Pybites Podcast

#200: Celebrating 200 episodes of our Pybites journey 🎉

• Julian Sequeira & Bob Belderbos • Episode 200

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What started as a simple idea to “chat more” became Pybites — a global Python learning platform transforming how developers build skills. In this special 200th episode, co-founders Bob and Julian share their journey from corporate life to creating a build-focused, mindset-driven approach that’s helped thousands worldwide.

In this episode we hear inspiring stories of schoolkids in Florida, developers in Pakistan, and countless others who’ve grown their skills — and their confidence — through Pybites. Bob and Julian reveal why “people come for the Python and stay for the mindset,” their thoughts on Python’s future, and the secret to lasting success: perseverance, small wins, and mastering the fundamentals.

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Julian:

I think the PyBytes thing came together because you and I wanted to just chat more, bob. We wanted a reason to learn something together hang out, talk, share, learn that kind of thing right, and that was just. I vaguely remember us texting back and forth or doing a phone call going what should we do? What should we do? And then I think this was your idea.

Bob:

Yeah, because we could have done a million things right. I think it was the passion for programming and we're just active in that. We picked that one and maybe the passion to build and that Python would give us all that Also. That's that opportunity, or scalability, to build apps and teach people.

Julian:

Hello and welcome to the PyBytes podcast, where we talk about Python career and mindset. We're your hosts. I'm Julian Sequeira.

Bob:

And I am Bob Beldebos. If you're looking to improve your Python, your career and learn the mindset for success, this is the podcast for you. Let's get started.

Junajo:

Hello and welcome for this special episode 200 for PyBytes. My name is Juanjo, I'm one of the PyBytes coaches in this amazing platform and today I have two special guests Bob and Julian. This is the 200th episode, so I wanted to have a special interview. We had an interview with them both some episodes ago, but it's good to have some refreshment. So welcome guys, how are you doing?

Julian:

what's up. Thanks for hosting. Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Um, very exciting episode today.

Bob:

Um, it's good to be here and bob, welcome back yeah, thanks, great intro and thanks for for having us on our own show yeah, it's good.

Junajo:

It's good to have you. Thank you for for letting me host this special episode. It's a pleasure for me. It's really good to live together. Yeah, it's amazing.

Julian:

The pleasure is ours, man, we are very excited. 200 episodes, this is um. This is a big deal. This is a big deal. So it's a nice, nice special way to celebrate and have um have you interview us. So I actually haven't gone through all the questions that you've prepared um, intentionally, I wanted to be super casual and unprepared and candid, julian never prepares.

Bob:

That's the pro he is.

Julian:

Yeah, you can't tell, so I'm ready when you are man, we're going to go through what. Some quickfire questions. What are you thinking?

Junajo:

Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think this 200 episode counts as a win for the, the platform, but if you have any wins, this is the customary thing in in the podcast, so please go ahead, and for me, a win is to have you both here, so perfect.

Julian:

Well, I think, bob, our win is to be here. We got a lot to to talk, I think, on this one, so let's, let's get to it.

Bob:

I'm happy I think the win is hitting 200 episodes. Right, Because we're almost not going to do it. So here we are.

Junajo:

Yeah, okay, so we will just dive in and we'll jump straight into the first question. We will start with the journey to Python and PyBytes. How was your life before PyBytes? What were you doing before this?

Bob:

Life sucked.

Julian:

I was going to say we had time. We had time. There was time in the day to do nothing, which is amazing.

Bob:

I did have kids right.

Julian:

That's true Time relatively yeah, All right, all right. So what were you doing, Bob? What I did? Have kids right, that's true. So time relatively yeah, All right, all right. So what were you doing, Bob? What were you doing before PyBytes?

Bob:

So we were working at Oracle, and Oracle or Amazon, yeah, either, doesn't matter. Corporate jobs, yeah. And we were always learning and being very curious. So we read the four-hour work week by Tim Ferriss and we're also passionate about programming. So we were kind of in this mix of we want to start something and we want to also contribute and help people learn Python, because I had moved into Python and never looked back. It was just beautiful and, julian, you started with Python, and so we thought like, hey, this is kind of a nice dynamic where you kind of the newbie and I'm a bit more experienced, still a lot to learn as well. So, let's, yeah, let's. How was that? We started a blog, I guess, right.

Julian:

I love that. I love that. The question was what was your life like before it? And you went straight to the why did we do it right, all right there was no life.

Junajo:

Before pybites there was nothing yeah, you were born with pybites. Let me ask you a question.

Bob:

Uh, I was a software developer and you julian.

