One Goal Over Many

Kishan Patel 0:00

Last year, I was reading this book called The One Thing. And in the book, as you can probably tell from the title, Gary emphasizes setting a goal and setting one goal and going after that as hard as he can. And the reasoning is multitasking is a myth. You can't pursue multiple goals. If you do so, you'll maybe achieve some, but not as not as high a level or as high quality. And the one goal for me was in 2025 to become a better Python developer, the best Python developer that I could be. And of course some low cost hybrid. And that's that's what helped me get to the level that I wanted to for this year.

Intro 0:39

Hello and welcome to the Pybites Podcast, where we talk about Python, career, and mindset. We are your host, I'm Julian Saclara, and I am Bob Eldebos.

Bob Beldebos 0:49

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 everybody to the Pybytes Podcast. It's Bob Eldavos, and we're here at Kishan Patel. Kishan, how are you doing? Doing well. How are you doing? Yeah, good. Excited to uh to get you on. Uh we have uh quite a working relation by now, and uh yeah, we have you on to uh to talk about your journey, uh Python, PDM, AI, the tech industry, whatever, right? So I think we can talk about it.

Kishan Patel 1:22

All the exciting stuff, yeah.

Bob Beldebos 1:24

But uh of course we have some questions prepared, otherwise we could talk for hours. But yeah, maybe uh you want to start off with introducing yourself to our audience, um for people that don't know you, um, and then uh we get started.

Kishan Patel 1:38

Sure. My name is Keishin Patel. I am a software developer. I live in Dallas, Texas, in the United States, and most of my work is around data engineering, where I get to use Python to build apps and data pipelines. Awesome.

Bob Beldebos 1:55

And uh do you have a win of the week?

Kishan Patel 1:58

Yes, I have a technical win, so which is also a emotional win. I installed some Chrome extensions, and one of them is called Undistracted, and what it does is basically remove the distracting fluff in different social media platforms. Um so like on LinkedIn, it removes the feed, so you're not endlessly scrolling, and it does similar things to remove feeds on Facebook and other platforms, and helps me like refocus my time and do what I set out to do instead of getting distracted and in a rabbit hole.

Bob Beldebos 2:32

Awesome. What's the name of the plugin?

Kishan Patel 2:35

It's called Undistracted, and it works, I think it works in anything, any web browser that has chromium under the hood. Yeah. And it's got really fine game controls, and it's been quite nice. Yeah, and then another one I installed was I think it's called monochrome mode. It it sounds boring. It takes the color and just makes it grayscale, but it's been remarkable in making those red notification bubbles not as enticing to click on. It's freed up a lot of time, so I'm pretty happy about it.

Bob Beldebos 3:02

Yeah. Just make it don't make make sure you now don't log into Facebook on Safari.

unknown 3:07

Yeah.

Why Python For Data Work

Bob Beldebos 3:08

Yes. Yeah. Nice. There's always ways around it. That's uh it's challenging, right? With uh all these apps and things that uh get us out of deep work, right? Uh we mentioned it often that this essay on the podcast, uh manager versus maker schedule, or are you around, right? So uh yeah, that's that's a win. Yeah.

Kishan Patel 3:29

Yeah. Um I don't get distracted for good reasons too. Like sometimes I go on YouTube and I find something related to PyTest, and all of a sudden I'm several YouTube videos in because of the suggestions.

Bob Beldebos 3:41

Yeah, YouTube is is the worst.

Kishan Patel 3:43

Yeah.

Hitting A Ceiling And Seeking Growth

Bob Beldebos 3:44

Because it's still education, right? So that feels like a good excuse to then stick around for more. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. So um I don't have a wind prepared other than that I had a break week and I could kind of disconnect. Uh and I was in Holland and uh I saw really nice autumn colors with all the leaves and the sun on the leaves, and then this gold color stuff we don't get in the Mediterranean here. That sounds beautiful. Yeah. So we're we're back, and uh yeah, so let's uh let's dive into it. So can you tell us a bit about uh your journey into Python world? I mean, you have a data background, um, so you're already using Python, right? But uh recently through PDC and PDM, you've learned a lot of Python, right? And and went more into a developer profile, I would say. Um but yeah, maybe we can go back to the start and maybe even before Python, where you're already doing coding, scripting. What what got you into coding? What makes you passionate about coding?

