talkpython/mastering-pycharm-course

Course demos and handouts for Talk Python's Effective PyCharm course

Effective PyCharm course

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Resources

JetBrain's PyCharm Cheat Sheet

• Windows/Linux
• macOS

Course Summary

PyCharm is the premier Python IDE (integrated development environment). You will be hard-pressed to find an editor that gives a more holistic way to build Python applications. While powerful, IDEs can be daunting to learn with all their features. That's why this course shows you how they all work.

What's this course about and how is it different?

This course will teach you to be extremely proficient with PyCharm.

We dive deep into every aspect of the IDE. From project management and using the editor to advanced database management features and the refactoring tools, you will see PyCharm in action and try them out for yourself.

In this course, you will:

• Learn to manage Python projects in PyCharm (large and small)
• Create web applications (Pyramid, Flask, Django, and more)
• Use PyCharm's special data science mode
• Refactor your Python code with confidence
• Learn about code smells and duplicate code tooling
• Access git, GitHub, and use git flow
• Use the visual debugger to understand code flow and state
• Make your code more reliable with unit testing and pytest
• Create new Python packages
• And lots more

View the full course outline.

Who is this course for?

For anyone who has never used PyCharm: You will see what a true Python IDE has to offer in a concrete and demo-focused tour de force.

Existing PyCharm users: Your IDE has a wealth of features that you might not even know exist. You will see and explore most of them in this course!

Concepts backed by concise visuals

While exploring a topic interactively with demos and live code is very engaging, it can lose the forest for the trees. That's why when we hit a new topic, we stop and discuss it with concise and clear visuals.

Here's an example of concepts reviewing the database tools within PyCharm.

Hands-on exercises for almost every chapter

Learning IDEs can be hard. There are just so many features. Unless you build that muscle memory with practice, most of them will be forgotten. Effective PyCharm has hands-on exercises for almost every chapter of the course.

These exercises range in length from 10 minutes to about 30 minutes each.

Take the course

Check out the course page for more details.

mastering-pycharm-course's Issues

Need a help

a[::] statment has no effect
Error in LIST
Please do help

Demonstrate issue / task tracking in PyCharm

The comment for this issue. Just for a screenshot in the book.

UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xff in position 304: invalid start byte

In the file searcher app, users have run into this error:

UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xff in position 304: invalid start byte

The problem here is there is a binary file that is being fed to the read text file option (open(file, 'r')). Here is the fix:

def search_file(filename, search_text):
    
    # NOTE: We haven't discussed error handling yet, but we
    # cover it shortly. However, some folks have been running
    # into errors where this is passed a binary file and crashes.
    # This try/except block catches the error and returns no matches.
    try:

        # matches = []
        with open(filename, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as fin:

            line_num = 0
            for line in fin:
                line_num += 1
                if line.lower().find(search_text) >= 0:
                    m = SearchResult(line=line_num, file=filename, text=line)
                    # matches.append(m)
                    yield m

            # return matches
    except UnicodeDecodeError:
        print("NOTICE: Binary file {} skipped.".format(filename))

Package lesson text might add something about which directory

It mentions:
sys.path.extend(['/Users/mkennedy/Desktop/pak'])

Perhaps should mention users directory where he/she should point to...

The course is called "Effective Python", the repo still refers to the previous course "Mastering Python"

It's a minor issue. But since I have both courses in my bundle, and that "Mastering" has been superseded by "Effective", it makes one wonder if the the sources were updated but not appropriately linked in the "Effective PyCharm" page

bad_wizard readme

Not sure if it's just me, but after reformatting and removing imports the hero.attack ended up on line 58 of instead of the line 57 stated on lines 44 and 48 of the bad_wizard readme. ;)
I'm using pycharm pro 2018.1.3 and running Linux Mint 18.3

Add version to header/title display

We want the app version in the header!

