Buckle up folks, Hacktoberfest is round the corner and registrations are now open. Hacktoberfest will be hosted by Digital Ocean for the 8th year in a row in partnership with GitHub and other companies, yes you read it right. In this article, I will share, how to participate in Hacktoberfest 2021 and other important details that you must know before you start contributing.

You can refer to my YouTube video Tutorial to see a working tutorial for better understanding and a step-by-step guide of the same.

What will be covered in this Blog

1. What is Hacktoberfest?
2. How does it work? 
3. How can you Join?
4. When can you join
5. How to earn a Swag kit?
6. Rules
7. What not to do!
8. FAQs

Let's get started!

What is Hacktoberfest ?

Hacktoberfest is a month-long challenge. It happens every year in the month of October.

Hacktoberfest is open to everyone and it marks the celebration of Open Source. It's the biggest Open Source event that encourages newbies to participate in Open Source and create their 1st meaningful PR.

If you wish to know about it in detail, you can refer to this video, where I have covered everything.

How does it work?

• Maintainers determine if their open-source projects participate.
• Quality pull requests submitted on GitHub and GitLab are rewarded.
• Engaged maintenance of Hacktoberfest tagged repositories are rewarded.

How can you Join?

Step - 1:

Create a GitHub account, if you don't already have one. Need help? Here are some resources to help you set up your GitHub account:

• https://ayushirawat.com/what-is-git-and-github-or-git-vs-github
• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjaO05BrsbIPUT76gpBmUxV7YSPWFephT
• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLseEp7p6EwiZgLPknY4ITJxfoo75wqxph

Step - 2:

Register for Hacktoberfest: Navigate to the Hacktoberfest registration page and follow the instructions. But, read the rules carefully before you do and then sign In using your GitHub credentials.

Step - 3:

Find good projects worth contributing on the GitHub page. You can type label:hactoberfest is:issue is:open

• You can add a language label of your choice to filter open issues. If you are a beginner and can’t find good issues then there’s tag label:good first issue which filters out issues for beginners who want to contribute.

Here's something beginner-friendly for you:

• https://www.firsttimersonly.com/
• https://github.com/mungell/awesome-for-beginners

Step - 4:

Submit PRs: Try and submit at least 4 PRs and wait for it to be verified. Make sure to submit quality PRs.

When can you join

Registrations are now open but you can sign up anytime between October 1 and October 31 in any time zone. Just be sure to sign up on the official Hacktoberfest website for your pull requests to count.

How to earn a Swag kit:

For your PR to count it must be:

• Submitted in a public repo, AND the PR is labelled as hacktoberfest-accepted by a maintainer. or
• Submitted in a repo labelled 'hacktoberfest' , AND Merged, OR Approved

Also,

• You can opt not to receive a t-shirt and stickers and you can choose to have a tree planted in your name and help make Hacktoberfest 2021 more carbon neutral.

• Let's have a look at my swag kit from Hacktoberfest 2020. you get some awesome goodies which include A limited-edition T-shirt for FREE!\ and some stickers.

T-shirts are awarded on a first-come, first-serve basis to the first 55,000 participants who successfully completed the Hacktoberfest challenge. You will be receiving mail when you have completed the challenge. Further details will be provided with the mail itself.

In past years, shirts have arrived in December or January, depending on how far you live from San Francisco. The Digital Ocean team should eventually contact you asking for your shirt size and shipping address. (Keep in mind they are shipping thousands of shirts so this process will take a while.)

Don’t miss this opportunity. Start contributing to open source and get a limited edition T-shirt for Free!

Refer Hackoberfest website for more

Got anything to add? mention in the comment box below and I will update the list.

Rules

• Pull requests can be submitted to any opted-in repository on GitHub or GitLab.
• The pull request must contain commits you made yourself.
• If a maintainer reports your pull request as 'spam' or 'invalid', it will not be counted toward your participation in Hacktoberfest.
• If a maintainer reports behaviour that’s not in line with the project’s code of conduct, you will be ineligible to participate.
• To get a shirt, you must make four approved pull requests (PRs) on opted-in projects between October 1-31 in any time zone.
• This year, the first 55,000 participants can earn a T-shirt.

What not to do!

In line with Hacktoberfest value “quantity is fun, quality is key”, here are examples of the PRs that we consider to be low-quality contributions (which are discouraged):

• PRs that are automated (e.g. scripted opening PRs to remove whitespace/optimize images)
• PRs that are disruptive (e.g. taking someone else’s branch/commits and making a PR)
• PRs that are regarded by a project maintainer as a hindrance vs. helping
• Something that’s clearly an attempt to simply +1 your PR count for October
• Last but not least, one PR to fix a typo is fine. 5 PRs to remove stray whitespace… it’s not.

Pro tip:

You can join the Hacktoberfest discord server to connect with the community and network with other open-source enthusiasts, ask questions and find projects. click the link to navigate to the server.

FAQs

Let's look at some FAQs:

Q.*What if my pull requests aren’t accepted**?*

A: Even if your pull requests aren’t accepted, as long as you open at least 4 pull requests, you’ll earn the shirt.

Have more FAQs unanswered, check the FAQ section for the same. FAQs are divided into 6 categories:

• General
• Rules
• Events
• Maintainers
• Swag & Shipping
• Troubleshooting

You can also check out the list of ongoing events of Hacktoberfest 2021.

Interested to hear about my Hacktoberfest experience of 2020? You wouldn't wanna miss it, so. stay tuned for my upcoming blog.

That's all for this article and with that, it's a wrap! I hope you found the article useful. Thank you for reading, If you have reached so far, please like the article, It will encourage me to write more such articles. Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

I create content about Career, Blogging, Programming, and Productivity, If this is something that interests you, please share the article with your friends and connections. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates every time I write something!

I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and don't forget to subscribe to my Channel. I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Run Javascript from Python
• Automate WhatsApp using Python
• Automate Cowin Vaccine slots Availability using Python
• What is Competitive Programming

Resources & Credits:

• https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/
• https://hacktoberfestswaglist.com/
• https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/events
• https://tree-nation.com/profile/digitalocean

Happy Contributing, See you in my next Blog article, Take care!!

Well, Hacktoberfest is something, you are gonna hear a lot about in the coming month.

You can refer to my YouTube video Tutorial to see a working tutorial for better understanding and a step-by-step guide of the same.

Hacktoberfest will be hosted by Digital Ocean for the 8th year in a row in partnership with GitHub and other companies, yes you read it right. What I personally love about it is that it bring developers with the same mindset together from all over the world.

So, what is Hacktoberfest after all? We will learn all about it in the next few minutes.

What will be covered in this Blog

1. What is Open Source?
2. What is Hacktoberfest?
3. Who can Join?
4. PERKS of participating
5. Global Stats for Hacktoberfest 2020

Let's get started!

What is Open Source?

According to Wikipedia,

Open-source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution.

When some source code is made Open source, it includes permission to use, modify, contribute to the existing source code. The use of the term originated with the software but has expanded beyond the software sector to collaboration and contribution.

Open-source projects that are hosted in public repositories benefit from contributions made by the broader developer community and are typically managed through Git.

Now that you have a basic idea about Open Source, we can talk about Hacktoberfest.

What is Hacktoberfest ?

Hacktoberfest is a month-long challenge. It happens every year in the month of October.

Hacktoberfest is open to everyone and it marks the celebration of Open Source. It's the biggest Open Source event that encourages newbies to participate in Open Source and create their 1st meaningful PR. Hacktoberfest encourages participation in giving back to the open-source community by completing pull requests, participating in events, and donating to open source projects. Also, all backgrounds and skills levels are encouraged to complete the challenge.

Of course, to participate, you must have a GitHub account first. New to GitHub? Check out my GitHub Blog and Playlist to learn more.

Who can Join?

contributors: Anyone around the globe who desires to help drive the growth of open source and make positive contributions to an ever-growing community. All backgrounds and skill levels are encouraged to participate.

maintainers: Anyone that runs an open-source project on GitHub or GitLab and desires help from the community to improve their project can join Hacktoberfest.

companies: Encourage people to contribute to your company’s repositories, organize community events, and engage internal employees.

event organizers: Create events to bring people together for mentorship and code collaborations, so even more people around the world help support open source!

Registration opens on September 28th, wondering how to participate and things you must know before participating, well I will cover that in my next blog.

PERKS:

• You get to work with seniors from the community.

• Be it your 1st PR or 10thth, you will always learn something new.

• You get to be a part of the biggest Open Source event.

• And of course, the swag kit.

  let's have a look at my swag kit from Hacktoberfest 2020. you get some awesome goodies which include A limited-edition T-shirt for FREE!\ and some stickers.

  Got anything to add? mention in the comment box below and I will update the list.

In my upcoming blog, I will share, how to participate in Hacktoberfest 2021 and other important details that you must know before contributing.

let's have a look at the Global Stats for Hacktoberfest 2020, shall we?

• 169, 886 Participants
• 116, 361 Participating Repositories
• 135 Represented Countries

Pro tip:

You can join the Hacktoberfest discord server to connect with the community and network with other open-source enthusiasts, ask questions and find projects. click the link to navigate to the server.

Interested to hear about my Hacktoberfest experience of 2020? You wouldn't wanna miss it, so. stay tuned for my upcoming blog.

That's all for this article and with that, it's a wrap! I hope you found the article useful. Thank you for reading, If you have reached so far, please like the article, It will encourage me to write more such articles. Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

I create content about Career, Blogging, Programming, and Productivity, If this is something that interests you, please share the article with your friends and connections. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates every time I write something!

I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and don't forget to subscribe to my Channel. I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Run Javascript from Python
• Automate WhatsApp using Python
• Automate Cowin Vaccine slots Availability using Python
• What is Competitive Programming

Resources:

• https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/

Happy Contributing, See you in my next Blog article, Take care!!

In this Blog post, I will share some useful code snippets and functions in Python. Give it a read.

Let's get started!