Pybites Coaching And The One Thing

Kishan Patel 4:48

Yeah, yeah. It's a great question. I unfortunately did not learn programming at a young age. My first exposure to it was in college or university. So for me, the journey starts in university. I finished with degrees in aerospace engineering and mathematics. And instead of entering into industry, I spent some time teaching, uh, taught high school or secondary school, and that was a great time of three years. After that, I decided to pivot into analytics, where I got to use a little bit of programming, a little bit of math in business intelligence. And it's around that time, about seven years ago, where I started using Python. That was my entry into Python. Uh before that, back in my college days, I did learn programming. And it was the type of scientific languages like MATLAB or MathCAD, which are great. They're proprietary. So it's great when you're a student and you get free licenses and then you enter as a professional and you have to pay the big bucks to use it. So Python was nice and that it was open source, but it was also very clean and user-friendly, which I enjoyed as I was transitioning from teaching back into a more tech role. And that's where I've been for the past seven years. I've been working with data or analytics in some way. I've worked as a database administrator, but most of my recent roles have been as a data engineer where I'm using Python and the endless SQL to build data pipelines and internal apps for different companies. That I like. Yeah. Uh you asked, you know, what do I like about coding? What I really like about coding is that the it's the ability to create something out of nothing and or I guess some effort. Uh so it's really neat to see just a blank file. You populate that file, and all of a sudden you have some pieces of software that you can use to make your life better. And that's what I really like about coding and what drove me there. And it's also ultimately what led me to Pie Bytes.

Project Learning Beats Tutorials

Bob Beldebos 6:56

Yeah. Well, we can talk about that as well. But uh yeah, I can I I definitely share that passion. Um, blank file, make a script, make an app, make a product, and all of a sudden you're you're solving bigger and bigger problems, either for yourself or for others, right? Um, do you do you have uh any any stories of I mean, obviously we're going to go into the projects you've recently built with us, um, but maybe from the data work, um, what kinds of problems you've solved and and how it made um lives easier. What was the impact of the coding there?

App 1: Finance Tracker With FastAPI

Kishan Patel 7:28

Right. Well, when I first started in data, we were using a lot of proprietary tools, uh, specifically from Microsoft. So we would use click and drag tools to build pipelines. And when I say pipelines, the idea is you're building some logic to extract data from somewhere, maybe do a little bit of cleanup, and then deposit it somewhere else for the business to use for the reporting. And that was good, but it was at times clunky and didn't work with all of the different sources that we needed. And so there's a little pain point there that was easily solved by Python. Uh, given that Python is open source, it has numerous people contributing to the ecosystem. There are many packages that we could use to tap into whatever source we wanted to build a pipeline the way that we wanted and to deposit the data wherever we wanted. And so that was the pain point that got me interested in Python. And I would kind of study it on the side or try to implement it in new pipelines at work as I as I was curious and had the time to do so.

Bob Beldebos 8:33

Cool, cool. Nice. So let's uh talk about uh when you came to Pybytes, then, because you already knew Python, I mean quite well, right? Like seven years ago. Um, and where did you feel you were stuck or what was still challenging? What got you to Pybytes in the sense that where where did you feel you had to go to get to that next level?

App 2: Recipe Book In Django

Kishan Patel 8:57

Yeah, that's also a good question. For me, it started with a book. Last year I was reading this book called The One Thing by I think uh Gary Keller, I believe. Yeah, yes. Yeah. And in the book, as you can probably tell from the title, Gary emphasizes setting a goal and setting one goal and going after that as hard as he can. And the reasoning is multitasking is a myth. You can't pursue multiple goals. If you do so, you'll maybe achieve some, but not as at not as high a level or as high quality. Uh so as I looked at last year, excuse me. As I looked at last year, I thought, what do I want to do? What's the one goal for me? And the one goal for me was in 2025 to become a better Python developer, the best Python developer that I could be. And that's what started my search for different uh tutorials, different uh courses that might help me, but it wasn't anything that really helped me get from that intermediate to that advanced level that I was looking for. And of course stumbled across Pybrights, and that's that's what helped me get to the level that I wanted to for this year.

