it highly enough.
Strong rec ransom1538 · 2020-09 · on “YouTube Channels to Level Up Your Programming Skills”
I don't even use python. But this python expert video was absolutely amazing done by a true pro. James Powell [this video]
Strong rec charlysl · 2023-07 · on “Advanced Python Mastery – A Course by David Beazley”
Another good (and entertaining) resource is James Powell's talk "So you want to be a Python expert" [1], the best explanation I've seen of decorators, generators and context managers. Good intro to the Python data (object) model too. [1] [this video]
Recommends barefeg · 2022-11 · on “Data-Oriented Programming in Python”
I recommend any of the talks by James Powell at PyData. For example this one [this video] Edit: maybe this one on Numpy may be more relevant: [LINK]
Recommends jphoward · 2023-01 · on “Ask HN: Which book would you recommend for learning Python in detail?”
James Powell frequently gives very deep Python talks at conferences like Pydata, and shows you his coding approach in real time on Vim. Plenty of them are on YouTube and are worth a watch. This one [1] entitled "So you want to be a Python expert?" has almost half a million views! [1] [this video]
Recommends kengoa · 2026-01 · on “Ask HN: Reading list for being a better engineer?”
Understanding Python's data model helped me become a better software engineer. I'd recommend watching this PyData talk (James Powell: So you want to be a Python expert? | PyData Seattle 2017 - [this video] ) and then using the official doc as a reference which is also fun to read: [LINK]