1. Memory

The method getsizeof can be used to retrieve the size of any object. Here's an example of the same.

import sys 
number = 100 

print(sys.getsizeof(number)) 
#output: 28

2. Swapping

The easiest way to swap values without any third variable. This is how you can do it.

a, b = 10, 20
a, b = b, a

#output:
print(a) # 20
print(b) # 10

3. Anagrams

An anagram is a play on words created by rearranging the letters of the original word to make a new word or phrase. we can sort the string values using sorted method, which does not modify the original string. Here's an example of the same.

def anagram(first, second):
    return sorted(first)== sorted(second)

res = anagram('heart', 'earth')
print(res) #True

4. Shuffle

In order to shuffle the elements of a list, shuffle method from random module can be used. Check out the implementation of the same.

from random import shuffle

my_list = [7, 23, 9, 35]
shuffle(my_list) 

print(my_list) #[35, 7, 9, 23]

5. Palindrome

A palindrome is a word, number, phrase, or other sequences of characters that reads the same backward as forward. The code snippet will check for palindrome strings.

def check_palindrome(value):
    return value == value[::-1]

res = check_palindrome('level')
print(res) #True

6. Running Time

time module can be used to calculate the actual running time amongst other methods. Refer to the implementation of the same.

import time

start_time = time.time()

num1 = 12
num2 = 15
num3 = num1 * num2
print(num3) #180

end_time = time.time()

total_time = end_time - start_time
print("Time: ", total_time)

# (Time: 0.0005068778991699219)

7. Most frequent

The max method returns the most frequently occurring element of the list.

def most_frequent(my_list):
    return max(set(my_list), key = my_list.count)

nums = [7,10,50,35,10,50,29,10,10,50,4,10]

res = most_frequent(nums) 
print(res) #10

8. Fetch Vowels

Function to return all the vowels occurring in the given string.

def vowels(string):
    return [each for each in string if each in 'aeiou'] 

res = vowels('youtube')
print(res)  # ['o', 'u', 'u', 'e']

9. Convert Lists into Dictionary

zip method with dict helps to convert two lists into a dictionary. Here's an example of the same.

def convert(key, value):
    return dict(zip(key, value))

key = ["apple", "mango", "banana"]    
value = [10, 20, 30]

print(convert(key, value))
#Output: {'apple': 10, 'mango': 20, 'banana': 30}

10. Print a string k times

The following code snippet will show you how to display a string k times.

value ="Python"; 
k = 3

print(value * k) #PythonPythonPython

11. Has duplicates

The following function will return False if any duplicate is found in the given list.

def has_duplicates(my_list):
    return len(my_list) != len(set(my_list))

my_list = [7,23,45,7,10,23,93]

res = has_duplicates(my_list) 
print(res) #True

12. Chained Comparison

In order to perform multiple comparisons in a single line, a chained comparison can be used.

num1 = 27
num2 = 45

print(27 == num1 < num2) #True

That's all for this Blog folks and with that, it's a wrap! I hope you found the article useful.

I create content about Career, Blogging, Programming, and Productivity, If this is something that interests you, please share the article with your friends and connections. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates every time I write something!

Thank you for reading, If you have reached so far, please like the article, It will encourage me to write more such articles. Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and don't forget to subscribe to my Channel. I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Run Javascript from Python
• Automate WhatsApp using Python
• Automate Cowin Vaccine slots Availability using Python
• What is Competitive Programming

See you in my next Blog article, Take care!!

Whenever a client sends a request to the server, the response always contains a status code. You might not see it always but it's returned at every client-server interaction. Well, even if you are not a programmer, you would still know about the 404 Not Found error.

In this blog post, we will discuss all about HTTP and its response status codes. Consider this as a small cheat sheet, for your references, every time you encounter one.

What will be covered in this Blog

1. What is HTTP?
2. What is Status code?
3. 1XX - Informational codes
4. 2XX - Success codes
5. 3XX - Redirection codes
6. 4XX - Client error codes 
7. 5XX - Server error codes

Let's get started!

What is HTTP?

HTTP which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. According to the Wikipedia definition:

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol is an application layer protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems.

HTTP is a client-server protocol, acts as the foundation of any data exchange on the Web. Each interaction between the client and server is called a message. HTTP messages are requests or responses. Client devices submit HTTP requests to servers, which reply by sending HTTP responses back to the clients.

What is Status code?

At every client request, the server responds with a code that helps to communicate the status of the request. It is a quick way to inspect if the request was successful or not without investing in the response body.

These codes are formed by three numbers indicating the status of a web element. There are basically five standard groups in which status codes are divided and they can be identified by the first digit of the code. They are as follows:

1. 1XX - Informational codes
2. 2XX - Success codes
3. 3XX - Redirection codes
4. 4XX - Client error codes
5. 5XX - Server error codes

Let's have a look at each group briefly and discuss the most common status codes.

1XX - Informational Response

An informational response indicates that the request was received and understood. It is issued on a provisional basis while request processing continues.

100 - Continue: The server has received the request headers and the client should proceed to send the request body. It states that the client request is good and processing.

101 - Switching Protocols: The requester has asked the server to switch protocols and the server has agreed to switch. Basically, the request may involve file operations, requiring a long time to complete the request.

102 - Processing: This code indicates that the server has received and is processing the request, but no response is available yet.

103 - Early Hints: Used to return some response headers before final HTTP message.

2XX - Success

This class of status codes indicates the action requested by the client was received, understood, and accepted.

200 - OK: Standard response for successful HTTP requests. Everything's normal and the requested resource has been returned through the message body.

201 - Created: The request has been fulfilled, resulting in the creation of a new resource and the server has acknowledged it.

202 - Accepted: This code indicates that the server has received and is processing the request, but no response is available yet.

204 - No Content: The server successfully processed the request, and is not returning any content. Generally, the PUT method is used for a 204 response.

3XX - Redirection

This group of status code indicates that the client must take additional action to complete the request.

301 - Moved Permanently: This indicates that the URL has been moved once and for all. This is used to inform the browser that the requested file has been moved and can be used to redirect from a page that is no longer in existence.

305 - Use Proxy: The requested resource is available only through a proxy, the address for which is provided in the response.

307 - Temporary Redirect: In this scenario, the response code indicates that the requested resource has been temporarily moved to another URI. however, future requests should still use the original URI.

4XX - Client errors

This class of status code is intended for situations in which the error seems to have been caused by the client.

400 - Bad Request: The server cannot or will not process the request due to wrong syntax causing an error.

401 - Unauthorized: Response is similar to 403 Forbidden, but specifically for use when authentication is required and has failed or has not yet been provided. The requested file can be a protected one.

403 - Forbidden: The request contained valid data and was understood by the server, but the server is refusing action. It's possible that the server might not have permission to share the file with the client.

404 - Not Found: The requested resource could not be found or does not exist but may be available in the future.

405 - Method Not Allowed: A request method is not supported for the requested resource; eg, a PUT request on a read-only resource.

414 URI Too Long: The URI provided was too long for the server to process as a result of too much data being encoded as a query string of a GET request.

429 Too Many Requests: The user has sent too many requests in a given amount of time, helps increase the security.

5XX - Server errors

You can encounter a server error when the client has raised a valid request, The server failed to fulfill the request.

500 - Internal Server Error: An error message, displayed when an unexpected situation was encountered that does not match any other class errors.

501 - Not Implemented: The server either does not recognize the request method, or it lacks the ability to fulfill the request.

502 - Bad Gateway: The server acts as a gateway and received an invalid response from the server while making the request.

503 - Service Unavailable: The server cannot handle the request because it is overloaded or down for maintenance.

That's all for this article and with that, it's a wrap! I hope you found the article useful. Thank you for reading, If you have reached so far, please like the article, It will encourage me to write more such articles. Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

I create content about Career, Blogging, Programming, and Productivity, If this is something that interests you, please share the article with your friends and connections. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates every time I write something!

I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and don't forget to subscribe to my Channel. I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Run Javascript from Python
• Automate WhatsApp using Python
• Automate Cowin Vaccine slots Availability using Python
• What is Competitive Programming

Resources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes

See you in my next Blog article, Take care!!

Microsoft subsidiary GitHub launched Copilot to power pair programming with AI. In this blog post, I will share all you need to know about it.

You can refer to my YouTube video Tutorial to see a working tutorial for better understanding and a step-by-step guide of the same.

What will be covered in this Blog

1. What is GitHub Copilot?
2. How does GitHub Copilot work?
3. How good is GitHub Copilot?
4. Does GitHub Copilot write perfect code?
5. Will your private code be shared with other users?
6. Availability
7. How can You contribute?
8. Ownership

Let's get started!

What is GitHub Copilot?

GitHub Copilot is an AI pair programmer. GitHub Copilot is powered by a new AI system developed by OpenAI Codex and is coming soon to Visual Studio Code. It aims to help Programmers code faster. It basically draws context from the code you’re working on, suggesting whole lines or entire functions.

OpenAI Codex has a broad knowledge of how people use code and is significantly more capable than GPT-3 in code generation

How does GitHub Copilot work?

It can suggest complete lines of code or entire functions by analyzing how you code. GitHub Copilot can assemble code from user comments and predicts your code by just reading the function name you have declared. It allows you to cycle through alternative suggestions and manually edit the suggested code. It autofill repetitive code, or create unit tests for your methods.

The GitHub Copilot editor extension sends your comments and code to the GitHub Copilot service, which then uses OpenAI Codex to synthesize and suggest code. it actually works by reading through all the open-source code on the GitHub repos worldwide and then collect the data and tries to find the best possible code related to it! It is said to work great with repetitive code patterns so users can let it generate the rest of the code. The AI assistant can also help you learn a new programming language.

How good is GitHub Copilot?

The technology is truly promising.

Copilot helps developers to quickly discover alternative ways to solve problems, write tests, and explore new APIs without having to tediously tailor a search for answers on sites like Stack Overflow and across the internet,

says Friedman.

It said to have been tested against a set of Python functions that have good test coverage in open source repos by blanking out the function bodies and asked GitHub Copilot to fill them in. The model got this right 43% of the time on the first try, and 57% of the time when allowed 10 attempts. And it’s getting smarter all the time.

Does GitHub Copilot write perfect code?

No. GitHub Copilot tries to understand your intent and to generate the best code it can, but the code it suggests may not always work or even make sense. “GitHub Copilot draws context from the code you’re working on, suggesting whole lines or entire functions,” GitHub CEO Nat Friedman explained in a blog post introducing the technology. The algorithm consistently improves by recording whether each suggestion is accepted or not.

In order to make the most out of it, it is suggested to divide the code into smaller functions, provide meaningful function names, parameters, and docstrings.

Will your private code be shared with other users?

No. They claim to use telemetry data, including information about which suggestions users accept or reject, to improve the model.