App 3: Bookmarker AI As A CLI

Advert 10:10

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Bob Beldebos 11:06

And was it the project learning? And um yeah, what was that? I guess you mentioned tutorials and and resources. Um but I guess I mean we we already know the answer, right? But for the audience, uh for you it was really like putting it all together, right? And right and building an app end-to-end. Was that kind of the missing part? Because yeah, but I guess with the data work, it's a lot of scripting as well, right? So you don't when you have to build a whole app, it's it's actually uh well, not a different skill set, maybe a wider skill set where it's like uh yeah, all the tooling around with well, UV, right, and packaging, uh the software best practices, the refactoring, and and more like engineering principles, right? It was was that the missing piece for you.

Tooling, Testing, And Packaging Skills

Kishan Patel 11:55

That was the missing piece. There's only so much you can do in a data engineer role to learn some of those software engineering best practices, because at the end of the day, you're paid to build a data pipeline. And there are places where I could implement some of those strategies, like testing to see if the results of a data pipeline were as expected. The main way I went about it in developing my Python skills was on the side in the evenings and the weekends, trying to build some personal apps. And I would make some progress. Maybe it was a Flask app for personal home use and it would work, but then I would try to overoptimize it and get just stuck in a rut of focusing on one little detail, forgetting the big picture of what the app was supposed to be. And because I was focusing too much on one little detail, the app would never launch, and I would get burned out and I would just give up, uh, either because of the busyness of life or other priorities that I had.

Mindset, Accountability, And Burnout

Bob Beldebos 12:54

Yeah, yeah. That's really uh challenging. So I remember uh you actually before jumping into PDM, we uh we had you in PDC, right? Uh that's right, that's right for core, and uh we just launched it, and I think you were one of the first to uh to hop on that. And so it was a big experiment for us as well, but it turned out really well. And um, so yeah, you built this nipster um um you know app and um you did really well with that, you were very consistent. Um thank you. And yeah, I remember it uh I yeah, but I didn't anticipate that you were uh really calling out the tooling and stuff and and Unix and and Vim and stuff, so that was a nice side effect. But anyway, I'm I'm more for this podcast. I'm more interested in the journey that came after because I mean you got a good overview and of the tooling and stuff, but then you went into PDM. And what I'm really excited about hearing or sharing here is uh the apps you worked on there because you managed to build three apps end-to-end. Um really good state, um, wide variety of libraries and and tools, uh, very polished README's. Uh we'll we'll link all that because it's now on your GitHub profile, right? Sure. Yeah, do you want to uh tell us a bit about that that journey and and the the apps you build and yeah, also the lessons uh that came from building those apps? Yes, of course.

Personal Hurdles And Choosing To Persist

Confidence, Job Search, And Open Source

Creating Content To Learn Better

Kishan Patel 14:17

Yes, in many ways, PDM was a 12-week journey for me in resurrecting these ideas of personal projects that I maybe tried and failed at or never got around to. And so there were three, like you said. Let's see, the first one was something I'll call the finance tracker. And the idea of that was it's a tool to help you manage your finances and your transactions to figure out where your money is going and see if you're performing on a monthly level against the budget that you set. Uh, in terms of the tech stack, it used FastAPI for the back end, and it had a thin layer of a front end supplied by Nice GUI. And that was a lot of fun building. I'd worked with Fast API building APIs as an engineer in my past, but this was for uh more of a crud operation and a web app, which was a lot of good learning for me. Uh the next one was the recipe book. This one was actually for my wife. We love cooking at home, and we have a lot of recipes that we bookmark online. When it's time to look up that recipe, we go to the website, but it's littered with many ads or other content like blogs that we don't really care for. We just want to get to the recipe, and it's very inconsistent and uh hard to get to. So the idea of the recipe book was to build another web app where we could more easily see our recipes and manage them without all the clutter that we could see online. That one was a challenge for me. Uh, this is my first Django app. And as you know, Bob, as the Django master, there was there was much to learn given that it's a very complete and comprehensive ecosystem compared to Flask. But yeah, I was very proud of that one. I was able to get that app uh running and we deployed it here on a local network, and it's still in use today. So that was pretty cool. And then we did one more. The let's see, the last one was called Bookmarker AI. And the pain point here was I sign up to a lot of newsletters, and there's lots of articles. What about Python or something else tech related? And I don't have enough time to read them. My inbox is littered with tons of unread newsletters or links to other articles. So the idea of bookmarker AI is to manage that. It's a CLI app built in typer, and it allows you to, when you have an article of interest, enter the URL. And as soon as you enter the URL, typer will work with a few other Python packages to extract the article. And then the AI part is ship the article content to OpenAI to get a summary. And based on the summary, you can decide, hey, do I want to read this full article or do I want to move on to the next one? That was a pretty fun one as well, because it was the first time I deployed a package to PyPI, which made me feel like, yes, I did it. I'm a contributor to open source. And it's still an open source project that I plan on maintaining. It's a CLI tool that anyone can go and get and manage on their local machine, which was a pretty big win for me. And I'm excited about that one.

