Hello and welcome to the Pibytes podcast, where we talk about Python career and mindset. We're your hosts. I'm Julian Sequeira. And I am Bob Baldebos. 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. Welcome back to the Pibytes podcast. This is Bob Baldeboz, and I'm not here with Julian this week. It's just me, and we're going to talk about app ideas. In this episode, I want you to go from maybe not having any idea to being full of ideas and inspiration to start building with Python. But before we do that, and I will introduce a tool for that, let's talk a little bit why that's important. A common problem in the industry is tutorial paralysis and overconsumption of resources, which often come with good examples, but not examples that reflect the real world. So to really become a proficient developer, to do this faster and more efficiently, you need to build. We often talk about this, but why is this actually important? Why is it important to go beyond the toy example to build more complex projects? Well, let me give you ten reasons. First of all, you better understand complexity. Real world applications. You're often faced with unforeseen things. You know things from the real world, things you didn't expect. And that's where you really have to become a problem solver and apply python in the context of the real world makes all the difference. Integration of various tools and libraries when you build real world applications, you often have to integrate various tools and libraries, which makes it more complex but also more realistic. You boost your problem solving skills because again, real world applications often come with unscripted challenges. You learn the best practices because when you submit code and you go undergo code review, that's where the real gaps show. And that's also where you are introduced to all the surrounding tools like version control. You enhance your portfolio, right when you build real world applications. Now, instead of showing somebody else toy application, you can show your own work and show something you build that you really care about and that you can talk about with passion, something that really resonates and that passion will shine through. For example, when you talk about in job interviews, you get a deeper understanding of the concepts. This is actually where design patterns often go from theory to become very practical, because you have more code, you have more complex intricacies of the app, and that's where you really start to apply patterns. Team collaboration already mentioned in the context of code reviews. So you go out of your silo and you start to collaborate with other developers. And that's a key skill, continuous learning. So now that the real world project is often a bigger project, you also have to think about scalability, maintaining writing clean code, and make the project more robust towards the future. Real user feedback. So the other thing is when you build your app and you get it out there, you can ask your friends, family, colleagues to use it and get some real feedback. And that's often crucial. Everything changes when it's not yourself using your own app, making assumptions, it's somebody else that might not make those assumptions. And yeah, you get some very interesting feedback. And that's also way closer to how it is in the real world to develop software. And last, not least is the confidence boost, right? Seeing a real world application that you build in action, being used by actual people, that can tremendously boost your confidence. Actually people that do that with us in the coaching and PDM, every single one of them have indicated that that process build their confidence, the confidence they so much needed in their coding skills. And that also opens the door to and motivates you to take on even more ambitious projects towards the future. So, ten reasons I hope by now you're convinced that building real world projects is important. Now, before moving into the tool, the portfolio assessment, I also quickly want to highlight how important it is to show those projects on your portfolio, GitHub and resume, especially in the context of landing a job or, you know, acquiring new opportunities in your career. So six reasons showing real world applications on your portfolio or GitHub is the proof of capability, right? Certification degrees, courses, that's nice, they are appreciated, but actual projects show that you can apply uppercase the knowledge effectively. They act as concrete proof of your abilities. As mentioned before, these projects often incorporate a lot of different tools, techniques, libraries, etcetera. So showing that on your profile shows that you have a diverse skill set. It shows your problem solving abilities because you worked backwards from a complex problem, solving it, writing the code to solve that problem. There's no better way to show problem solving skills, it's just passion and initiative. You often start those projects alongside a full time job. So it shows that you have that ability, but also passion for learning and doing something extra to always be improving your skill set. It shows you understand the development lifecycle. So as I mentioned before, the collaboration aspect, git working in a team, if you can show that off, showing those projects, then people know that you can do that in their team as well. And last but not least soft skills, right? If those projects are open source or collaborations with other people, it shows that you're a team player, that you're able to collaborate and effectively communicate, which is critical. All right, we established the importance of app building for your technical skills and deeper understanding of Python. We've discussed how important it is to build up a portfolio by showing those apps to land new opportunities. Now let's get into our portfolio assessment tool. We have used this tool many times ourselves. We use it with everybody we work with, and the goal is to come up with good ideas to build real world applications. So grab a pen and paper. You can pause between the questions and just hand write it out. That forces you to become slower, hence to think deeper. But of course, you can just also listen it through. I'm going to introduce you to a fictional character called Alex who's going to fill out the form. And Alex knows Python already, but has some passions and are dears, and this form is going to help him get clarity. What you can use Python for in the show notes, you will find the link to the portfolio assessment form online, so you can just go through it as well. After this podcast, it will submit your submission emailing us and we are always very happy to receive those, read through them and reply to you with some advice on next steps. So either do it with pen and paper, stop your walk, go into a cafeteria, order a coffee, handwrite it out, or type it in your phone while listening and pausing. Or just listen through the example first and fill out the form after it. But don't procrastinate it. Do this sooner rather than later. We think this will be an important step in your python journey. So let's dive straight in. One. What are your passions, hobbies, things you really love doing and care about? Alex I'm passionate about sustainable farming and local food