Availability

For now, GitHub Copilot will only be made available to use in Visual Studio Code and the access is limited to a small group of testers. The preview version is available for free. The preview version is already installed by 88,783 coders.

The technical preview works well for Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Ruby and Go but the final version will work with a broader set of frameworks and languages. It will be used to learn how people use GitHub Copilot and what it takes to operate it at scale.

How can You contribute?

The best way to contribute is to sign up for the technical preview. Access is limited to a small group of testers during the technical preview of GitHub Copilot, so you can Join the GitHub Copilot waitlist here.

You only need to answer a simple question regarding how often do you use Visual Studio Code, accept the terms and conditions and you are good to go. The number of spots for the technical preview is limited, so sign up today!

GitHub states that the current preview phase is restricted because of the “state-of-the-art AI hardware” required for the project. Once the free preview phase is over, the company plans to build a commercial version, which should be “available as broadly as possible”.

About sharing code snippets on Social media, GitHub says:

Please use #GitHubCopilot when you post so we can see what you produce!

Ownership

GitHub assigns rights to the person writing the code, so the user becomes responsible for the suggestions it generates and code created with Copilot. It belongs to you, and you obtain the sole ownership of the code.

Will GitHub Copilot affect developer jobs?

Copilot autocompletes code snippets, suggests new lines of code, and can even write whole functions based on the description provided. It adapts to the way you write code and helps you complete the work faster. The technology will enable existing engineers to be more productive, reducing manual tasks and helping them focus on interesting work. It only suggests a piece of code, it still needs to be reviewed and tested manually like you normally do with every other code.

It is very interesting to observe how events will now unfold and what the future holds for us but regardless, I do not think that it will replace developer jobs anytime soon. What do you think of this? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.

That's it. And with that, it's a wrap! I hope you found the article useful.

I create content about Career, Blogging, Programming, and Productivity, If this is something that interests you, please share the article with your friends and connections. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates every time I write something!

Thank you for reading, If you have reached so far, please like the article, It will encourage me to write more such articles. Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and don't forget to subscribe to my Channel. I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Run Javascript from Python
• Automate WhatsApp using Python
• Automate Cowin Vaccine slots Availability using Python
• What is Competitive Programming

Resources:

• https://copilot.github.com/
• https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=GitHub.copilot
• https://github.blog/2021-06-29-introducing-github-copilot-ai-pair-programmer/

See you in my next Blog article, Take care!!

You can refer to my YouTube video Tutorial to see a working tutorial for better understanding and a step-by-step guide of the same.

What will be covered in this Blog

1.    What is an API?
2.    What is API endpoint?
3.    What are API functionalities?

Let's get started!

What is an API?

API stands for Application Programming Interface. The Wikipedia definition reads:

An API is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface), offering a service to other pieces of software.

In layman's terms, API is a messenger. Let's understand this with a very famous non-programming example.

Say, you visit a restaurant, the waiter presents you with the menu card. You decide what you want to eat. It could be pizza, pasta or fries. The waiter takes down your order and then shares it with the chef. Once your food is ready, he delivers the meal right to you.

This is a very simple process. You do not have to worry about how the food will be prepared or any other thing that takes place inside the kitchen for that matter. Here, the waiter acts as an API. He is the link that establishes connectivity between you and the kitchen.

There are different types of APIs, which we will see in the next blog.

Now. let's look at a real-world example. Whenever you create a new account on an application, you get an option to signup with Facebook or Google. Ever wondered how that works?

Well, Facebook and Google already have your inputs, so instead of performing the tedious task of capturing every user's information and verifying the credentials, the app accesses their database through the API to verify your credentials.

Another very famous example is a weather app. If you want to build one, you cannot physically go and capture the readings from all over the world. Instead, you can use a third-party API to fetch the weather details.

What is API endpoint?:

API sets the rules for communication. You do not know what happens at the backend or how it happens, you just interact with the API interface and get the job done.

In the case of the restaurant example, you do not know the food recipe or anything that goes inside the kitchen, you interact with the waiter and he establishes the connection between you and the kitchen so, in this scenario, the waiter is your API endpoint.

Well, this also opens doors to security theft. So for this very reason API uses API keys to add a protection layer. An API key is used for identification and authorization which is nothing but a security code, used to keep a track of the users. Being said that, not every API has a key.

In order to communicate with systems, there are certain protocols to be followed when using an API endpoint. APIs also have documentation for the same.

API functionalities:

1. Establishes a connection between computer systems and enables data accessibility.
2. Allows monitoring users and their activity.
3. Increased security.
4. Hide complexity by eliminating the 'How' factor.

That's it. And with that, it's a wrap! I hope you found the article useful and now you can start building some projects with API!

I create content about Career, Blogging, Programming, and Productivity, If this is something that interests you, please share the article with your friends and connections. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates every time I write something!

Thank you for reading, If you have reached so far, please like the article, It will encourage me to write more such articles. Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and don't forget to subscribe to my Channel. I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Run Javascript from Python
• Automate WhatsApp using Python
• Automate Cowin Vaccine slots Availability using Python
• What is Competitive Programming

See you in my next Blog article, Take care!!

Working from home is the new normal. and It is a must to ensure a healthy work-life balance. You cannot just grab a laptop and keep working all day long, it will affect your health drastically.

Schedule your breaks, by far the way out. It works out well for me. In this blog post, we will learn how to build a breaks Scheduler. We will see the implementation in Python.

Check out the Repository for Ultimate Resource in python. Drop a star if you find it useful! Got anything to add? Open a PR on the same!

You can refer to my YouTube video Tutorial to see a working tutorial for better understanding and a step-by-step guide of the same.

What will be covered in this Blog

1.    Why breaks are important & how to Utilize them?
2.    What is webbrowser Module
3.    How to build a simple breaks Scheduler using Python.

Let's get started!

Why breaks are important & how to Utilize them?

Working from home can be a tiring desk job. You need to take care of your mental health. Well you can schedule your breaks to

• Take small five minutes break every hour

• Drink water frequently.

• Stretch your muscles.

• Prepare Tea/Coffee or any healthy drink and take a small walk for few minutes.

• When you receive a non-work call, again do a little walk and talk.

  How do you Utilize and plan your breaks?

Module Used:

webbrowser Module:

The webbrowser module provides a high-level interface to allow displaying Web-based documents to users. Under most circumstances, simply calling the open() function from this module will do the right thing. The script webbrowser can be used as a command-line interface for the module. It accepts a URL as the argument.

If you wish to know more about it, you can refer to webbrowser Module Documentation.

Now that you are familiar with Why breaks are important & how to Utilize them? and have acquired basic knowledge of webbrowser module, we can move forward to the coding section.

Time to Code!

You can find all the code at my GitHub Repository. Drop a star if you find it useful.

In order to access the Python library, we need to import the package into our python script. Use the following command to do so.

import time 
import webbrowser

from random import choice

Now that we have imported the library using the command import requests, let's proceed.

Let's display a welcome message.

print("Initiating the Break Scheduler!")

Let's ask the user to input the number of breaks he wishes to take or since you are running the script for yourself, you can also hardcode the value.

breaks = input('input the number of times you wish to take break today! ')
print(breaks)

#breaks = 2

Now, you can set the break interval according to your need. I am setting the break interval as every hour for now.

gap = 60*60

Initially let's set the counter as zero

counter = 0

Now, let's define the URL, you wish to open in the interval

url = "https://www.youtube.com/c/AyushiRawat"

Let's make use of random module to display a random message at every break interval. Let's store the messages to be displayed in messages for the same.

messages = ["Time for a break!", "Let's take a break!"]

Our resultant data is stored in res. We will make use of the text method to extract our desired weather details and let's display the result.

Now, let's run a while loop until the counter becomes equal to the number of desired breaks.

while(counter < breaks):
    time.sleep(gap)

    #Let's print the break message
    print(choice(messages))

    #opening the browser window.
    webbrowser.open(url)

We will introduce sleep here to schedule the breaks. A random message will be displayed on the screen and the URL will open automatically at every interval.

At last, let's increase the counter by one.

counter += 1

And finally, let's display the termination message when the scripts end.

print("Terminating the Break Scheduler!")

That's it. That all we have to do to build a simple break scheduler. And with that, it's a wrap! I hope you found the article useful! Share in the comments below.

I create content about Career, Blogging, Programming, and Productivity, If this is something that interests you, please share the article with your friends and connections. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates every time I write something!

Thank you for reading, If you have reached so far, please like the article, It will encourage me to write more such articles. Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and don't forget to subscribe to my Channel. I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Run Javascript from Python
• Automate WhatsApp using Python
• Automate Cowin Vaccine slots Availability using Python
• What is Competitive Programming

Resources:

• https://docs.python.org/3/library/webbrowser.html

See you in my next Blog article, Take care!!

Weather is the mix of events that happen each day in our atmosphere and is different in different parts of the world and changes over minutes, hours, days, and weeks. Rain and dull clouds, windy blue skies, cold snow, and sticky heat are very different conditions, yet they are all-weather. According to the Wikipedia definition:

Weather is the state of the atmosphere.

In this blog post, we will learn how to forecast weather details. We will see the implementation in Python with hardly a few lines of code.

Check out the Repository for Ultimate Resource in python. Drop a star if you find it useful! Got anything to add? Open a PR on the same!

You can refer to my YouTube video Tutorial to see a working tutorial for better understanding and a step-by-step guide of the same.

What will be covered in this Blog

1.    What is wttr?
2.    What is requests Module
3.    How to forecast the weather using Python

Let's get started!

What is wttr?

wttr — the right way to check the weather!

wttr.in is a console-oriented weather forecast service that supports various information representation methods like terminal-oriented ANSI-sequences for console HTTP clients (curl, httpie, or wget), HTML for web browsers, or PNG for graphical viewers.

wttr.in uses wego for visualization and various data sources for weather forecast information.

If you wish to know more about it, you can refer to wttr's GitHub Repo.

Module Used:

requests Module:

Requests is a simple, yet elegant HTTP library. It allows you to send HTTP/1.1 requests extremely easily. Requests officially support Python 2.7 & 3.5+.

If you wish to know more about it, you can refer to Requests Module Documentation.

Now that you are familiar with Requests Module basics and have acquired basic knowledge of wttr, we can move forward to the coding section.

Time to Code!

You can find all the code at my GitHub Repository. Drop a star if you find it useful. In order to access the Python library, you need to install it into your Python environment

pip install requests

Now, we need to import the package into our python script. Use the following command to do so.

import requests

Now that we have imported the library using the command import requests, let's proceed.