Bob Beldebos 17:25

A big step.

Kishan Patel 17:26

Yeah.

Writing Style, Humor, And Clarity

Why Every Dev Should Publish

Bob Beldebos 17:27

Yeah. No, really, really, really amazing. Um, I like how you had the ideas ready, which sometimes is challenging for people, right? To come up with good ideas. But as you said, right, it was partly stuff that had died on the way and you picked it up. It always helps to have a wife or somebody in the family with a direct need. Um and maybe also cool to do something with AI, right? Now where AI is now and heading towards and Piedentic AI, right? You used, which I think made it a little easier as well. Um so, but yeah, uh, I can definitely relate to the information overload. And uh I actually use this this book uh market tool from time to I have it aliased in my uh CSHRC to critically use it, I think with BM or something, uh, to uh just summarize an article for me because there's just too much to read and it does a pretty good job at it, right? So yeah, but yeah, I'm impressed with the amount of libraries. Uh I mean you we call that the libraries, but uh we didn't even touch upon uh all the related tooling, UV, UVX, uh all the refactoring, the testing, mocking, debugging. Uh yeah, really a lot of cool stuff we went into. So um yeah, but what are yeah, what were some of the I mean you already mentioned some challenges, maybe especially from a mindset perspective. I mean, 12 weeks can feel like a long journey. Sometimes you also get very badly stuck, um, although you know, with a coach alongside of you, you hopefully weren't stuck for too long, right? But it can best definitely have there can definitely be mindset challenges like keep going right every day and and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And when things get tough, does Ryan holidays the obstacles the way? Is that really true, right? Is that really is that nice on paper, but is that really how it worked to have that mindset? What helped you from a mindset perspective? Or was it all easy going? I don't think so, right?

A Balanced Approach To AI

What’s Next: Roles And Projects

Book Picks And Ongoing Study

Kishan Patel 19:28

No, not at all. No, the the mindset piece, I think, you know, taking a step back is what sets apart the Pie Bytes coaching program from others. I've looked at other uh other Python experts who provide one-on-one coaching, and what really attracted me to PyBytes was the mindset piece, or the what some might call the soft skills of having the right attitude and the right, for lack of a better word, mindset as you approach a problem. And with that is the accountability, just having you, Bob, my coach, there to make sure that I was working forward and not getting stuck in perfectionism, uh, but getting a good minimum viable product was really helpful. Uh yeah, in terms of the mindset challenges, it was quite a challenge. Uh, for a bit more context, the reason I was able to get three apps out in 12 weeks is because that was the main thing that I was doing for uh my time. I chose to leave my previous role as a data engineer so I could focus entirely on PDM, going along with what Gary Keller says, focus on one thing at a time. And it was a calculated decision. Uh, my wife and I had plenty of savings and we like to take opportunities for personal development, and that's what we chose to do. Uh so uh more on a more personal note, like after we started PDM, we got three weeks into PDM and we were rushed to the hospital because my wife we figured out was pregnant and she had some pregnancy complications, and that was a very big blow or surprise to us, and it was, of course, a stressful time for context. The baby's okay and should have a full, successful uh pregnancy. But at the time, we just didn't know that. And so the first challenge for me on a personal level during PDM was did I make the right decision? Uh, because at least in the US, if you want decent health care, you need health insurance. And in the US, if you need health insurance, you need a job. I just left my job, so now I have no health insurance, and we did not budget these medical bills or other family responsibilities for the rest of this year. Um, so the options were, of course, was to quit PDM to maybe start it back later when it was better time, or to uh do something else. So the what was really challenging was to decide to go forward. And uh, though I had those doubts, I'm glad I did. Uh I'm glad that we pushed through and that we continued building. And that's perhaps the the biggest lesson I've had during PDM that you don't really know how strong you are or how much you can grow until you're at the edge and you have to push yourself to go further than you had before. That's where growth occurs, that's where your strength develops. Yeah.