With current version (2020 May) views.py <> default.py

In the instructions views.py is mentioned. With the current version of tooling and framework it seems default.py is the place this should be added. at least that works.

podcast: service.download_info has problem parsing podcast RSS

I tried to duplicate the code of the podcast example and run it, and got no output.
When I looked into it I saw that ElementTree.fromstring did not work well, and the items that findall created were all empty.

Getting 'Cannot use module name 'service.py' in imports' error in the refactoring module

When I try to do the first part of the Large module smell exercise I get the following error:

The steps I'm trying to do is:

• Select the following two lines

Episode = namedtuple('Episode', 'title link pubdate show_id')
episode_data = {}

• Right-click
• Select 'Refactor / Move'
• Change the filename to service.py
• Click 'Refactor'

I'm not sure if I'm doing it the wrong way or if it might have something do do with my OS and/or version of PyCharm.

I'm running version 2018.2 on Xubuntu 16.04.

Error in 11-scientific-computing README

We actually don't use pandas. https://github.com/talkpython/mastering-pycharm-course/blob/master/your-turn/11-scientific-computing/readme.md#use-pycharms-data-science-mode

Consider adding PyCharm's Jupyter Notebooks support video

Now that PyCharm has more direct support for Jupyter, consider adding a short section on this directly.

PyCharm doesn't see virtual environment

My copy of PyCharm (Professional 2020.02 on macOS Catalina) does not see the virtual environment on first opening a project. I am running Python version 3.8.5, installed in /usr/local/bin by HomeBrew.

I followed the instructions under Your Turn - Configure a complex project.
Step 01 shows the Project in PyCharm
Step 02 shows when I run the program PyCharm uses /usr/local/bin/python3.8
Step 03 shows the project interpreter screen

So, you may want to add to the video a section on what to do if the virtual environment is not the default interpreter:
Step 04 - click the gear icon and choose Add...
Step 05 - the Existing environment choice should show the virtual environment already filled in. Select Existing environment and click OK
Step 06 - running the program now uses the correct Python from the virtual environment

part 12: explicitly list all tool-windows mentioned in chapter

List all the tool windows mentioned in chapter 12 and sorted them
based on the order they appear.

SQL auto-complete doesn't work in Python code in PyCharm 2018.1.4

I'm as confident as I can be that I followed the instructions here word-for-word, but I just could not get any autocomplete/intellisense functionality going on in the last step where it's supposed to happen in the .py file.

I've got the virtual env set up with requirements installed. That virtual env is the project interpreter. I've got the data source added. I've typed (not pasted) the string in...nothing

I regard this as low priority

Readme uses Google style docstrings

@mikeckennedy , There's a discrepancy between the instructions and the behavior of PyCharm.
The README has an example using Google style docstrings:
https://github.com/talkpython/mastering-pycharm-course/blame/main/your-turn/02-the-editor/readme.md#L63

but Pycharm uses regular style by default. Some students may find this confusing.

Tkinter widgets in Pycharm Ubuntu not matching inline with columnspan

Hello, hope everyone is doing well,
I'm new to python and I'm coding out my project but can't get the widgets to match each other vertically, I've used columnspan but still, any help?

"Add method wake_up to Wizard class" is not working

The instruction below is not working, as you can see on the attached image.

"Notice that wake_up should have some warning about it not existing. Put your cursor on wake_up, press alt-enter, and choose "Add method wake_up to Wizard class"."

Instructions say 'Folder' when 'File' may be more accurate

This line: "Create a folder next to views.py called fake_data.py. Copy this method into that file:" (emphasis added) would probably me more accurate if it said:

"Create a file next to views.py"

4 Tracks?

In your-turn | 05-databases | readme should line 32 be changed from

There should be 5 tracks that match.

to

There should be 4 tracks that match.?

Your turn: 4-Refactoring - Expected Final Version Gives Diff Results

I'm a Python noob so I may just be confused, but the latest podcast resulting from expected_final_version is 1 less than the latest podcast resulting from the smelly_podcast. I don't think was intended. You can fix this by adding "+1" at the end of line 19 on the program.py file under expected_final_version. Not sure this is the sexy Python way of fixing it.