Let's ask the user to input the city name for which he/she wishes to fetch the weather details.

city = input('input the city name')
print(city)

You can also hard-code the value if you will only check for yourself.

city = 'bhopal'

Now, let's display a simple message.

print('Displaying Weather report for: ' + city)

#output:
Displaying Weather report for: bhopal

Let's define the URL, We will make use of format to pass city as a parameter here.

url = 'https://wttr.in/{}'.format(city)

It's time to make use of the requests module.

res = requests.get(url)

Our resultant data is stored in res. We will make use of the text method to extract our desired weather details and let's display the result.

print(res.text)

This is how the Weather Forecast will look like:

Isn't it beautiful? And with that, it's a wrap! I hope you found the article useful! Share in the comments below. I create content about Career, Blogging, Programming, and Productivity, If this is something that interests you, please share the article with your friends and connections. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates every time I write something!

Thank you for reading, If you have reached so far, please like the article, It will encourage me to write more such articles. Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and don't forget to subscribe to my Channel. I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Run Javascript from Python
• Automate WhatsApp using Python
• Automate Cowin Vaccine slots Availability using Python
• What is Competitive Programming

Resources:

• https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/how-weather-works/weather
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather
• https://github.com/chubin/wttr.in
• https://pypi.org/project/requests/
• https://docs.python-requests.org/en/master/

See you in my next Blog article, Take care!!

If you are a programmer, you must have heard about Git and GitHub. This article will not contain any code, We will first get familiar with the interface I will try and explain to you the basics of theory and concepts in plain English to help you get started with Git. This is the 1st article in the Git and GitHub series.

Check out the Repository for Ultimate Resource in python. Drop a star if you find it useful! Got anything to add? Open a PR on the same!

You can refer to my YouTube video Tutorial to see a working tutorial for better understanding and a step-by-step guide of the same.

What will be covered in this Blog

1.    What is Version Control System and its Types
2.    What is Git?
3.    What is GitHub?
4.    And the difference between the two.

Let's get started!

What is Version Control System?

Before jumping in for git let’s understand what version control is.

• VCS or version control is a management system that tracks changes in a computer file.
• It is a software tool that records and manages changes to the source code over a period of time.

So imagine that you are working with your friend on a shared document and two of you are making changes in the file at the same time, what will happen? How will you track the change and mark the owner of the same? Or maybe you are working in a large team, how will you manage then?

• It helps developers to work efficiently.

Consider another scenario, If you are working on a project and modify or update your code on a regular basis and on one specific day, you wish to rollback and revert files back to a previous state or revert the entire project back to a previous state, compare changes over time, see who last modified something that might be causing a problem, who introduced an issue and when, and more, a version control system can do this for you.

Types of Version control

So basically there are three major types of VCS.

1. Local Version Control Systems
2. Centralized Version Control Systems
3. Distributed Version Control Systems

We will not get into too much detail about this in this article.

What is Git?

There are various Version control system in the market but Git is one of the most popular amongst them.

• Git was originally developed in 2005 by the creator of Linux.
• Git is free and open-source software so, anyone can use it.

You cannot remember every change that you make, quite obvious, right? But what you can do is remember a simple command.

• Honestly, it has made our life easier as It keeps track of the entire history of things that you are working on and allows us to revert back to a previous version no matter how many times you have made changes to your file.
• It has simplified the process of working with other people and encourages collaboration among developers and makes working in a team really easy.
• Git widely used by various organizations, businesses, and even startups to manage their code, it lets you watch the entire timeline. We will study this in detail when we will learn how to set up, install and use GitHub in the next part of this series.

What is GitHub?

GitHub is one of the most advanced and developed hosting platforms for version control and collaboration. It is a web-based service for version control using Git has all the benefits of git and even more.

I have explained the look and feel and an overview of GitHub in the video. check it out for a detailed explanation.

Are Git and GitHub the same?

No, Git and GitHub are not the same.

Git is a version control system that lets you manage and keep track of your source code and history whereas GitHub is a cloud-based hosting service that lets you manage git repositories.

That’s Git and GitHub in a nutshell. Do you have a GitHub account? Share the link below. And with that, it's a wrap! I hope you found the article useful! Share in the comments below. I create content about Career, Blogging, Programming, and Productivity, If this is something that interests you, please share the article with your friends and connections. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates every time I write something!

Thank you for reading, If you have reached so far, please like the article, It will encourage me to write more such articles. Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and don't forget to subscribe to my Channel. I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Run Javascript from Python
• Automate WhatsApp using Python
• Automate Cowin Vaccine slots Availability using Python
• What is Competitive Programming

See you in my next Blog article, Take care!!

More and more people are turning to podcasts to gain insights into new topics and conversations. Podcasts keep you informed on the latest programming news. So in this Top 5 series, I am going to tell you the top 5 Podcasts for python.

Check out the Repository for Ultimate Resource in python. Drop a star if you find it useful! Got anything to add? Open a PR on the same!

You can refer to my YouTube video Tutorial for better Understanding.

Let's get started!

1. Talk Python To Me

• Since Mar 2015

• Hosted By: Michael Kennedy

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TalkPython

• Podcast Link: https://talkpython.fm/

• Talk Python to Me is a weekly podcast.

• The show covers a wide array of Python topics as well as many related topics ( e.g. MongoDB, AngularJS, DevOps)

• Each episode features a new industry expert, software developers, or data scientist.

• The format is a casual 45-minute conversation with the guest.

2. The Real Python Podcast

• Since 2012

• Hosted By: Christopher Bailey

• Twitter Link: https://twitter.com/realpython

• Podcast Link: https://realpython.com/podcasts/rpp/

• The Real Python Podcast is a weekly podcast.

• It covers interviews, coding tips, and conversations with guests from the Python community.

• The show covers a wide range of topics including Python programming best practices, career tips, and related software development topics

3. Podcast.__init

• Since 2015

• Hosted By: Tobias Macey

• Twitter Link: https://twitter.com/Podcastinit

• Podcast Link: https://www.pythonpodcast.com/

• Podcast._init is a weekly podcast.

• It provides useful and informative insights into the projects, platforms, and practices that engineers, business leaders, and data scientists need to know about to learn and grow in their careers.

• You get diverse knowledge of important topics in every domain and edge cases of real-world scenarios. Each interview explores the motivations, challenges, and experiences behind the software that you use every day.

• It brings you stories of the people that make the Python community great.

4. Python Bytes

• Since 2016

• Hosted By: Michael Kennedy and Brian Okken

• Twitter Link: https://twitter.com/pythonbytes

• Podcast Link: https://pythonbytes.fm/

• Python Bytes is weekly podcast series.

• Python Bytes podcast delivers headlines directly to your earbuds.

• The show is a short discussion on the headlines and noteworthy news in the Python, developer, and data science space.

5. Teaching Python

• Since 2018

• Hosted By: Kelly Paredes and Sean Tibor

• Twitter Link: https://twitter.com/teachingpython

• Podcast Link: https://www.teachingpython.fm/

• is a podcast by two teachers about their adventures teaching middle school computer science, problem-solving, handling failure, frustration, and success with teaching python programming.

BONUS Podcast:

Test & Code

• Since 2015

• Hosted By: Brian Okken·

• Twitter Link: https://twitter.com/testpodcast

• Podcast Link: https://testandcode.com/

• Test & Code is a weekly podcast

• The show covers a wide array of topics including software engineering, development, testing, Python programming, and many related topics.

And with that, it's a wrap! I hope you found the article useful! Which one is your favorite Podcast? Share in comments below. I create content about Career, Blogging, Programming, and Productivity, If this is something that interests you, please share the article with your friends and connections. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates every time I write something!

Thank you for reading, If you have reached so far, please like the article, It will encourage me to write more such articles. Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and don't forget to subscribe to my Channel. I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• The Ultimate Python Resource hub
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• Become a Better Programmer
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Create your own Audiobook from any pdf with Python
• You are Important & so is your Mental Health!

See you in my next Blog article, Take care!!

I hope you all are safe and sound and at home. Do not step out of your house unless it’s absolutely necessary with proper precautions.

Coronavirus cases are increasing day by day. The second wave has hit very badly in many areas. It’s very important to get vaccinated. But, getting a slot seems next to impossible. Even I am not able to get my hands on one. So I was trying to think of a better idea possible and if you know me, you must know by now that I am a python freak, so I tried to automate the availability of the slot.

So in this blog post, I am going to tell you how you can automate the vaccine slots availability and get notified when a slot is available. We will see the implementation in python.

For your ease, you can use the code and it's available at my GitHub repository. Spread this article as much as possible so that everyone can get notified about the availability of slots and we all can get vaccinated.

Check out the Repository for Ultimate Resource in python. Drop a star if you find it useful! Got anything to add? Open a PR on the same!

You can refer to my YouTube video Tutorial to see a working tutorial for better understanding and a step-by-step guide of the same.

What will be covered in this Blog

1. What is Web Scraping?
2. The Web-Scaping Process and its Uses.
3. What is Coronavirus and CoWin?
4. How to Automate vaccine slots availability

Let's get started!

What is Web Scrapping?:

Introduction

If you’ve ever copy and pasted information from a website, you’ve performed the same function as any web scraper, only on a microscopic, manual scale.

Web scraping, also known as web data extraction, is the process of retrieving or “scraping” data from a website. This information is collected and then exported into a format that is more useful for the user. Be it a spreadsheet or an API.

Two important points to be taken into consideration here:

1. Always be respectful and try to get permission to scrape, do not bombard a website with scraping requests, otherwise, your IP address may get blocked!
2. Be aware that websites change often, meaning your code could go from working to totally broken from one day to the next.

The process: three simple steps

1. Request for a response from the webpage
2. Parse and extract with the help of Beautiful soup and lxml
3. Download and export the data with pandas into excel

Its Uses:

It can serve several purposes, the most popular ones are Investment Decision Making, Competitor Monitoring, News Monitoring, Market Trend Analysis, Appraising Property Value, Estimating Rental Yields, Politics and Campaigns, and many more.

If you wish to know about it further. I am attaching the Wikipedia link here. You can have a look.

What is Coronavirus?

I do not think Coronavirus needs an introduction, but just in case if someone does not know, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus.

The COVID-19 virus spreads primarily through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes

If you wish to know about it further. I am attaching the Wikipedia link here. You can have a look.