Just Start: Final Advice

Bob Beldebos 22:34

Amazing. Yeah. Well, first of all, uh congrats. Thank you. We're excited. Uh yeah, happy it all all turned out well, right? Um, that was definitely a stressful moment. And uh I can totally see where then the question is uh should I continue this or you know? But you did, and uh yeah, yeah, we're lucky that you did, and that it turned out this way because yeah, I think I mean there was growth from the start, but I think there's also growth because you do it for long enough, right? And uh it's not the same if you would have done one app, uh you did three, right? And it feels like it was a compounding effect through that journey, right? Uh yeah, that's that's funny, right? Like uh we're not even technical challenges. I mean, we solve those. Uh, but uh this was more about is life going to stand in the way, right? Um, is this the right investment? Is this so yeah, I'm I'm happy that you could uh allocate the time. It's not always the case, right? Um but because you could invest so much time into it, that's also where you got a lot out of it. Um so how do we how do you um yeah, how how how are you using the skills these days? Um it's not too long ago, right? That you um um certified and PDM and we're done. Um but how do you still notice it now in in what you're doing these days?

Community Invitation

Kishan Patel 23:57

Sure. So I think the the biggest thing I'm noticing is a higher level of confidence. Going through PDM and creating these three apps, I feel more confident in my ability to create good, fully functioning apps with great test coverage, CI C D, all the buzzwords thrown right in. And that's been helpful as I approach this new season post-PDM in looking for roles. You know, it's very common as you see job postings, if you as you see the list of skills that imposter syndrome can creep in. And you think, oh, maybe you're not good enough, even though you're very fully qualified, even if you don't have PDM under your belt and an experience like that. Um, so that's I think is the main growth I've seen. And then of course, on the technical side, I have now an open source project that I'm hoping to continue supporting the bookmarker AI, and I'm able to build the PDM apps that I made to a further further level, building more features and uh new attributes as well. Yeah.

Bob Beldebos 25:05

Great. And in to all that, you also uh do content creation, right? You write blog articles, you do YouTube videos, um great ones. I mean, I always like and uh I mean you have a teaching background, right? And it really shines through in how you you know approach that and uh very accessible. I'm really really liking those. Um do you want to talk a bit about the content creation process, how you go about it? How do you come up with how how do you decide, for example, to write on decorators and maybe not on something else? And um, yeah, what's what's uh peek on the inside of Kishan's content creation process?

Kishan Patel 25:45

Yes, no, that's a fun question. I guess you could take the teacher out of the classroom, but you can't take the classroom out of the teacher's heart. Um yeah, in terms of how I decide, I typically write about or make videos about the things I'm interested in learning. Usually it's because I've recently studied a feature in Python or in data engineering that I enjoyed and I want to share it with others. And there's kind of a dual motive here. I get to share it with others, but I also get to learn that item more deeply. I wish I could say that when it's time to write or to create content, I just sit down and in one hour it's done. But that's just not the case. Every single time when I'm creating content, I realize I don't know this well enough. I need to do even more research and learning. And so it's been a great exercise in developing myself. Uh learning how to teach helps me understand the content more and makes me a better developer. Um, so yeah, that's ultimately how I decide. It's really just curiosity. If you if you look at the content that I put out, you'll notice a change in content or the topics, but also a change in the style. Uh I used to do a lot of content that was more, how should I say this, uh, professional, and that it was uh more academic and for lack of a better word, wordy. And it just wasn't having fun. I wasn't having fun with it. I think there were enough articles and enough content out there that kind of uh purchased a global audience with standard English that anyone can understand. And so about the turn of the year in 2025, I decided I just want to make this something that I would want to read. Meaning maybe a bit more rough or edgy, maybe a bit more jokes and uh more to the point so that if someone like me is out there and curious about Python and wanting to enter the tech world, they might use this content as an avenue to do so. It's been a lot of fun.

Bob Beldebos 27:49

That's true. You definitely put humor in there and have my chuckles when I read through stuff and and then that e that evolves, right? When you you don't plan that, that evolves by doing it, right?

Kishan Patel 28:01

Right.