Julian:

Oh, I was, um, what was I? I was a field engineer at oracle. I was a field service. And you, julian, oh, I was. What was I? I was a field engineer at Oracle. I was a field service engineer going repairing machines, that kind of stuff. So it was good.

Julian:

But I think, just to go to what was life in general like, I think, very different. You know, if you reflect back now on what we've done over the past nine years almost of PyB, bytes and very different, like just the sense of purpose was not as strong. You have purpose in everything you do. You're a dad, you're a partner, you're all those different things. Right, you work at a company, but this was different. What we did now, what we've done now, so prior to that, I don't know. I see that as a different chapter, I see it completely as a different stage of my life and before that it kind of just feels like those were. It's like remembering when you were a kid, you know, having different freedoms and things like that. You know now we have so many responsibilities beyond what we used to have, so I don't know, I think things felt simpler, I'll put it that way. Things felt simpler, a lot simpler, I'll put it that way.

Bob:

Things felt simpler, a lot simpler, but I do think we had always that passion to do things on the side.

Julian:

Like little projects building.

Bob:

So I think that was already there. It was just a much smaller scope, right, way less stakes, yeah, yeah.

Junajo:

Oh, that's good. It's a good thing, because when you start something, you tend to forget what were you doing before you started that. Yeah, and I think that leads us to the next question. There was a moment when you both said, aha, we should build something together. There you go, bob. How was that moment?

Bob:

Yeah, so, so yeah, I kind of alluded to it right with the four-hour working uh, but I think we we had been just uh that idea for for a while to do something together. It was just like what's that thing going to be right?

Julian:

you know that's a good point. I forgot about the four-hour work. I still remember where I was reading that book at my kitchen table in the old house and I feel, yeah, if there was a defining moment of like, what kind of lit the fire of we have to do something, it was reading that book. I'm certain that would have been it. The whole Python thing just came naturally. Because I actually like to tell people this I think the PyBytes thing came together because you and I wanted to just chat more, bob. We wanted a reason to learn something together hang out, talk, share, learn that kind of thing right. And that was just. I vaguely remember us texting back and forth or doing a phone call going what should we do? What should we do. And then I think this was your idea to learn Python together 100%.

Bob:

Yeah, because we could have done a million things right. I think it was the passion for programming and we're just active in that. We picked that one and maybe the passion to build, and that Python would give us also that opportunity or scalability to to build apps and and and teach people. Um, by the way, for our work, because it's it's also the most misunderstood title, because people see the cover and I might think like, yeah, julian, well, just wanted to chill out at the beach, right, sipping martinis, because that's kind of what that book uh is misunderstood as because I think it was more like just to uh is misunderstood as because I think it was more like just to clarify for people.

Bob:

Right, like, I think it was more like that entrepreneurial mindset of helping people and launch your own thing. Right because, also, pie bites was not a business till one or two years in um, it was just a blog, it was just a you know. So that that all happened after maybe getting ahead um of my you know of myself, by just putting something out there and fly with the changes, because a lot changed when we were actually starting doing stuff. I'll stop there.

Junajo:

Yeah, that's cool because I think that's the spirit of BioWides. When someone like me looks from the outside and I think the spirit of sharing, collaborating, when someone like me looks from the outside and think the spirit of sharing, collaborating, and I think that evolved naturally from you two collaborating yourselves and sharing with the rest of the people, which is what we do today in PyBytes. We do, we code and we share with people. So I think it's a cool thing and thanks for sharing that. And one last thing, for that inception moment, as we might call it, would you do something different if you were to start?

Julian:

today. I'll go first. I think, knowing what we know, there would be a million things we would do differently. So you know, this is in all of this entrepreneurial stuff when you read the books, you listen to the podcast, you watch the videos, there's always this concept of build the plane as it's flying right or you build it as it goes, and so we were reflecting on this today, a bit like we've seen in our in PyBytes, how much we've bolted things on over the years and it's not as streamlined as it could be because we've had to keep pivoting and making changes on different things.

Julian:

As we've seen the world change, our needs change. All of you the listeners, the people who support us, our community as things change in your worlds as well, we've had to pivot and change with that too, and even seeing some technologies as well change too. It's just been so what I'm trying to get to is that the business isn't as smooth as one would think to get from where we were to here. It wasn't a logical progression. So, knowing what we know now and having learned so much along the way on how to run a business, build a business, build a community market, sell, support everything, and not to mention build, market, sell, support everything and not to mention build. You know, now that we've learned all that, if I could go back and start it again, there'd be about a thousand things we'd do differently. Start things, I would say, the right way that we've learned, now you know, is effective in helping people. So I think that's what I'd do differently.