What is CoWin?

Under the universal immunization program, for several years, India has been using a vaccine intelligence system called eVIN (electronic vaccine intelligence network), CoWIN is an extension of eVIN. CoWIN stands for Covid Vaccine Intelligence Work.

it is the gateway to vaccination and the backbone of the vaccination drive.

The data source

We will make use of the cowin official website.

Module Used:

requests Module:

• Use the requests library to grab the page.
• This may fail if you have a firewall blocking Python.
• Sometimes you need to run this twice if it fails the first time.

Now that you are familiar with Coronavirus and CoWin and have acquired basic knowledge of Web Scrapping and requests module, we can move forward to the coding section.

Time to Code!

You can find all the code at my GitHub Repository. Drop a star if you find it useful.

Let's understand this!

In order to access the Python library, you need to install it into your Python environment

pip install requests

Now, we need to import the package into our python script. Use the following command to do so.

import requests

from datetime import datetime, timedelta
import time

import json

Now that we have imported the libraries, let's proceed.

Let's display a welcome message. we will make use of print method for the same.

print("Starting search for Covid vaccine slots!")

Now, let's set some basic parameters,

age = 52
pinCodes = ["462003"]
print_flag = 'Y'
num_days = 2

• The Slots are available in two categories, Age 45+ and Age 18+. Let's proceed with Age 45+ for now, you can set it according to your need.
• You can perform the search based on Pincode or District. Since we are looking for the slots available nearby, I am making use of Pin-code. You can also pass multiple pin-codes, separated by commans in the list.
• We only want to check for slots availability for the next two days for let's givenum_daysas 2 here.
• Lastly, set the flag value to y.

Now let's make use of datetime method to calculate today's date.

actual = datetime.today()

#output:
2021-05-13 13:35:24.396612

Now, run a loop to convert it into list format. We will make use of timedelta method to convert it into list format

list_format = [actual + timedelta(days=i) for i in range(num_days)]

#Output:
[datetime.datetime(2021, 5, 13, 13, 39, 18, 496330), datetime.datetime(2021, 5, 14, 13, 39, 18, 496330)]

we will again run a loop to fetch the dates from the list and we will make use of strftime method to do so. Note that we are storing date in date-month-year format.

actual_dates = [i.strftime("%d-%m-%Y") for i in list_format]

#Output:
['13-05-2021', '14-05-2021']

Next, we will run a while loop to fetch the details of the slots. Initially let's set the counter to zero.

Let's introduce two more loops here:

• one in order to fetch details for each pin-code.
• second in order to fetch details for each date in the given pin-code.

Now in order to get requests, let's define the URL.

URL = "https://cdn-api.co-vin.in/api/v2/appointment/sessions/public/calendarByPin?pincode={}&date={}".format(pinCode, given_date)

If you observe, I have added parameters in the URL itself using string formatting. We are passing in two parameters here, pincode and date. Every time the inner loop runs, this URL will be called and the respective date and pin-code will be passed as arguments for each case.

Now, in order to get the request, let's define the header.

header = {'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/56.0.2924.76 Safari/537.36'}

Once done, let's call requests and we will make use of get method.

result = requests.get( URL, headers=header)

Now, our response is stored in the result. Let's try printing it out. We will make use of text method for the same.

print(result.text)

#OUTPUT:

{"centers":[{"center_id":691508,"name":"Navin Girls HSS Tulsi Nagar 18","address":"1250 Tulsi Nagar HOSPITAL","state_name":"Madhya Pradesh","district_name":"Bhopal","block_name":"PHANDA","pincode":462003,"lat":23,"long":77,"from":"09:00:00","to":"17:00:00","fee_type":"Free","sessions":[{"session_id":"b63ce111-23dd-4d4e-9f1c-c97073c57a52","date":"13-05-2021","available_capacity":0,"min_age_limit":18,"vaccine":"COVAXIN","slots":["09:00AM-11:00AM","11:00AM-01:00PM","01:00PM-03:00PM","03:00PM-05:00PM"]}]},{"center_id":570554,"name":"SAHTI Vaishali Kotra 
KNK","address":"Govt. Higher Sec. Kamla Nehru Girls School Teenshed TT Nagar","state_name":"Madhya Pradesh","district_name":"Bhopal","block_name":"PHANDA","pincode":462003,"lat":23,"long":77,"from":"09:00:00","to":"17:00:00","fee_type":"Free","sessions":[{"session_id":"93144388-6dca-4f7c-9aba-ecd5b120fa94","date":"13-05-2021","available_capacity":215,"min_age_limit":45,"vaccine":"COVISHIELD","slots":["09:00AM-11:00AM","11:00AM-01:00PM","01:00PM-03:00PM","03:00PM-05:00PM"]}]},{"center_id":592476,"name":"25 Battalion Campus BhadBhada","address":"25th Battalion Bhadbhada Bhopal","state_name":"Madhya Pradesh","district_name":"Bhopal","block_name":"PHANDA","pincode":462003,"lat":23,"long":77,"from":"09:00:00","to":"17:00:00","fee_type":"Free","sessions":[{"session_id":"b857cd10-b46f-404f-a5de-81032b667e46","date":"13-05-2021","available_capacity":0,"min_age_limit":45,"vaccine":"COVAXIN","slots":["09:00AM-11:00AM","11:00AM-01:00PM","01:00PM-03:00PM","03:00PM-05:00PM"]}]},{"center_id":570591,"name":"GHMC- Ward 29 Office 18","address":"Pandit Khushilal Sharma Parisar","state_name":"Madhya Pradesh","district_name":"Bhopal","block_name":"PHANDA","pincode":462003,"lat":23,"long":77,"from":"09:00:00","to":"17:00:00","fee_type":"Free","sessions":[{"session_id":"5bcd92b4-a476-4c47-a203-3e96179e5beb","date":"13-05-2021","available_capacity":0,"min_age_limit":18,"vaccine":"COVISHIELD","slots":["09:00AM-11:00AM","11:00AM-01:00PM","01:00PM-03:00PM","03:00PM-05:00PM"]}]},{"center_id":609392,"name":"Govt School Nayabasera 18","address":"NAYABASERA SANJEEVANI","state_name":"Madhya Pradesh","district_name":"Bhopal","block_name":"PHANDA","pincode":462003,"lat":23,"long":77,"from":"09:00:00","to":"17:00:00","fee_type":"Free","sessions":[{"session_id":"60306cc5-15a4-4195-876a-2889676631c0","date":"13-05-2021","available_capacity":0,"min_age_limit":18,"vaccine":"COVISHIELD","slots":["09:00AM-11:00AM","11:00AM-01:00PM","01:00PM-03:00PM","03:00PM-05:00PM"]}]},{"center_id":561924,"name":"Saraswati Shisu Mandir Sch Cov","address":"Saraswati Shishu Mandir School Shivaji Nagar Bhopal Madhya Pradesh India","state_name":"Madhya Pradesh","district_name":"Bhopal","block_name":"PHANDA","pincode":462003,"lat":23,"long":77,"from":"09:00:00","to":"17:00:00","fee_type":"Free","sessions":[{"session_id":"e1f4f7a1-42d5-4f58-934b-ed031fc3e7c0","date":"13-05-2021","available_capacity":137,"min_age_limit":45,"vaccine":"COVISHIELD","slots":["09:00AM-11:00AM","11:00AM-01:00PM","01:00PM-03:00PM","03:00PM-05:00PM"]}]},{"center_id":591027,"name":"CD RAJ BHAVAN CVX","address":"RAJ BHAVAN BHOPAL","state_name":"Madhya Pradesh","district_name":"Bhopal","block_name":"PHANDA","pincode":462003,"lat":23,"long":77,"from":"09:00:00","to":"17:00:00","fee_type":"Free","sessions":[{"session_id":"52de668d-5526-4e09-8c41-f34c1912302d","date":"13-05-2021","available_capacity":0,"min_age_limit":45,"vaccine":"COVAXIN","slots":["09:00AM-11:00AM","11:00AM-01:00PM","01:00PM-03:00PM","03:00PM-05:00PM"]}]},{"center_id":667429,"name":"CD Vallabh Bhawan CVX","address":"Vallabh Bhawan Bhopal","state_name":"Madhya Pradesh","district_name":"Bhopal","block_name":"PHANDA","pincode":462003,"lat":23,"long":77,"from":"09:00:00","to":"17:00:00","fee_type":"Free","sessions":[{"session_id":"e8202c2d-b545-401c-b266-8bf9102687e2","date":"13-05-2021","available_capacity":0,"min_age_limit":45,"vaccine":"COVAXIN","slots":["09:00AM-11:00AM","11:00AM-01:00PM","01:00PM-03:00PM","03:00PM-05:00PM"]}]},{"center_id":561310,"name":"Govt Kanya School Nehru Nagar","address":"Govt Kanya School Nehru Nagar","state_name":"Madhya Pradesh","district_name":"Bhopal","block_name":"PHANDA","pincode":462003,"lat":23,"long":77,"from":"09:00:00","to":"17:00:00","fee_type":"Free","sessions":[{"session_id":"85a85c27-cabd-4058-b902-7b0bf457cb44","date":"13-05-2021","available_capacity":114,"min_age_limit":45,"vaccine":"COVISHIELD","slots":["09:00AM-11:00AM","11:00AM-01:00PM","01:00PM-03:00PM","03:00PM-05:00PM"]}]},{"center_id":636442,"name":"CD VIDHAN SABHA COVISHIELD","address":"VIDHAN SABHA","state_name":"Madhya Pradesh","district_name":"Bhopal","block_name":"PHANDA","pincode":462003,"lat":23,"long":77,"from":"09:00:00","to":"17:00:00","fee_type":"Free","sessions":[{"session_id":"6010b80f-a818-4cf5-ad67-90a0cb49f1d6","date":"13-05-2021","available_capacity":0,"min_age_limit":45,"vaccine":"COVISHIELD","slots":["09:00AM-11:00AM","11:00AM-01:00PM","01:00PM-03:00PM","03:00PM-05:00PM"]}]},{"center_id":611640,"name":"Kopal HSS Nehru Nagar18","address":"Kopal HSS Nehru Nagar Bhopal","state_name":"Madhya Pradesh","district_name":"Bhopal","block_name":"PHANDA","pincode":462003,"lat":23,"long":77,"from":"09:00:00","to":"17:00:00","fee_type":"Free","sessions":[{"session_id":"b4a74e1f-cc5b-498a-b92d-25bf5c3bc072","date":"13-05-2021","available_capacity":0,"min_age_limit":18,"vaccine":"COVAXIN","slots":["09:00AM-11:00AM","11:00AM-01:00PM","01:00PM-03:00PM","03:00PM-05:00PM"]}]},{"center_id":639426,"name":"BANGANG WARD 25 CVX","address":"SANJEEVNI BANGANGA","state_name":"Madhya Pradesh","district_name":"Bhopal","block_name":"PHANDA","pincode":462003,"lat":23,"long":77,"from":"09:00:00","to":"17:00:00","fee_type":"Free","sessions":[{"session_id":"def621bf-2e3e-4514-a605-9debd696d8ef","date":"13-05-2021","available_capacity":0,"min_age_limit":45,"vaccine":"COVAXIN","slots":["09:00AM-11:00AM","11:00AM-01:00PM","01:00PM-03:00PM","03:00PM-05:00PM"]}]},{"center_id":636455,"name":"JAHANGIRABAD SANJEEVANI","address":"JAHANGIRABAD","state_name":"Madhya Pradesh","district_name":"Bhopal","block_name":"PHANDA","pincode":462003,"lat":23,"long":77,"from":"09:00:00","to":"18:00:00","fee_type":"Free","sessions":[{"session_id":"a58f02b7-a252-4daf-a541-b7ddf9bae21c","date":"19-05-2021","available_capacity":0,"min_age_limit":45,"vaccine":"COVISHIELD","slots":["09:00AM-11:00AM","11:00AM-01:00PM","01:00PM-03:00PM","03:00PM-06:00PM"]}]},{"center_id":627202,"name":"CD Sewaniya Gaud","address":"CD Sewaniya Gaud","state_name":"Madhya Pradesh","district_name":"Bhopal","block_name":"PHANDA","pincode":462003,"lat":23,"long":77,"from":"09:00:00","to":"18:00:00","fee_type":"Free","sessions":[{"session_id":"80130fd2-483a-4bb7-876a-9f2130484994","date":"19-05-2021","available_capacity":0,"min_age_limit":45,"vaccine":"COVISHIELD","slots":["09:00AM-11:00AM","11:00AM-01:00PM","01:00PM-03:00PM","03:00PM-06:00PM"]}]}]}