Bob Beldebos 28:03

Yeah. Nice. And uh go on.

Kishan Patel 28:07

No, I was gonna say, I had I had no idea of what I was gonna write about, and I still don't most days. Uh it just changes and grows as you put in the reps and as you learn from doing. Yeah.

Bob Beldebos 28:19

Do you recommend any Python developer to produce content?

Kishan Patel 28:24

I recommend anyone to produce content, whether whether they're a developer or not. There's this good quote out there of how writing is thinking, and it doesn't have to be about Python as something technical, it could just be journaling. But I've recognized that as I write out my thoughts on any topic, it helps me solidify and clarify what I have going on up here. Highly recommend it.

Bob Beldebos 28:49

Yeah, it's really a win-win situation, right? Because meanwhile, you're building up your content library, which you can reuse even if it's for yourself, but you also do it for others to leverage. You create this better understanding. It's really humbling, right? Like uh, oh, I thought understood collections deck. Uh I might not understand it. I need to go back. And like it sharpens, it really sharpens your understanding. Um, but I think as developers, we write documentation. We should write documentation, right? And and communicate about our code. And this all helps with that process, right? It's not only like syntax and code, it's it's also like yeah, com getting the message across, right? Um, so I think yeah, it's all communication skills as well.

Kishan Patel 29:33

Right. It's underrated in the tech world, communication skills.

Bob Beldebos 29:38

Nice. So AI is shaping the industry. Um what? Uh oh, sorry. That's news. Um what's your uh relation with AI uh when you're coding, content, learning, how do you use it, and um do you see any risk? Are you excited about it? Um yeah.

Kishan Patel 30:04

Yes. Yes, I'm assuming when you say AI, it's it's generative AI or gen AI. And I do do use it and I'm pretty excited about it. I think it's a wonderful tool. And like any tool, you can use AI to build or you can use AI to harm either others or yourself, your own thinking ability. I use it in coding, and I feel like in the developer world, AI adoption is somewhere on a spectrum where on one side people are pushing AI in every form of development, by coding, just you know, having a conversation with AI to write all the code instead of coding it yourself. And the other side, typically uh with older developers, they're agnostic and don't want to use AI at all and just don't like using it. I put myself in the in the middle. I think it can be used well and it should be used carefully. So I use AI in the beginning and the end of a project for the most part. Uh the middle part where I'm actually coding is the fun part, and I don't want AI to take control of that. It might look like this. If I have any projects that I'm thinking about, I might have a conversation with ChatGPT or another platform where I'm creating the idea and testing whether the architecture would be good enough and just kind of brainstorming the ideas to begin with. And then when it's time to code, I cut AI out and just build small sections of code, might be a class, a function, or module. And when I have created something or done the fun part of coding, I then turn AI back on on the third stage and ask it to assess it. You know, are there any opportunities to optimize this code? Are there any hidden security issues that I need to be aware of, or just alternatives of how else this logic could be done? I think that's a good balanced approach because in my other workplaces and in my previous personal experiences, I've used AI maybe a little too much. And it turns a simple PR with maybe a few lines of code change into many thousands of lines in a git diff. And that's just really hard to go through and assess what's happening, what's changing in your code base. And it's just way too easy to introduce a security bug or something that might affect the rest of the code in an unexpected way. So that's how I view AI. Again, I feel like it's a it's a spectrum and it should be used. It's definitely changing the way that developers work, but I think it's also overhyped and needs to be used in moderation.

Bob Beldebos 32:51

Yeah. Yeah, that's great insight. I like that hybrid relation between not being very deliberate to when to turn it on and off. And if anything shines through, it's uh that you are in charge. You need to have the understanding, and you're very deliberate in how you use it, right? Um, when you let it loose, then you know chaos might uh ensue, right? So yeah, yes, yeah, yeah. Awesome. Well, we're coming on time. Um, thanks for sharing all this great insight. Uh, two more questions. What are you up to now? I mean, you mentioned the job search and uh, of course, content creation, but what's uh apart from that, what's next for you? And then we'll wrap up with uh, of course, the books.

Kishan Patel 33:36

Sure, sure. Well, I you know, have those three apps that I made through PDM, and I hope to make those even better. So, one of the things I'm doing is adding new features and continuing to make them stronger. Uh, apart from that, like you said, uh just looking for the next role. And it might be somewhere in Python development, it could be data engineering. So if anyone's listening and interested, I'm available. And other than that, I'm just uh enjoying time with family and reading some great books and looking forward to the end of the year.