systems. In my spare time, I enjoy community gardening, exploring farmers markets, and reading up on organic and regenerative agriculture practices. Alex, that's fantastic. So Alex identified here his passions, his niche. It's clearly about farming and helping farmers. So that's great. Moving on. Two what market do you want to target? Do you want to monetize your solution, or do you prefer it to be open source? Alex I'd like to target the local food market, specifically connecting small scale farmers directly with consumers. Initially, I'd like to keep the platform open source to encourage community contributions and to ensure accessibility. But I'm open to exploring monetization strategies that can sustain and scale the project in the long run. This already got Alex really thinking about the long term vision. This is not just a toy project, this is something that he can open source. There could be a monetization strategy. So here you really should get excited what your project, the thing you're going to build in Python, can do for the world and for yourself, of course. Three, what previous experience, job, or in general, could be useful to combine with Python? Alex I've worked in community outreach for a local agricultural non profit, which gave me insights into the challenges farmers face and what consumers are looking for. This background will be invaluable in shaping the direction and features of my Python projects. This makes a lot of sense. So Alex is definitely drawing from prior experience. Now, really think deeply here, because you've been probably working for quite some years and you've learned all kinds of things. You've been in all kinds of situations and environments. There are more skills and experiences potentially you can bring to the table that can help you build an interesting project. Four, what one to three apps would you build if Python was your magic wand? Alex? One, a platform that links local farmers directly to consumers, allowing for fresh produced deliveries. Two, an educational game that teaches sustainable farming practices to kids, combining fun with learning. Three, a community forum for farmers to share resources, ask questions and collaborate on sustainable practices. Here, Alex gets very specific about the three applications you want to build. He doesn't only want to build that platform, but he's also into teaching kids, which is amazing. It really resonates with us personally, and there's the community aspects. So although these apps are still pretty high level, at least this gets an idea what type of applications Alex wants to build. And from here on, he can decide, well, what is the interface to those apps? Would it be an API, web app, command line type, AI package, etcetera? But this gives kind of the blueprint. Five, what skills are you good and or bad at that can form an opportunity here? Alex I'm good at community engagement and understanding user needs. This will help in ensuring the platforms I build are user centric. On the downside, I'm still refining my technical skills, especially in data analysis and backend development. This could be an opportunity, collaborate with others or deepen my python knowledge in these areas. So here we really look at your profile, and Alex had him reflect on what he's really good at and not yet good at adopting a growth mindset. Not yet. So people also often highlight their Myers Briggs, a bit of personality and a swot analysis. Right. So your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This is really bringing it back to the personality, because this is not only about technical skills. A lot of what it takes to persist in these bigger projects is mindset. Right? So this question is really geared towards that. Six, what domain do you want to use Python in? Alex I'm keen on using Python in the agriculture tech domain. There's a lot of untapped potential in blending traditional agricultural practices with modern technology. And Python, with its versality, seems perfect for the task. So great answer. And again, Alex really identified his niche to go develop Python. And I think that this will also make it much more interesting for him. It will motivate him in the long haul because it's related to something he's passionate about and he sees opportunities in to make an impact. Seven, what is your ultimate goal with Python and this project? Alex my ultimate goal is to foster stronger connections between local food producers and consumers, making fresh and sustainable food more accessible. Through Python, I aim to build platforms that bridge knowledge gaps, support local economies and promote sustainable farming. So at this point, this goal should not come as much of a surprise. But it's a nice wrap up to really bring it all back to the goal, because Python, we love Python, it's worth learning for the sake of learning. But Python is also a tool which leads to a bigger goal. What is that bigger goal? So, as much as Alex probably loves Python, he's really passionate about farming, so he's going to use Python as a tool to get to his farming contribution goal. And that nicely wraps it up and just to bring it back to pibytes, when we did this, when we started, we identify a gap or niche in the python space, which were. Most of the resources were too theoretical. So we started building exercise or code challenges, and we ended up building a coding platform. And through building that mammoth product app project, we really had to learn Django, AWS, Lambda, a lot of deliberate practice, right? But it started with that vision of what's the goal we want to achieve? And we wanted to teach Python, and we wanted to teach it in a more practical way. How did we do that? We built a platform that was one of the big projects, applications we built and bring it back to my career. When I was in support, I saw a lot of manual processes by support engineers of server telemetry data, which was sent into zip files or snapshot bundles. And that's where I jumped in and built a tool. So if I would have filled out this portfolio assessment, then I would have identified, hey, I'm working support. I know about servers, that's my existing knowledge. I'm passionate about automating things, helping people, and the magic wand question. It would have then been the automation of or facilitation of support bundle analysis that would have led me onto that big parser project web app I then built, which got me a lot of practical exposure to Python and well, first Perl, later Python and really made me learn it deeply. So so far, the link to py bytes and our experience. But this tool is really valuable. It can shift your focus and your Python career. So please take the time to fill it out, submit it, and we happily respond to you with some advice on what the next steps should be. And other than that, hope this helps you along as a python developer. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week with a fresh new episode. We hope you enjoyed this episode. To hear more from us, go to Pibyte friends, that is Pybit es friends, and receive a free gift just for being a friend of the show and to join our thriving slack community of Python programmers, go to Pybytes community, that's pibit es forward slash community. We hope to see you there and catch you in the next episode.