This data is not structured. So, we will make use of json here. Let's cast the data into json file.

if result.ok:
    response_json = result.json()

Now, In order to retrieve the information for each center, we will run a loop for the same. Initially, let's set the flag as false

flag = False
if response_json["centers"]:            
    if(print_flag.lower() =='y'):
        for center in response_json["centers"]:

Now, let's display and verify our data for each center

print(center)

#OUTPUT:

{'center_id': 691508, 'name': 'Navin Girls HSS Tulsi Nagar 18', 'address': '1250 Tulsi Nagar HOSPITAL', 'state_name': 'Madhya Pradesh', 'district_name': 'Bhopal', 'block_name': 'PHANDA', 'pincode': 462003, 'lat': 23, 'long': 77, 'from': '09:00:00', 'to': '17:00:00', 'fee_type': 'Free', 'sessions': [{'session_id': 'b63ce111-23dd-4d4e-9f1c-c97073c57a52', 'date': '13-05-2021', 'available_capacity': 0, 'min_age_limit': 18, 'vaccine': 'COVAXIN', 'slots': ['09:00AM-11:00AM', '11:00AM-01:00PM', '01:00PM-03:00PM', '03:00PM-05:00PM']}]}

And now finally we can retrieve the information for each session. We will apply the check parameters as the arguments we saved earlier.

for session in center["sessions"]:
    if (session["min_age_limit"] <= age and session["available_capacity"] > 0 ):

If it stratifies our conditions, let's display the result.

print('Pincode: ' + pinCode)
print("Available on: {}".format(given_date))
print("\t", center["name"])
print("\t", center["block_name"])
print("\t Price: ", center["fee_type"])
print("\t Availablity : ", session["available_capacity"])

if(session["vaccine"] != ''):
    print("\t Vaccine type: ", session["vaccine"])
    print("\n")

At the end, let's increase the counter by one.

counter += 1

Let's cover the edge case:

if(counter == 0):
    print("No Vaccination slot avaliable!")
else:
    print("Search Completed!")

Lastly, let's sync the data in real-time.

dt = datetime.now() + timedelta(minutes=3)

while datetime.now() < dt:
    time.sleep(1)

Let's have a look at the output and let's compare it with the actual website.

And with that, it's a wrap! You can host the script at the server to get notified every time a slot is available near you. You can find all the code at my GitHub Repository. Drop a star if you find it useful.

Simple, isn't it? Hope this tutorial has helped. I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and don't forget to subscribe to my Channel.

I write about career, Blogging, programming, and productivity, If this is something that interests you, please share the article with your friends and connections. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates every time I write something!

Thank you for reading, If you have reached so far, please like the article, It will encourage me to write more such articles. Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• The Ultimate Python Resource hub
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• Become a Better Programmer
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Create your own Audiobook from any pdf with Python
• You are Important & so is your Mental Health!

Resources:

• https://apisetu.gov.in/public/marketplace/api/cowin#/Appointment%20Availability%20APIs/calendarByPin
• https://www.cowin.gov.in/home
• https://pypi.org/project/requests/

See you in my next Blog article, Take care

I hope you are doing good and safe.

Do you code? Do you take part in coding contests? Ever heard of CP? Want to master CP? I received a lot of requests of students and developers for CP guidance to help them get started. I decided to create a separate video for the same explaining everything you need to know about CP. CP is short for Competitive Programming.

Check out the Repository for Ultimate Resource in python. Drop a star if you find it useful! Got anything to add? Open a PR on the same!

What will be covered ?

1. What is cp?
2. factors involed & Tips and Tricks
3. benefits of CP

Let's get started!

What is Competitive Programming:

As the name suggests, it's a competition of coding where you have to solve a question using your logic based on mathematics, algorithm, and data structure. You break the problem into small chunks and come up with a solution after analyzing the problem from different angles to minimize the time and space complexity.

Programming is like a mental sport, it boosts your thinking skills. When you participate in a contest as a potential candidate for coding, its called as CP. Candidates participate from all around the world.

In the video I have explained how to decode the Question pattern, understand sample input, output and constraints at two different CP platforms. Also explained about the factors to consider to score rank in contents. Refer the link to my YouTube video Tutorial for more in detail and better Understanding.

I will soon create a Roadmap of CP, explaining topics and other important stuffs to cover to master CP. So stay tuned!

And with that, it's a wrap! I hope you found the article useful! I create content about Career, Blogging, Programming, and Productivity, If this is something that interests you, please share the article with your friends and connections. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates every time I write something!

Thank you for reading, If you have reached so far, please like the article, It will encourage me to write more such articles. Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and Don't forget to subscribe to my Channel. I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• The Ultimate Python Resource hub
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• Become a Better Programmer
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Create your own Audiobook from any pdf with Python
• You are Important & so is your Mental Health!

See you in my next Blog article, Take care!!

Check out the Repository for Ultimate Resource in python. Drop a star if you find it useful! Got anything to add? Open a PR on the same!

You can refer to my YouTube video Tutorial for better Understanding.

What will be covered in this Blog

1. What is IDE?
2. Features of IDE
3. Top 5 IDE's for Python

Let's get started!

What is an IDE?:

An integrated development environment (IDE) is software for building applications that combines common developer tools into a single graphical user interface (GUI).

If you wish to know more about it, you can refer to IDE's Wikipedia Page.

Features of IDE:

• Text editor Every IDE has a text editor designed to write and manipulate source code with a simple interface and has language-specific syntax highlighting.

• Compilers: are components that translate programming language into machines understandable code called as binary code

• Code completion Code complete features save programmers time and reduce the likelihood of typos and bugs.

• Debugger Debugging tools assist users in identifying errors within source code.

• Programming language support Most IDEs support a single programming language, though several also offer multi-language support as well.

• Integrations and plugins IDE also supports integrations and plugins.

Now that you have acquired basic knowledge of IDE’s and are familiar with our its features, we can move forward to the top 5 ide’s

1. Visual Studio Code:

• Initial release: April 29, 2015; 5 years ago

• Size: Windows: 40.8–68.3 MB, Linux: 46.5–66.6 MB, macOS: 67.5 MB

• Operating system: Windows, macOS, Linux (Visual Studio Code is cross-platform IDE and supports macOS, Linux, and Microsoft Windows)

• Visual Studio Code is A Home For All Languages, it supports C#, Python, C/C++ , Javascript, and many other languages.

• It has its compiler and interpreter and Supports python web development using flask and Django.

• It has a debugger which supports syntax highlighting and has many other cool features as well.

2.Juypter Notebook:

• Jupyter is a free
• Open-source,
• Interactive web tool is known as a computational notebook, which researchers can use to combine software code, computational output, explanatory text and multimedia resources in a single document.
• It is maintained by the people at Project Jupyter.
• Purpose: To support interactive data science and scientific computing across all programming languages.
• It is very interactive, easy to use and great for data science.

3. PyCharm:

• Initial release date: 3 February 2010

• License: Community edition: Apache License 2.0; Ultimate edition: Trialware

• Its community version is free of cost.

• Operating system: Windows, macOS, Linux (cross-platform IDE and works on macOS, Linux, and Microsoft Windows)

• It is developed by the Czech company JetBrains.

• It is very powerful and one of the most widely used IDE.

• Supports web development and plug-ins and The user interface is also nice and can be easily connected to databases and servers.

• It can be easily integrated with anaconda and version controls

4.SubLime

• License: Proprietary
• Initial release: January 18, 2008, 13 years ago
• Sublime Text may be downloaded and evaluated for free, however a license must be purchased for continued use. There is currently no enforced time limit for the evaluation.
• Sublime Text supports simultaneous editing.
• It is very easy to use and great for lightweight projects
• ·And its features can be enhanced by the use of plug-ins

5.Atom

• Initial release: 26 February 2014
• Written in: CoffeeScript, JavaScript, Less, HTML
• License: MIT License
• Atom is free, sleek, lightweight, and open-source IDE.
• Operating system: Windows, macOS, Linux (cross-platform IDE and works on macOS, Linux, and Microsoft Windows)
• It supports third-party packages and plug-ins
• It is developed by GitHub.
• It also supports other languages such as C. C++ java etc

I will soon make a separate video on each IDE in detail and how you install and make full use of it. So stay tuned.

