#375 Pointing at Countries

Topics covered in this episode:

pycountry
Does Python have pointers?
ingestr
Make your terminal nice
Extras
Joke

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Brian: @[email protected]
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Michael #1: pycountry

A Python library to access ISO country, subdivision, language, currency and script definitions and their translations.
pycountry provides the ISO databases for the standards:

639-3 Languages
3166 Codes for representation of names of countries and their subdivisions
3166-1 Countries
3166-3 Deleted countries
3166-2 Subdivisions of countries
4217 Currencies
15924 Scripts

Brian #2: Does Python have pointers?

Ned Batchelder
Turns out, this is really the description of “what’s a variable in Python?” that helps to make sense of the “variables as names” model in Python, especially for people coming from languages that use pointers a lot.
You can use id() to find out what a variable points to
You just can’t do the reverse of access it given an id.
There’s no “dereference” operator.
See also Python Names and Values, also by Ned

Should be required reading/viewing for all Python curriculum.

Michael #3: ingestr

ingestr is a command-line application that allows ingesting or copying data from any source into any destination database.
Works on both MongoDB and Postgres and many more.
incremental loading: append, merge or delete+insert

Brian #4: Make your terminal nice

David Lord
David’s switched to Fish and Starship
I tried switching to Fish several times, and I guess I’m good with zsh.

Although I admire the brave comic sans motto: “Finally, a command line shell for the 90s”

But I’m finally ready for Starship, and it takes almost no time to set up
Plus it’s fast. (Has it always been Rust?)

Extras

Brian:

Doing some groundwork for a SaaS project, using SaaS Pegasus

I just talked with Cory from Pegasus for an upcoming PythonTest episode
I haven’t decided whether to save up SaaS episodes for one big series, or spread them out.
But mostly I’m excited to get my project started.

Michael:

Excellent video about “cloud exit”
uv - The Next Evolution in Python Packages?
Python 3.13 a5
Target’s Open Source Fund via Pat Decker

Joke: Anti-social engineer