Also, when I follow the instructions:

Next up, we have "GET LATEST SHOW ID". We want a method that will return that value. So highlight just max(episode_data.keys()) in the line:

latest_show_id = max(episode_data.keys())

Choose extract method again. Notice that this time, PyCharm found another usage (duplicate code!) we can replace that with this method call too (automatically).

Refactoring to Method doesn't find another usage for duplicate code.

For the instructions:

Finally, notice the remaining section label "DISPLAY RESULTS".

Highlight that and extract it to display_results().

Rerun your program (again, and again). It's still working right? OK then, carry on.

I end up with a display_results() method with "latest_show_id" and "oldest_show_id" as parameters.

bad_wizard missing Wizard.attack() function

Class Wizard in 2-the editor folder is missing an the .attack() function. This is causing an unresolved reference in the program.py file (note, this was probably a miss, but could be added to instructions on how to resolve)

service.py is empty

Hi Mike,

service.py is empty. I guess it's an accident?
mastering-pycharm-course/your-turn/4-refactoring/smelly_podcast/service.py

Web Application - Creating Pyramid project with Chameleon templates

This isn't necessarily a mistake in your book, but PyCharm currently has a bug that isn't getting a lot of attention. the bug prevents anyone from following through the chapter as written. JetBrains is aware of it, here's the following post I found regarding it that provides a link to their YouTrack page of the bug https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360005076019-PyCharm-Pyramid-Project-with-Chameleon-Templates-Selected

Hopefully you can provide a work around for the time being?

Python ModuleNotFoundError

I have been struggling with the ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'requests' error for a while now. I am running Python 3.8 on a Windows 10 platform. I downloaded the python-jumpstart-course-demos files using the GitHub Desktop app. This error is affecting everything I am attempting to do with Python in PyCharm. I believe that it may be a path issue. Usually when I import a library this error appears.

4-refactoring - smelly_podcast doesn't run

I have downloaded the 4-refactoring for Your turn: Refactoring.
I am getting following when I run it.

Welcome to the talk python info downloader.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Desktop/mastering-pycharm-course/mastering-pycharm-course/your-turn/4-refactoring/smelly_podcast/program.py", line 56, in <module>
    main()
  File "/Desktop/mastering-pycharm-course/mastering-pycharm-course/your-turn/4-refactoring/smelly_podcast/program.py", line 41, in main
    end = random.randint(130, latest_id + 1)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/lib/python3.8/random.py", line 248, in randint
    return self.randrange(a, b+1)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/lib/python3.8/random.py", line 226, in randrange
    raise ValueError("empty range for randrange() (%d, %d, %d)" % (istart, istop, width))
ValueError: empty range for randrange() (130, 27, -103)
Working with total of 25 episodes

Process finished with exit code 1

The Python version I have in the virtual environment is 3.8.2 and I have version 2020.1.1 Professional Edition on an iMac with macOS Catalina.

Part 7 - Quick info re Cython extensions on Linux

Just a quick comment re the Cython extensions under Linux in Part 7.

I'm currently running 2018.2 and at least from that version you no longer need to manually cut-paste the instructions for how to install the Cython extensions for debugging.

There's the normal 'install something' link being displayed and you just click that and PyCharm sorts it all for you.

Nothing major, just a minor change in behaviour that may or may not be useful to add if you update the content at some stage in the future.

Cheers, Mike

Is PyCharm professional required for the Data Science "Your Turn" Lab?

Is PyCharm Professional Edition required for the data science "Your Turn: lab? If so, you might want to list that at the top of the "Your Turn" lab. Thanks!

The course may have mentioned this prerequisite, but I think PyCharm Professional Edition is required for the Data Science Lab. I spent some time trying to figure out how to turn on Data Science Mode, and couldn't find it in the new project wizard.

Then I stumbled upon this:
https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115000682290-PyCharm-EAP-where-s-the-scientific-mode-

and this:
https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/features/editions_comparison_matrix.html

I could be wrong, but it looks like you need Professional Edition for this lab.

Thanks,
Andrew