Every IDE’s has some pros or cons, so my favorite Ide might not yours too. So comment down below to let me know what’s your favorite IDE.

And with that, it's a wrap! I hope you found the article useful! I write about career, Blogging, programming, and productivity, If this is something that interests you, please share the article with your friends and connections. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates every time I write something!

Thank you for reading, If you have reached so far, please like the article, It will encourage me to write more such articles. Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and don't forget to subscribe to my Channel. I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• The Ultimate Python Resource hub
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• Become a Better Programmer
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Create your own Audiobook from any pdf with Python
• You are Important & so is your Mental Health!

See you in my next Blog article, Take care!!

We perform a google search in our day-to-day life. Have you ever wondered that you can implement the same using a programming language, In this Blog article, we will learn how to Perform a Google search. We will see the implementation in Python.

Check out the Repository for Ultimate Resource in python. Drop a star if you find it useful! Got anything to add? Open a PR on the same!

You can refer to my YouTube video Tutorial to see a working tutorial for better Understanding and a step-by-step Guide of the same.

What will be covered in this Blog

1. What is Google search?
3. Basics of pywhatkit Module
4. Performing a Google search using Python

Let's get started!

What is Google search?:

I do not think Google search needs an introduction here but for those who do not know, Google Search, or simply Google, is a web search engine developed by Google LLC. It is the most used search engine on the World Wide Web across all platforms.

If you wish to know more about it, you can refer to Google's Wikipedia Page.

Module Used:

pywhatkit Module:

PyWhatKit is a Python library with various helpful features. It is an easy-to-use library that does not require you to do some additional setup.

This module has lots of other cool features as well. Feel free and go-ahead to explore them or if you wish I can write an article about them.

If you wish to know more about it, you can refer to pywhatkit Module Documentation.

Now that you are familiar with Google search basics and have acquired basic knowledge of pywhatkit module, we can move forward to the coding section.

Time to Code!

You can find all the code at my GitHub Repository. Drop a star if you find it useful.

In order to access the Python library, you need to install it into your Python environment

pip install pywhatkit as kt

Now, we need to import the package in our python script. Use the following command to do so.

import pywhatkit as kt

Now that we have imported the library using the command import pywhatkit as kt, let's proceed.

Let's display a welcome message. we will make use of print method for the same.

print("Let's perform Google search!")

Be sure of what you want to search and once you decide, let's store it in target1.

target1 = 'coronavirus'

Finally, let's call search method.

kt.search(target1)

NOTE: If your browser window is open is already running, it will perform the search in a new tab otherwise will open a new window. Let's have a look at the output search result.

Let's have a look at another example and this time let's set multiple target items for the search operation. After post successful run, n new tabs will get opened, where n being the number of search items listed in the python script.

And with that, it's a wrap! With these steps, we have successfully Performed Google search using python. That's it! You can play around with the pywhatkit library and even explore more features. You can find all the code at my GitHub Repository. Drop a star if you find it useful.

Simple, isn't it? Hope this tutorial has helped. I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and don't forget to subscribe to my Channel.

I write about career, Blogging, programming, and productivity, If this is something that interests you, please share the article with your friends and connections. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates every time I write something!

Thank you for reading, If you have reached so far, please like the article, It will encourage me to write more such articles. Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• The Ultimate Python Resource hub
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• Become a Better Programmer
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Create your own Audiobook from any pdf with Python
• You are Important & so is your Mental Health!

Resources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII
• https://pypi.org/project/pywhatkit/
• https://github.com/Ankit404butfound/PyWhatKit

See you in my next Blog article, Take care

I recently conducted a poll asking you-all about which video you wish to see in my top 5 video series on various platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, my Telegram Channel, etc. I have received close to 1500 responses in a single day and according to the poll. The top 5 python books and languages to learn in 2021 had the highest poll count. After compilation, If you have any video suggestions for my Top 5 video series. Drop your comments.

Are you looking for campus placement or want to switch your job, or want to succeed in the IT industry, then you know how to code to step up in your career ladder. Not from a computer science background? Not a problem, you can still learn how to code, make projects to showcase in your resume, and get hired.

There are so many programming languages in the market and it can become a little too overwhelming for you to decide the right one for you. So in this Top 5 series article, I have put together for you the top 5 programming language in 2021 by collecting the data from GitHub, stack overflow developer survey, and various online surveys based on

• job market,
• freelance opportunity
• ease to learn and resource available
• and most widely used, so read the article till the end.

Check out the Repository for Ultimate Resource in python. Drop a star if you find it useful! Got anything to add? Open a PR on the same!

You can refer to my YouTube video Tutorial for better Understanding.

So with that being said, Let's get started!

5. C++

• At number 5, we have C++, it is a superset of C and was developed to support object-oriented programming

• It is a very old and low-level programming language but it has made up to the list because of its performance and reliability.

• It continues to retain its popularity over the years.

• C++ is powerful and the applications developed in C++ are

  1. Adobe

  2. Oracle

  3. Microsoft office for backend

• It still stands at top priority for students aiming for placements in the Indian market and a number of developers start off with learning C++ in the IT industry.

• It can be used to develop:

  1. operating systems
  2. browsers
  3. and games

4. C#:

• C# (C-Sharp) is a programming language developed by Microsoft.
• It runs on the . NET Framework.
• C# is used to develop
  • i) web apps,
  • ii) desktop apps,
  • iii) mobile apps,
  • iv) utility and virtual reality games and much more.
• Popular framework used with c# are
  • . NET
  • Xamarin

3. Java:

• Java is an open-source, class-based, object-oriented programming language that is designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible
• Java is
  • Robust,
  • Secure,
  • Distributed and
  • High-Performance in nature

• It is widely used in both service-based and product-based companies which increases the chance of getting hired.

• It supports frameworks like

  • Spring
  • Hibernate
  • Guice (google guice)

• It is easy to learn and has strong community support.

2. JavaScript:

• Js is the most popular and go-to language for web development.
• JavaScript is widely used to create responsive, interactive elements for web pages, enhancing the user experience.
• There are over billions of web sites in the world, and JavaScript is used on 95% of them
• Most popular frameworks based on JavaScriptare:
  • Node js
  • Angular js
  • React js
  • Vue js
• Js has a huge market and opens door to freelance opportunities.

1. Python:

• Python is a high-level language and it is very easy to learn.
• It is the fastest-growing language and has big support of developers community
• It user-friendly and has uses everywhere, its used in
  • Web development. Some of the most well-known frameworks are Django, Flask
  • It is also used in the development of interactive games
  • Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
  • Data Science and Data Visualization
  • Desktop GUI
  • And Web Scraping Applications
• It has a library for anything you wish to do makes it the most popular language.

And with that, it's a wrap! I hope you found the article useful! I write about career, Blogging, programming, and productivity, If this is something that interests you, please share the article with your friends and connections. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates every time I write something!

Thank you for reading, If you have reached so far, please like the article, It will encourage me to write more such articles. Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and don't forget to subscribe to my Channel. I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• The Ultimate Python Resource hub
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• Become a Better Programmer
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Create your own Audiobook from any pdf with Python
• You are Important & so is your Mental Health!

See you in my next Blog article, Take care!!

If you're preparing for a job interview, be prepared to get some COVID-related questions as well. The recruiters are interested in how candidates handle work (or being out of work) during the pandemic. With time, this has become a very important criterion that you cannot risk overlooking.

So in this Blog, I am going to tell you the top 5 questions you should be well prepared to answer to seize the opportunity. I have divided the article into two parts, in part two I will tell you some covid related questions that you can ask the recruiter.

Check out the Repository for Ultimate Resource in python. Drop a star if you find it useful! Got anything to add? Open a PR on the same!

You can refer to my YouTube video Tutorial for better Understanding.

So with that being said, Let's get started!

Part I

1. HOW DID YOUR Team COMMUNICATE while working remotely?

• Here you can describe ways in which you collaborate with your team.
• Give examples of how you have kept in touch and the importance of regular reporting.
• The recruiter is more interested in hearing how well you take ownership of your action items.

2. WHAT DID YOU DO WHEN YOU WERE LAID OFF

• Here the recruiter is interested to know how you will handle work stress or are you afraid of losing your job?
• If you did lose one in past then leverage it to demonstrate your progress and your newly learned skills.
• Showcase how you helped others during the crisis.
• you know it's really ok, to be honest about getting laid off and recruiters will surely understand.

3. How do you feel about an eventual return to work?

• Here the recruiter wants to know, that are you prepared to adapt to changes.
• You can be honest here but back your statement with relevant info and examples.

4. How do you maintain a work-life balance:

• If you have pre-covid work from home experience, leverage it.
• They observe how candidates react to their experience when they faced hardships or setbacks. Give them an example of how you have set virtual boundaries and you do not let your work get affected.
• Of course, you are human, but what matters is, you are trying and they want to see your efforts.
• You can use examples like, what do you do to increase your productivity.

5. WHAT DO YOU DO DIFFERENTLY NOW?

• You can explain how you utilize the time saved in traveling. For me, personally, I started my YouTube channel and started writing technical articles.
• The recruiter wants to know that what would you do differently to not let work from home affect your deadlines or commitment to work.
• so in your own words, just explain what do u do differently now

BONUS Question:

What aspects of working from home did you find most challenging?

• Use this question as an opportunity to showcase how you handled Covid stress, stayed connected with your family, supported your colleagues, and outshined at work.
• Hardships come and go, but you need to stay strong.

Part II

PANDEMIC INTERVIEW QUESTIONS YOU Can ASK

You as a candidate, have equal right to enquire about the organization's Covid policies and other related questions and make a wise decision.

• What safety measures have the company taken to ensure that all employees are safe?
• How do you onboard remote hires?
• Has the organization laid off employees since COVID-19 began? If so, why?
• How has leadership adjusted to working from home and the responsibilities?

These are difficult times, you need to stay strong. Check up on your peers, if they are doing okay? Stay connected with your family and close ones. Stay safe and sound. If you need to share something or need help, you can contact me on Twitter. And with that, it's a wrap! I hope you found the article useful!

I write about career, Blogging, programming, and productivity, If this is something that interests you, please share the article with your friends and connections. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to get updates every time I write something!

Thank you for reading, If you have reached so far, please like the article, It will encourage me to write more such articles.

I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and don't forget to subscribe to my Channel.

