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James Powell: So you want to be a Python expert? | PyData Seattle 2017

PyData
Talks
YouTube
6 HN users recommended this talk6 months2020–2026 score 7.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN calls it one of the best technical talks and the clearest explanation of decorators, generators and context managers.

James Powell's nearly two-hour PyData talk builds up Python's data model, decorators, generators and context managers, coding live in Vim. It aims to take intermediate programmers toward real Python expertise.

“It's legitimately the best technical talk I think I've seen and I can't recommend it highly enough.” (HN, 2020)

3 strong recommendations · 3 recommendations · Talks · intermediate

6 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@mattst88 May 2020 Strongly recommends
on HN thread Resources to Learn Python in 2020
I work professionally in C/C++ and the instances I needed to use Python I always felt like I was missing the core understanding of the language and was writing C in a different syntax. I found James Powell's PyData 2017 talk "So you want to be a Python expert?" ( [this video] ) to be incredible at helping me to gain that core understanding of the language. It's legitimately the best technical talk I think I've seen and I can't recommend it highly enough.
Gives core understanding of Python's data model
@charlysl Jul 2023 Strongly recommends
on HN thread Advanced Python Mastery – A Course by David Beazley
Another good (and entertaining) resource is James Powell's talk "So you want to be a Python expert" [1], the best explanation I've seen of decorators, generators and context managers. Good intro to the Python data (object) model too. [1] [this video]
Explains decorators, generators, context managers and the data model
@barefeg Nov 2022 Recommends
on HN thread Data-Oriented Programming in Python
I recommend any of the talks by James Powell at PyData. For example this one [this video] Edit: maybe this one on Numpy may be more relevant: [link]
James Powell's PyData talks on Python
@jphoward Jan 2023 Recommends
on HN thread Ask HN: Which book would you recommend for learning Python in detail?
James Powell frequently gives very deep Python talks at conferences like Pydata, and shows you his coding approach in real time on Vim. Plenty of them are on YouTube and are worth a watch. This one [1] entitled "So you want to be a Python expert?" has almost half a million views! [1] [this video]
Deep Python talk with live Vim coding
@kengoa Jan 2026 Recommends
on HN thread Ask HN: Reading list for being a better engineer?
Understanding Python's data model helped me become a better software engineer. I'd recommend watching this PyData talk (James Powell: So you want to be a Python expert? | PyData Seattle 2017 - [this video] ) and then using the official doc as a reference which is also fun to read: [link]
Understanding Python's data model improves engineering

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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