Bob:

What about you, bob? Well, I wouldn't change a thing. We just didn't know back then, right, like we could have started with coaching. But when we started we didn't even know that coaching would be our thing. Right, we just progressed naturally and we made mistakes. And now I'm actually happy with most of those mistakes because they we learned right and we became also better humans. Uh, I mean, there's the, there's the little things like whyes domain, maybe not the best, seo right, and why not takecom, but anyway, those are tangibles, right. Um, yeah, so I honestly don't know what I would do better, because I think we really progressed naturally from blog to platform courses to coaching and we have just been enjoying that journey and I think with every step we made a bigger impact. So I'm not sure what I would do better, because we just didn't know Right and we learned on the fly and I think that has been pretty cool. So I don't know.

Julian:

I I, we. We're gonna have words about this later. Yeah, disagreed, juano. Did you see that we disagreed? Yeah?

Junajo:

that's good. Well, it's good to disagree. I think it's. It's part of the or the business yeah, okay I'll leave you two to sort it out after break it up.

Junajo:

Break it up, boys, break it up I think that the the bottom line is it's not a straight line from a to b and once you look, uh, look back you, you can straight that line up. Uh, you make it straight, but you don't know beforehand. So it's it's kind of a a good, a good thing that you both have different visions and different things on on same subject, which is good, and I think getting to agreement is what we had. You both today, where you are, and building this great community, byvite has become a platform for many, many, many developers. So what do you think the most thing or the most rewarding thing in this journey towards this platform and community?

Julian:

You take that one Bob.

Bob:

I think, seeing people's transformations from being stuck to really grasping it, because we have quite a unique and challenging spin on things.

Bob:

So, yeah, stuff is not easy, right, but then when people put in the effort and really start building, where many tutorials and methods have not clicked, then it starts to click right Because they had to implement and, as we always say, like, if you build a fairly complex app of your own about something that you care about about, then it's going to much better stick and we see that in practice.

Bob:

So we had that as a theory and then seeing that in practice and not not just the tangibles of, okay, now no decorators, but the actual impact on people's lives that they could land better jobs, that they could have better, a better situation or circumstances for their family that's really rewarding, right. Like when you really I mean, I really like the fact that they're Python ninjas, right, that they're so fluent, right, that's cool, but that's still, you know, technical stuff. But if you really look at the life's impact and that came more with the coaching than anything else I think that has been really rewarding. But, selfishly, it has also been for me really rewarding to build a coding platform to extend my coding skills to what I thought I was incapable of, by taking Django and AWS development to the next level, something you know that now is used by thousands of users. Um, but yeah, I think the human impact is is is the best yeah, I want to add to that.

Julian:

So I think the human impact, one of the things that was completely unexpected as we did this and I don't know this might answer a question that you have a later on one but one of the most unexpected things is, as we coached people, we we'd never done it before, other than you know just candidly with workmates and stuff but you become so ingrained in their story, in their life, in their decision, in their future that it goes beyond the 12 weeks and you become friends with these people in their future, that it goes beyond the 12 weeks and you become friends with these people. We've met with people that we've coached around the world and just hearing the stuff that we never heard or saw on our coaching calls right Decisions they made to completely uproot or change their lives. You know, landing jobs that changed their career trajectory completely, even down to less tangible things, to just their mindset right about how much it helped them get through a difficult situation, to manage life at a point when they were at rock bottom or just doing it tough. You know, and you don't even realize you're having that impact in the moment because they don't share that with you, but you become this rock and you find all that stuff out after the fact, never in the moment. So it's not like you're doing this to get some ego hit. You're doing it because it's the right thing to do and you're supporting people. And then you hear about that later and you're like, wow, I didn't know two years ago I helped you with X, y, z, you know. So that's one. And then the second thing is very quick For those of you listening, we have our coding platform, the PyBytes platform.

Julian:

One thing that's always stuck in my mind's eye is this one of the first schools to adopt the platform in Florida, when they took pictures of the kids, the students, their certificates as they earned all their or they completed the newbie exercises on the kids, the students, their certificates as they earned all their or they completed the newbie exercises on the platform. We got these pictures sent to us of all the certificates on the wall, like they stuck them on the wall of a classroom. And I'm like, here I am on possibly one of the furthest cities away from that US city in Florida, whatever it was. Here I am and I'm helping these kids, and then occasionally the teacher will call me on WhatsApp just to do a video call because the kids doubted that she knew Bob and I. When she says, yeah, I know the guys who made this, they're like no, you didn't miss. And so she'd call in, like at 10 PM, a video call just to prove the kids wrong and be like, hey, guys, you know, and just the impact that you can make on these people is just super cool to be able to support people around the world.

