My freelancer course members Pratyush wants to improve learning efficiency in Python. He asked me the question: “how can I accelerate the pace of my problem-solving mind?” Focus first and foremost on reading and writing massive amounts of code. It’s that simple. Maximize the time you are looking at source code and improvement will come … Read more
The for/else and while/else statements are not syntax errors in Python. They have the following meaning: The else branch executes if the loop terminates naturally because the loop condition isn’t met anymore. You may ask: isn’t this always the case? No! You can also have a “forced” termination from within the loop body using the … Read more
This guide is a conceptual view on how to start your career as a data scientist–and on which skills you should focus. Here are the three most important steps recommended in the video: Learn Python basics (link to free Python crash course on this blog). Learn NumPy (link to free NumPy tutorial on this blog). … Read more
Recursion is a powerful tool in your coding toolbox. Understanding it is a key skill on your path to mastery. This article gives you a thorough introduction to this important computer science concept. What is Recursion? What’s a Simple Example for Recursion? What’s Mutual Recursion? What is Recursion? Stephen Hawking used a concise explanation: “to … Read more
Python Representation Error: This article explains why floating-point arithmetic can lead you astray in Python. Floating-point arithmetic cannot represent some numbers precisely. While many people think it’s a bug, it’s actually not. Have a look at the following code snippet: In the code snippet, you have assumed that the number 0.1 actually represents the decimal … Read more
Almost precisely four years ago I watched a TED talk that changed my life. I had just finished my computer science master and was starting out as a fresh Ph.D. student in the department of distributed systems… … and I was overwhelmed. There are many computer science students reading the Finxter blog so I hope … Read more
The following answer is based on my experience during the last four years as a doctoral researcher in the area of distributed systems. I don’t know about practices in all different areas in computer science. Computer science is a big field and there are extremely large differences in the quality and quantity requirements of your … Read more
Want to make your website more interactive? Embed a Python interpreter into your website! This does not only increase the interactivity and usability of your website — and create happy users for your web business. It also increases the average time spent on your website because people will try out things. So it’s actually a … Read more
Can you invest one minute now to instantly double your productivity? Watch out, the following trick can earn you tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars and make you a productivity animal in no time. Block all websites that are not leading you towards your goal. Extremely simple but powerful nonetheless. Type “Editor” into … Read more
What are the most important skills you can have as a freelance developer? You may ask this question because you need to know where to focus and concentrate your learning effort. While I focus on the most important technologies in this article, I believe that the ultimate driver of your success is your knowledge of … Read more
What is more important for your success as a coder: intelligence or persistence? In my opinion, there’s a clear winner. You may know the Marshmallow test where kids participate in the following experiment. Every kid gets one Marshmallow as a gift. The kid then can either eat the Marshmallow immediately or wait for an agreed-upon … Read more
Most of the function names in Python can be intuitively connected to the meaning of the function. The NumPy reshape() function is not an exception. The reshape() function brings an array into another shape while keeping all the original data. NumPy’s reshape() function takes an array to be reshaped as a first argument and the … Read more