Bob Beldebos 34:10

Awesome. And yeah, we'll we'll share your LinkedIn and and circle our community links so people can reach out.

Kishan Patel 34:17

And yes, don't Google me on, don't Google my name. There's way too many Qish and Patels out there. Click on the links. Click on the links.

Bob Beldebos 34:25

Yeah. So uh yeah, what what are you reading or or what book tip do you have for us?

Kishan Patel 34:30

Yes, uh, one of the books I'm reading with you, Bob, is Architecture Patterns with Python. It's a great book for just thinking of how your software should be written well for long-term maintainability and for easy testing. It's a new book for me. I started reading it during PDM and I'm continuing to read more of the chapters, and it's been really good to think of the architecture of how your logic should flow between different systems.

Bob Beldebos 34:55

And accountability here. I I need to catch up on three chapters behind.

Kishan Patel 34:59

But I'll get there.

Bob Beldebos 34:59

I'll get there.

Kishan Patel 35:00

I'm two chapters behind, so I'm not doing great either. We'll get we're getting it done.

Bob Beldebos 35:04

We're getting it done. Yes. The notes and posting as well. Yeah.

Kishan Patel 35:07

Yeah. Nice. Yeah, great book. Great book. Yeah.

unknown 35:10

Yeah.

Kishan Patel 35:10

Um see what else am I reading? I'm also reading uh these books here. Uh one of them is called 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson.

unknown 35:20

Nice.

Kishan Patel 35:21

It's a polarizing figure, of course, but he has some good ideas of how from a psychological perspective we uh as humans act in a society. So it's got some good challenging thoughts. And I think I shared with you earlier this year, I read too many productivity books, business books, psychology books, and I got burned out. So I finally went back to some fiction. Right now I'm reading Dune, a sci-fi book, a classic that I never got around to as a kid. And I'm rekindling my my love for fiction that I had when I was younger.

Bob Beldebos 35:54

Yeah. Awesome. Great tips. Yeah. Nice, nice. Yeah. Jordan Peterson. He has opinions. I do like that book. Uh, like a lot of psychology, right? And uh yeah, self-help stuff. So we love that stuff. Yes, yes. Well, it's great having you on. We should do another uh follow-up, but uh yeah, thanks for sharing all this uh this experience. Any final shout out or piece of advice to our audience of Python developers?

Kishan Patel 36:33

Yes. Uh first of all, thank you, Bob, for having me on. It's been a great year working with you, and I'm honored that you would have me here to just have a conversation. The only advice I would give to Python developers is the same as the Nike slogan, just do it. If you know you want to pursue some goal, it's not a good time. And I think you just need to start and pursue the dreams and the goals that you have. And of course, if you're in Python and you want to level up, I highly recommend PyBytes and would be happy to discuss more offline if you have any questions.

Bob Beldebos 37:09

Thank you. Was it you that you you quoted uh Tim Ferriss the other day with the uh never it's never the right time quote?

Kishan Patel 37:16

That was the quote that really got me to quit my job and take my dream seriously. So I started this year with wanting to be a better Python developer, and I was really just shuffling my feet, not taking actionable steps. But there was one line that says, I'm paraphrasing here, but something about someday I'll do this means you're gonna take your dreams to your grave with you. I was like, whoa. Um there's not a good time, and you just need to you just need to do it and course correct along the way. Tim Ferris says it more eloquently.

Bob Beldebos 37:48

Yeah, yes. We'll put the quote in the description below. But it's probably from the four-hour work week, yeah, which is uh a big trigger for us to uh to start to do something.

Kishan Patel 38:00

To act, yes.

Bob Beldebos 38:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, thanks a lot, Aki Shan. Uh yeah. Really uh appreciate your insight and uh lovely chat. And yeah, good luck with uh all the exciting next uh things that are coming. Yes, same to you. Thank you, Bob. All right, cheers.

Intro 38:19

Hey everyone, thanks for tuning into the Pivites Podcast. I really hope you enjoyed it. A quick message from me and Bob before you go is to get the most out of your experience with Pivites, 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 pivelites.circle.so. 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.