Julian:

A quick break from the episode to talk about a product that we've had going for years now. This is the PyBytes platform. Bob, what's it all about?

Bob:

Now with AI, I think there's a bit of a sentiment that we're eroding our skills because AI writes so much code for us. But actually I went back to the platform the other day, solved 10 bytes and I'm still secure of my skills because it's good to be limited in your resources. You really have to write the code. It really makes you think about the code. It's really helpful.

Julian:

Definitely helpful, as long as you don't use AI to solve the problems. If you do, you're just cheating, but in reality, this is an amazing tool to help you keep fresh with Python, keep your skills strong, keep you sharp so that when you are on a live stream, like Bob over here, you can solve exercises live with however many people watching you code at the exact same time. So please check out pybytesplatformcom. It is the coding platform that beats all other coding platforms and will keep you sharper than you could ever have imagined. Check it out now, pybytesplatformcom. And back to the episode.

Bob:

Yeah, I love that story because you know we have kids ourselves, right. So if we can help 11 years old and you see them solve exercises on a platform that you built, that's like wow. This is, I mean. They're already learning Python at that age. Right, it's a super gratifying. And, yeah, I think also the worldwide impact, because this week, right, Somebody from Pakistan was showing a screenshot of of passing pie test on one of the exercises and I think it took her like two hours and she said, like I use Google and Stack Overflow, so not AI, which was great. And then I learned blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like wow, here we are helping somebody in Pakistan with a platform we built. And these stories we get from South Africa, from Australia, from Holland, get from South Africa, from Australia, from Holland, from Latin America, like US, of course, Asia. It's like wow, it's really cool very satisfying.

Julian:

That was a long answer.

Junajo:

I think it's a good one also, as myself, I can attest to that because I have been a student too. I've been coached by you and you can tell the difference between doing tutorials, reading, trying to coach yourself, but you never at least for myself you never launch, you never get to the point where you can feel confident about. I can do this. I can build my own business thing, my own application, my own software, wherever I want to go. So it's really transformative. And I think what you have in the platform we can talk about a little bit now, because you have three programs the PDI, for the beginners, the PDM, which I did, and the PDC, which I recently also did, the cohort, which is the recent one. Can you please tell us a little bit more about how they become alive and what they separate one of to the other, so we can describe to the new listeners or old listeners how they look like and what they can expect from each of these?

Julian:

Go on, bob, this one's yours. Yeah, all you, yeah.

Bob:

Let's give me. I love it. Make sure I get the order right, because I can start with PDI, but actually we start with PDM, right?

Bob:

That was the first one. Yeah, we did the flagship, the more intermediate advanced program, first, so that was back in 2020. Covid just hit and we were looking right before. We were looking for ways to make a bigger impact. Right, we had the course of the platform and, um, yeah, we took some coaching or mentoring ourselves to kind of figure out the next steps, right, which was, um, tremendously useful.

Bob:

And, yeah, we came up with coaching and help people more intensively right Through building bigger apps, doing this whole design process and really guiding them in a 12-week journey to build on average, two or three apps, right. So, yeah, that's what we started doing and, yeah, as Juanjo, as you mentioned, you really get that increased feedback and collaboration and things starting to really stick. So that worked really well, but it was kind of advanced relatively. So we got people in and we needed also a program for the more beginners. So then we built PDI, or initialization, and that's for people new to python and ready to start, you know, build their own app, but smaller and well defined by us, basically a capstone project. Um, yeah, so those are our two one-to-one programs and then, as of a few months ago, we have now also a cohort program, um, pdc, right, and it's now just core python, but we're working on django, rast and ai as well, so we will have different flavors.

Bob:

Um, yeah, we're sitting a bit in in between cohorts and uh and self-paced uh, so either works. Just as you saw right, you were autonomous doing it. But yeah, we have that group setting there of a shared forum, shared calls, still code reviewing, so it still has a little bit of that one-to-one aspect. But yeah, again, fixed app, but pretty advanced still and it teaches all the modern practices and libraries in use these days. So a bit lighter weight but still pretty thorough. Yeah, so I think, julian, anything. Ah sorry, julian, the mindset piece. I didn't talk about the mindset.

Junajo:

I was in touch on that briefly, but go ahead, julian, please if you're.

