Last week, I finally started exploring textual. The main motivation was to start implementing a few project ideas I've had in my todo list for years. I don't particularly have a preference between TUI (terminal user interface) and GUI (graphical user interface) for these projects. Seeing a few Textual demos on twitter (courtesy Will McGugan) over the past few months, I felt like exploring this framework first.

For my first app, I picked a 4x4 board game — like Tic Tac Toe but form a square instead of a line. I came up with this variation in high school and been fond of coding it since college days.

Quoting from What's New In Python 3.11:

Atomic grouping ((?>...)) and possessive quantifiers (*+, ++, ?+, {m,n}+) are now supported in regular expressions. (Contributed by Jeffrey C. Jacobs and Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-433030.)

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If you are not familiar with regular expressions, see my Understanding Python re(gex)? ebook to get started.

I posted a coding challenge in the tenth issue of learnbyexample weekly. I discuss the problem and various solutions in this blog post.

In this post, I review Automating Excel with Python by Michael Driscoll. From the introduction chapter of this book:

The purpose of this book is to help you learn how to use Python to work with Excel. You will be using a package called OpenPyXL to create, read, and edit Excel documents with Python. While the focus of this book will be on OpenPyXL, you will also learn about other Python packages that you can use to interact with Excel using the Python programming language.

TL;DR: Started and ended the year well, with a depressing period in the middle. Published three programming ebooks, several blog posts, started a newsletter, improved Twitter readership, read 80+ novels, and so on. Had a good year in terms of ebook sales 😇

I posted a coding challenge in the fifth issue of learnbyexample weekly. I discuss the problem and Python/Perl solutions in this blog post.

(2023-03-20) Update: This TUI app covers many more exercises compared to the GUI app discussed below.

Still confused about Python regular expressions? Grow your confidence with Understanding Python re(gex)? ebook (FREE this month!) and an interactive GUI app.

Inspired by Advent of Code, I'll also be posting 3 challenges per day on twitter for 25 days.

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Here's some exciting programming deals for my own ebooks as well sales details from other creators.

I posted a coding challenge in the second issue of learnbyexample weekly. I discuss the problem and Python/Perl solutions in this blog post.

Hello!

I'm excited to announce learnbyexample weekly newsletter, scheduled to be delivered every Friday.

This free newsletter will help you discover awesome programming resources. I'll primarily focus on resources related to Python, Linux, CLI tools, Regular Expressions and Vim. Sometimes, I'll also include other programming resources.