I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn. Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• The Ultimate Python Resource hub
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• Become a Better Programmer
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Create your own Audiobook from any pdf with Python
• You are Important & so is your Mental Health!

See you in my next Blog article,

Stay Tuned and Stay safe!

I recently conducted a poll asking you-all about which video you wish to see in my top 5 video series on various platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, my Telegram Channel, etc. I have received close to 1500 responses in a single day and according to the poll. The top 5 python books and languages to learn in 2021 had the highest poll count. After compilation, If you have any video suggestions for my Top 5 video series. Drop your comments.

Can you please recommend me good books for python is the most frequently asked question, So in this Top 5 series, I am going to tell you the top 5 books for python.

Check out the Repository for Ultimate Resource in python. Drop a star if you find it useful! Got anything to add? Open a PR on the same!

You can refer to my YouTube video Tutorial for better Understanding.

What will be covered in this Blog

1. Three beginner-friendly books
2. Two books for advanced learners
3. A bonus Book
4. My current favorite book

Some people are comfortable watching online courses, others are more comfortable reading. If you are new to reading any programming book, I will suggest a beginner-friendly book for you. I will also tell you my personal favorite book at the end.

I will recommend books in a beginner to expert order. So with that being said, Let's get started!

1. PYTHON CRASH COURSE by Eric Matthes

• If you have never learned a programming language before and you are starting out to learn python and want to learn the concepts real so that you can start making interesting projects real quick, PYTHON CRASH COURSE is for you.

• This book is divided into two sections:

  • the 1st section teaches you the basics of python.
  • the second part, you work on three major projects, based on game development, web development or data visualization, etc.

  If you are a student, you find the book a little pricey, so you can go for the online kindle version.

2. LEARN PYTHON THE HARD WAY

• This is the second book recommendation, LEARN PYTHON THE HARD WAY.
• The book even guides with python installation.
• This is also a good beginner-friendly book and will give you a good knowledge of fundamentals. I am really fond of the author’s approach, the reader is expected to find a lot of information independently.

Also note, the most important factor is to practice side by side regularly, just reading won’t do you any good.

3. HEAD 1ST PYTHON by paul barry:

• This is another beginner-friendly book. It covers core concepts, Web and Android development using Python.
• It follows a graphical approach and teaches you using illustrations rather than a text-based approach to make your learning more interesting.
• It does not cover advanced topics, so is not recommended for advanced learners or experts.

4. PYTHON COOKBOOK:

• This book will cover the core Python language as well as tasks common to a wide variety of application domains.
• I use this book as a reference for a particular topic.
• Each recipe starts out with a problem statement and contains code samples you can use in your projects, along with a discussion about how and solution walkthrough.
• It includes Data Structures, Iterators, and Generators, Files, Functions, Network and Web Programming, Utility Scripting, Testing, Debugging, and lot more

5. PROGRAMMING PYTHON by Mark Lutz

• You can pick up this book if you are aware of python fundamentals and ready to dive deep.
• It will first make you familiar with concepts of object-orientation.
• Also will give you in-depth knowledge of various domains of python, covers basics of GUI programming by tkiner, command-line processing, system administration, and a lot more to advance your skills.

BONUS BOOK:

AUTOMATE THE BORING STUFF WITH PYTHON.

• This is a pretty awesome book, and the video will be incomplete without this book’s recommendation.
• the author has done a great job of explaining why python is important, a bit of history about the language, and gives so many ideas on how computing tasks can be greatly simplified.
• this book stands out in the second part where you actually build useful tools you might need to use every day.

I would strongly recommend you to Check out the YouTube video of the same and don't forget to subscribe to my Channel.

And with that, it's a wrap! I hope you found the article useful! Please like and share it with your friends and connects who are interested in learning programming.

Thank you for reading, I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

Thank you for reading! Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• The Ultimate Python Resource hub
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• Become a Better Programmer
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Create your own Audiobook from any pdf with Python
• You are Important & so is your Mental Health!

See you in my next Blog article, Take care!!

TASK: Write 1 TIL format blog post on Hashnode to test out your own content system from drafting all the way to promoting.

Running a speed test can be very useful to verify the current state of an internet connection. In this Blog article, we will learn how to Test Internet Speed. We will see the implementation in Python.

Check out the Repository for Ultimate Resource in python. Drop a star if you find it useful! Got anything to add? Open a PR on the same!

Let's get started.

What will be covered in this Blog

1. speedtest Introduction
2. How to Test internet speed

Speedtest Introduction:

The internet connections in our homes and offices can differ by internet service providers (ISPs), allowable traffic limit, and most importantly speed. So what do you usually do when you want to test the speed our connection? You google it, right? How about testing the internet speed using Python from your machine!

Speedtest cli library provides Command line interface for testing internet bandwidth using speedtest.net

If you wish to know more about it, you can refer to Speedtest Documentation. Use this link to navigate to the documentation.

Now that you are aware of Speedtest basics, we can move forward to the coding section. Let's get started!

Time to Code!

You can find all the code at my GitHub Repository. Drop a star if you find it useful.

In order to access the Python library, you need to install it into your Python environment, use the following command to install Speedtest

pip install speedtest-cli

Now, let's import the package in our Python script.

import speedtest

Let's create an instance of Speedtest and call it st

st = speedtest.Speedtest()

Let's move forward and check for download speed. We will make use of download method to fetch the speed and store in d_st

d_st = st.download()

Similarly, to check for the upload speed, we will make use of upload method to fetch the speed and store in u_st

u_st = st.upload()

Once done, let's display the download and upload speed.

print("Your Download speed is", d_st) 
print("Your Upload speed is", u_st)

Let's have a look at the output:

Your Download speed is 4786516.020362539
Your Upload speed is 851493.59380959

It will look something like this. Here's the download and upload speed in bits.

BONUS:

Let's check for ping. We can do so by making use of the following command.

st.get_servers([])

Let's fetch the ping and store it in ping, we will make use of results.ping for the same.

ping = st.results.ping

#display the result
print("Your Ping is", ping)

Let's display the ping using print.

Your Ping is 50.846

This is how you can test your Internet speed. That's it!

Simple, isn't it? Hope this tutorial has helped.You can play around with the Speedtest library and even explore more features. You can even make use of Python GUI using Tkinter.

You can find all the code at my GitHub Repository. Drop a star if you find it useful.

Thank you for reading, I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• The Ultimate Python Resource hub
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• Become a Better Programmer
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Create your own Audiobook from any pdf with Python
• You are Important & so is your Mental Health!

Resources:

• https://pypi.org/project/speedtest-cli/
• https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli
• https://www.mankier.com/1/speedtest-cli

See you in my next Blog article, Take care

Let's get started.

A First Impression Says Everything

First impressions play a vital role in building positive momentum. As J. K. Rowling very wisely said,

A good first impression can work wonders.

What can be a better way to achieve this than building a portfolio.

- Online Presence

Your portfolio can reach where you cannot says a lot about its importance! It will boost your online presence.

- Get Hired!

A developer portfolio is a great way to demonstrate your competencies. You can customize it to showcase your interests, work, achievements and many more stuff. It reflects your real performance in domains.

Few Tips:

• Make the best use of the About section. It is a very important section & make sure to include non-tech stuff like what do you do when not coding?

• Highlight your top three projects briefly. Drop the links to showcase the live demonstration.

  Tip: Revisit and update your old projects

• Add TESTIMONIALS! Yes, they matter! It's the best way to prove your credibility by showing that real people have had a positive experience with your products or service.

• Add a contact section. The easier for a user to contact you. higher the probability of them actually getting in touch with you.

• Do you Blog? Add it too. Yes, it counts.

• Be open to feedback, negative feedback will help you improve and get better.

I am currently working on my portfolio. I will update the blog post when I am done. I would recommend you to build a portfolio if you don't have one already. Do you have a developer portfolio? Share the link in the comments section below!

Thank you for reading, I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• The Ultimate Python Resource hub
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• Become a Better Programmer
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Create your own Audiobook from any pdf with Python
• You are Important & so is your Mental Health!

See you in my next Blog article, Take care

TASK: Future plans for my Blog and my Top reasons to Blog.

In this Blog article, I will share my thoughts on the same.

Let's get started.

My Future Blog Plan:

I am a tech-enthusiast. I like to learn and explore new tech stuffs. Learning is a never ending process, I am learning Python, Blogging is a wonderful medium to share my learning with other people, It in turn helps me learn faster and better.

Monetizing blogs is not my primary motive but will plan in near future. With that being said I plan to continue Blogging and sharing my knowledge as I learn and grow. Sharing few key reasons of, Why do I blog?

1. Document the learning

I am a self taught developer and have a habit of documenting my learning. Blogging makes it easier for me to write and express my ideas.

2. Teach and Share my personal experience

For me blogging is form to express my take at something. It in turns provides me an opportunity to grow. I wish to help programmers overcome the fear barrier and provide the the little push that they think they need to start their journey through my personal experience.

3. Get better through feedback and suggestions

The best way to learn anything is practice. Feedbacks play a vital role for a writer as getting a third perspective always helps. If I blog, I get regular feedbacks and suggestions. Positive ones motivate me to write more, whereas, the negative ones, help me grow, help me get better.

4.Expand my network and connect with like-minded people

Blogging can serve as a medium of communication, it opens a channel to connect with like-minded people from all over the world that share the same interests as us. We can learn from each other and even collaborate in projects that would help to boost our career to the next level.

Final Thoughts:

I aim to continue to do my bit to contribute to shape the community a better place for developers as I remember the time I wrote my first blog. I couldn't have done it without the support by the DEV community throughout my journey. I try to do my level best to contribute to the DEV community and support fellow bloggers in shaping the Community a better place for us. For most people, the first step is always the toughest. I try to help people. This serves as a primary reason which pushes me to write, not just for me but to help developers who are beginners and new to the DEV Community.

MY MOTO: Let's learn and grow together and make the DEV Community a better place for developers.

Thank you for reading, I would love to connect with you at Twitter | LinkedIn.

Do share your valuable suggestions, I appreciate your honest feedback!

You should definitely check out my other Blogs:

• Python 3.9: All You need to know
• The Ultimate Python Resource hub
• GitHub CLI 1.0: All you need to know
• Become a Better Programmer
• How to make your own Google Chrome Extension
• Create your own Audiobook from any pdf with Python
• You are Important & so is your Mental Health!

See you in my next Blog article, Take care