Julian:

If you're watching this on youtube, you can see the point where my heart broke because he forgot to mention it anyway. So the m in pdm is mindset, right. So one of the things that we found very early on and we attribute a lot of this to our success right is that you can learn whatever tech skills you want, but if you don't have the mindset to persevere when things are tough, likes to make fun of it and say it's just some garbage thing. But the reality is how you frame a situation, how you frame your challenges, the things you tell yourself matter. So we have woven mindset into everything that we do in this podcast, in our writing, in our emails, in our posts on LinkedIn and wherever else, socials and stuff and especially in our training programs, in our courses and in our coaching.

Julian:

It is a huge piece and it is often the thing that makes or breaks someone going through the program. If they don't have the mindset to push through on, say, a Wednesday night, when they're exhausted and they've only got an hour to themselves and they have to make that conscious choice to sit down and code instead of sitting on the couch and watching TV. If you don't have the mindset to push through and do what needs to be done. That's where people start falling over and we start to see the. You know we have to step in and come and you know, get them on a call and course, correct them right. So it really is possibly the most important piece to all of this and to any of the success of our program. So big piece. Thanks for the reminder. I appreciate it.

Bob:

Yeah, we often say people come for the Python and stay for the mindset.

Julian:

Yeah, they often don't even know. It's a thing that they need to consciously be aware of.

Julian:

They kind of just do it here and there, or it's just's a thing that they need to consciously be aware of. They they kind of just do it here and there, or it's just part of their life, but they don't put a title to it, they don't put a focus on it. And that's what we change with people, and they start to adopt that in everything they do in their coding space, and that's why we have such a high success rate with our programs yeah, I can.

Junajo:

I can add to that that I think when I came to the program, for me mindset was something that I didn't even pay attention to.

Junajo:

But you start focusing on it unintentionally. You don't really realize that you are working on your mindset, but you are doing because you are doing, you are coding, you send PRs to your coach and you get feedback and you start engaging with the community. And I think also a good thing related to the mindset is some, I would say, activities that you carry out in the space, in the circle space, which are the bi-weekly now calls the mindset one week and the next week the coaching one, when I think you help people to achieve those goals and you show people how things are doing or you even provide the coaches or any other guy to jump in and share their thoughts and work with some colleagues. It's like a coding beer or mindset beer that you talk and it's good to have. So I think that's also two other positive things that you have in your community. And recently the Vive coding, which, if you want to talk about a little bit about that, what do you think about it? Because for me it's very interesting.

Julian:

I am very promising saying that you're talking about vibe coding, does it say?

Junajo:

yeah, vibe coding, vibe coding. But the the thing well, uh, the recent one that you did was without theDI, it was more with AI, and I think it has its place if you know how to use it. But these, when you come together and start having beers and let's say, let's do something, and you start coding, so I think that's a good one.

Julian:

No, I agree, I much prefer the in-person or human interaction. I actually really quite enjoy it. So that's one of the pieces of vibe coding that I have a problem with, but we're going to do that in another episode. I said enough on this week's email and I don't want to ruffle any feathers too much. Okay, okay. So we'll keep the momentum high, keep the mood, high man, come on. Yeah, I will keep the mood high.

Junajo:

Yeah, okay, so this is something good I think we can. Uh, another thing that I have curiosity is uh, you've worked with so many, many different people developers from all the flavors. What do you think that separates a good developer from an average one? What things do you think are good?

Bob:

They don't just vibe code. No, I think a lot comes down. It's related to vibe coding, right? I think a lot comes down. It's related to vibe coding, right? I think a lot comes down to caring for the craft. So, yeah, vibe coders, if that's really about just copy pasting, not understanding, then this is bad right. So, understand vibe coding much more like. You use it as a collaborative tool, but you have a huge influence on the final code, right, you write tests for it, you like every line of code you can explain, et cetera, et cetera.

Bob:

So, yeah, I think, great developers, great care, good testing, good tooling, very fluent in their tool sets, good design patterns, thorough knowledge of the language and and useful patterns, like the built-ins and and you know, the standard library, um, but also the mindset, again, like, um, they persist, uh, they ask good questions. When they ask questions, they have thorough research, what they've done right. So to to make it. And in code reviews, for example, um, they might proactively already add some comments to the code to make it easier for code reviews. For example, um, they might proactively already add some commands to the code to make it easier for the reviewer. So, again, a lot of mindset and empathy as well, um, and good communication skills, right. So definitely a lot of mindset there as well, but that sets the uh good developers apart.

Julian:

So those are some of my ideas yeah, I'd also add a, that they have a genuine curiosity.

Julian:

I don't want to go as far as saying that they're super passionate about it, because that's not fair to people who are good at the language and but don't have a passion for it. They're like this is my job. But if you have a genuine curiosity about your code and what you're writing and you know potentially why it works that way, I often try and find that balance between don't ask why too much, to the point that you spend your entire day figuring out why, when you could just be pushing the code and getting it done, understanding that it works right. So there is a balance to be had. But having curiosity, I think, really makes a difference, because then you're willing to investigate, you're willing to invest the time into your code and learning how to perfect it, learning what the latest library or technology that might help you is, and that kind of thing. But obviously that leads to a bit of distraction. So back to the mindset. So, like I said, it's a fine balance.

Bob:

And good developers also share their work, right, like they don't just hoard their code, they share it, they, they, they investigate, they, they talk about it. I mean, look at a guy like Simon Willison right, great care, obviously, writes good code. Very curious, he might just go out there and do all these kinds of experiments. He really went into AI and does all these amazing things, building things, but then he's also very prolific on his blog. He has a blog like 20 years. There's a treasure trove of blog entries and info there, right? So, yeah, I really like that troika of care, curiosity and sharing and sharing.

Junajo:

Yeah, I think that that's also good. And also the capacity of of being patient enough to refactor your code, because for me was I struggle with that. I wanted the perfect code from the get go and it's not. And that's not possible. You need to start building and although you you realize it's not perfect and it won't be perfect at any time, but at least you can improve it over and over and you can refactor, and that's why you get your PyTest under your belt and you need to write tests so you make sure you don't break anything after refactoring. And I think that's separate curiosity and intellectual humbleness. I think they're two good qualities for a good developer too. Yeah, I totally agree with that.

Julian:

Also developers that have PieBites coffee mugs. They're the best developers, yeah just throw that out there.

Junajo:

I need one. I'm not one of the best, oh crap, don't worry, don't worry. I'll fix that in a while. There's a bug I can easily fix, don't worry. I'll fix that in a while. There's a bug I can easily fix, don't worry.

Bob:

Quick break for a note of our sponsor this week, which is FiveBytes, fivebytes, that's us.

Julian:

I'm here, Bob. What are we talking about this week?

Bob:

Well, we have a new coaching program PDC or FiveBytes Developer Cohort. We thought it was never going to happen because we have been doing one-to-one for five years, but now we can do group coaching as well. We're going to build a real-world app six weeks in an exciting cohort. We're going to learn with one of our PyBytes coaches the whole journey, but also work together and learn together. And yeah, no more tutorial paralysis. Build, build, build.

Julian:

It's wonderful. It's not something you want to miss out on, so please check out the link below, pybitescoachingcom. This is a program that bridges real building with a cohort, environment learning with other people, building with engineers. It's a wonderful thing. Check it out now, pybitescoachingcom, and back to the episode.

Junajo:

Okay, enough of talking about the past, so I'm curious about how do you foresee PyBytes in the next five or 10 years?

Julian:

Oh, can I take that one? Please Sure Me, me, me, no, look, I have grand plans and visions for PyBytes that are taking effect. With everything that we're doing, what we're building, I really see us being one of the main places to go to learn Python, because we do it in such a unique and engaging way, especially at scale with the platform, so getting a bit of business in here. I really do see us becoming a platform that students across schools, universities and, you know, government programs to help people re-skill into python, because I think python is going to be, and is already, one of those technologies and tools that everyone should be learning to maximize their potential in their job, their ability to maintain the job and not be you know I guess I hate to say it this but less chance of being made redundant if you have that extra skill and I know that's a sweeping statement, so forgive me, but I also see it as being something that we're already seeing. Countries make it the language of choice to teach their students. So, for PyBytes, I see us being fundamental and really involved in that, and these are things that we're working on, these are things that we're pushing on, and so, as a result, I then see us being fundamental and really involved in that, and these are things that we're working on. These are things that we're pushing on, and so, as a result, I then see us growing to a point where you will see our name around on many places that you wouldn't expect to see it now.

Julian:

We're doing things in the US with veterans. I want to see that grow globally. We just started doing stuff here in Australia with veterans. I want to see that become part of government programs. I want to see that grow globally. We just started doing stuff here in Australia with veterans. I want to see that become part of government programs. I want to see all these different things happen, because this is a very low barrier for entry and simplistic way to at least get exposed to the language and learn the fundamentals. This is our coding platform I'm talking about, and then we have those coaching services to really take it to the next level for the people who want that. But yeah, for me, that's where I see PyBytes. I see it as becoming like the learning platform, the place to go. There's plenty of other people out there that will teach Python, but we do it our way and I know how effective that is so. That's where I see us in the next five to 10 years.

Junajo:

Amen, yeah, it know how effective that is, so that's where I see us in the next five to ten years.

Bob:

amen, yeah, it's a very exciting future and yeah, go ahead, yeah and because we have pi hardcoded in the name, I guess it will be python for a while, but our approach is general enough that it will work for other languages, right? So, as I mentioned, we're building this Rust cohort and the same approach should work there. Now, rust is honestly a harder language to learn, right, but I think with the hands-on approach it will stick for people, right? So, yeah, the focus will be Python, but not to say that we can branch out into Rust and JavaScript, because Python is used a lot for web development, so adding some front end in there would, of course, be a good thing as well.

Junajo:

So yeah, so with that in mind, I think that Rust, I see it as a tool to improve that Python in our case. Many tools have already been built in Rust, like UV, Ruff and the likes, and also Tie, the Tie package, so I think it's a good thing to have in mind and also to increase your arsenal of batteries, I would like to say, and to improve code. Python is not the most efficient or faster code in a language, but I think it's the best for everything globally and I think if you couple that with Rust, you have a winner. That's for sure.

Bob:

I was tempted to look into Ruby after listening to DHH and he had some beautiful syntax things. But yeah, I think for us Python will stay at the very top. But yeah, on the Rust thing, even if you don't ever write a significant package in it, just by learning that compiled language and its strict boundaries makes you a better right, makes you look more critically at the dynamic nature of Python and the risks that can have right. So again, we're definitely going to focus on Python 99%. But we also want to make good programmers right, and if learning Rust is beneficial for that, then we're going to do that right. And if Rust learning Rust is beneficial for that, then we're going to do that right. Or you, just you know we not only want to create great Pythonistas but also great programmers, which often goes hand in hand. I mean, look at the Zen of Python, right?

Junajo:

Yeah, no, that's cool, and also for Python, since it will be the core for PyBytes within the next years. We now have AI. We have many, many new things. What do you think is the future for Python? How do you see things coupled with Python in the future?

Julian:

you want this, bob, or do you want me to take it? Uh, you start. I think it's. Some people see it as a nail in the coffin for developers, right, like with ai and everything, but I think it's exciting. I think it's opening up stuff like python to so many people, so I think it's going the the language popularity we know. I mean, looking at the stats there's probably new stats out this month, but from last month I think it's T-I-O-B-E. However, you say that index of popularity for programming languages said that Python has over. I think it was just under 25% popularity of all languages worldwide. Right, that's a huge, huge number. And the next one is down at like 10 percent or something like that and that's C++. So when you look at that and consider that the popularity from the same point last year 2024, it grew by 10 percent you know there's kind of like a trend going there. It's been in the top two languages for the past five years, so it's growing.

Julian:

With the AI focus on it, with AI being built heavily using Python. I think it's just it's happy days. I think people are. This is a time to be using it. I'm not saying get complacent and think this is the only language that you'll ever use for your whole life. Things change, but now is the time to be learning and playing with the language and experimenting. Can do so many cool things with it like you'd be foolish not to jump into it.

Bob:

I think that's how I see it yeah, I don't see python going anywhere either. Um, and yeah, there will be more ai and and people using those tools, but we also see see that leads to technical debt and you really need to know the skill set. And, yeah, there might be a shift in the type of work or the type of positions, but Python is everywhere, right? So look at all the code that's written in Python needs to be maintained and it's being added. So, yeah, I think that, yeah, we can just uh, yeah yeah, the future is is guaranteed and

Junajo:

I t hink with with ai and I can tell a bit more about it since I've been more focused on ai development with python recently I think there's a huge potential and and ahead and you can integrate tools with Python which are easily automations Like. There are great platforms like matecom or A910, which are great for automating, but you, when you start being proficient at them, you and you have the programming mindset and in the background you say I can do this better. I can write the Python code myself and do it better in another way. I don't have to waste my time adding these nodes and figuring out how they are connected. It's good for people who don't want to to learn to how to program and don't want to spend much time on on the bolts and inners of of, of the of the tool, of the python, but it's it's a great, it's great to have to have that and also python, yeah, so for me it's it's a good thing.

Junajo:

Agreed, good, bob, julian, it's been amazing. I think we are getting close to the, to the final, this podcast. It's been a real pleasure. But before we wrap up, just a quick reminder to people where they can find us so please remind people, just in case.

Julian:

Oh my gosh everywhere just read the show notes. There's links below that's the problem too many links.

Junajo:

There'll be a ton of links for people who want to get to join and learn more about this community. I think the code platform yes.

Bob:

Best place to go after this is the community. Right PyBytescircleso and hit us up there, yeah.

Junajo:

I think it's the best place. Yeah, and it's a great community. I, there's a many, many people, many mind like uh, people joining together and and sharing their thoughts and and probably so it's a good place. Yeah, and the yeah go ahead.

Julian:

No, no I was gonna say there's. There's one thing I just wanted to say um, that came to mind were you talking about the whole longevity of python and stuff and that I just want to add in this. Maybe this is a good closing comment to make as well. It's just for all of you listening and who have people in your lives who order, who could have manual processes to automate, like you were talking about, juanjo, and it's just.

Julian:

Python is a simple language to learn, but it doesn't mean it's easy, right, you're going to hit roadblocks as you learn it. So I want just people to set their expectations that it is a simplistic language, if you know English, very simple to pick up because you can actually read what it's doing. You're not caught and hunkered down in the syntax, but actually understanding what it's doing to be able to write the code is where the complexity comes in, and with the right mindset if you just push through. So if there's any tip or recommendation I give to people is to just don't give up, right, just try it and celebrate those small little wins, even if it's just printing hello world to the screen for the 50th time, looping that through a for loop, and then you're like, wow, it just printed 10 times. It's amazing. You know those little things where you get that feeling of, oh my gosh, my code ran, celebrate it. Let that put wind in your sails, because every time that happens, it's actually you learning something that you will use.

Julian:

And talking to developers all the time, I can safely say that those fundamentals that you're learning now as you pick up the language, you will consistently use throughout your entire development career Using with statements, running for loops, dictionaries, parsing that data. It's the same thing that you do over and over. You just bolt different things on. So my point is don't give up. Get these fundamentals down, keep pushing through the difficulty. Don't get tempted to go watch Netflix or some garbage. Just get back to work and take a walk, come back 15 minutes and it'll click and you'll get there. But just don't give up and do not tell yourself that you're not good enough to learn it or that you're not smart enough to learn it, because if I can learn it, um, only like 10 other people can learn. No, everyone can learn it. You know, anyone can learn it if I can learn it. So just that's. That's my parting lecture.

Bob:

Soapbox moment no, that's a good point, right, we don't have cs degrees that we could become pretty proficient with python. Right, it's learnable, but it took us time and effort and uh, yeah, having that mindset of uh making mistakes yeah, it's like like, uh, playing with with lego blocks.

Junajo:

The lego blocks are at easy and pretty. It's like playing with Lego blocks. The Lego blocks are easy and pretty. It's pretty easy to assemble them. But to make something that is useful it takes time and patience. But, as Julian said, with time and patience you'll get there.

Julian:

I'm pretty sure, yeah, love it, man. Thank you for interviewing us, juanjo. This was awesome.

Junajo:

Thank you. Thank you for accepting me interviewing you. Those are great thanks a lot. Thank you both, and we will be being around and we'll keep in touch for the future so, bob, congratulations 200 episodes down, next hundred, next 200.

Julian:

We've got to double it. Yeah, boy, that's a lot of podcast episodes to do. And, um, I will just add this on as the as a closer to the episode. Um, share the episode out, you know, get people to to subscribe to this, tune in every week, add it to your podcast addict app and all those other things, and make sure you tune into all the episodes. We've got a bunch of cool things coming. Bob and I have a great episode to record next week when we meet to do that. And it's just, you know, always new fun things to listen to with with this podcast, so make sure you give it a good listen.

Junajo:

You can share it. Yep, I'll do it. I'll share it everywhere.

Julian:

Don't worry, nice, love it All right.

Junajo:

Thanks, man.

Julian:

Thanks everyone for listening. We appreciate it. Yeah, thanks, michael.

Junajo:

Thank you, thank you Bob, thank you Julian, all right.

Julian:

Take care. Hey everyone, thanks for tuning into the PyBytes podcast. I really hope you enjoyed it. A quick message from me and Bob before you go To get the most out of your experience with PyBytes, including learning more Python, engaging with other developers, learning about our guests, discussing these podcast episodes, and much, much more please join our community at pybytescircleso. The link is on the screen if you're watching this on YouTube and it's in the show notes for everyone else. When you join, make sure you introduce yourself, engage with myself and Bob and the many other developers in the community. It's one of the greatest things you can do to expand your knowledge and reach and network as a Python developer. We'll see you in the next episode and we will see you in the community.