Python

How to deal with the pain of “unable to find vcvarsall.bat”

April 11, 2016 Apr 11, 2016 04/11/16

Steve Dower

Python's packaging ecosystem is one of its biggest strengths, but Windows users are often frustrated by packages that do not install properly. One of the most common errors you'll see is this one: As far as errors go, "unable to find vcvarsall.bat" is not the most helpful. What is this mythical batch file? Why do I need it? Where can I get ...

Implementing a code of conduct for all of our open source work

March 29, 2016 Mar 29, 2016 03/29/16

Brett Cannon

When working in the open source world it is very important that everyone feels welcome and safe. External contributors to a project need to feel welcome so that they want to contribute to the project. Since contributing to open source is an inherently social event due to the fact that there will be interactions through issues, code reviews, ...

Azure Python SDK 2.0.0rc2 is out! Why it’s a major step for Azure with Python.

March 29, 2016 Mar 29, 2016 03/29/16

lmazuel

My name is Laurent and I recently moved from France to join the Python team at Microsoft. Along with the rest of our team, I am responsible for maintaining the Azure Python SDK, and we are glad to announce the 2.0.0 RC2 version! This is a major step for Python on Azure and the product of several teams collaborating in Microsoft to establish a...

What do your users really think? Using Text Analytics to understand GitHub Issue Sentiment

March 21, 2016 Mar 21, 2016 03/21/16

Christopher Wilcox

Ever get the feeling your users aren't that happy with your project? We all get those issues that are real downers on our repository. So I thought, let's take these issues and make something fun. Using the Text Analytics Service and the WordCloud Python package, we can make some pretty pictures out of otherwise negative comments. I also ...

Idiomatic Python: comprehensions

March 14, 2016 Mar 14, 2016 03/14/16

Brett Cannon

We're lucky to have a few people on our team who have been programming in Python for quite a while (I myself have been using the language now for over 15 years). Over the course of time we have picked up various idioms for programming in Python that may not be obvious or widely known for various reasons. To help share some of this knowledge we...

Python 3 is Winning Library Developer Support

March 8, 2016 Mar 8, 2016 03/8/16

Christopher Wilcox

https://notebooks.azure.com/library/rJUgQ81mnpo In 3 months, Python 3 will be better supported than Python 2. Are you using Python 3 for your development? It has been out for 7+ years at this point. So, if you aren't using it, why not? Since December of 2008, the initial release of Python 3, it seems the new version of Python has lived in ...

PyCaribbean 2016

February 29, 2016 Feb 29, 2016 02/29/16

Steve Dower

Last week I attended the first ever PyCaribbean conference, organised by the local community and held in Santo Domingo, the capital city of the Dominican Republic. Conferences like PyCaribbean are an opportunity for Python developers and enthusiasts to come together and meet, network, discuss, and generally enjoy being part of a global ...

Microsoft and Project Jupyter

February 23, 2016 Feb 23, 2016 02/23/16

Christopher Wilcox

Jupyter, formerly IPython, is more than just an execution environment for  Python, R, and many other languages. With code, markdown, inline graphics, and more features, it provides a convenient, browser-based canvas for prototyping, collaborating, and sharing ideas. This environment has been embraced by the community and for good reason...

Talking with Python: Fabrikam Pizza Shack

February 15, 2016 Feb 15, 2016 02/15/16

Steve Dower

Today, we're going to start the next multi-million-dollar pizza chain. You might think that the first thing we need to make pizza is a pizza oven and the ability to make toast without burning it, but who ever became a millionaire by following the "conventional" approach? Instead, we're going to start with the ordering system. The days when ...

Welcome to the Python Engineering blog

February 12, 2016 Feb 12, 2016 02/12/16

Steve Dower

Welcome! We here on the Python team at Microsoft are starting a blog. And since this is the first post, we wanted to give a bit of an introduction of who we are, what we do, and what this blog is for. Microsoft has a Python team? Yes, we do! We are part of the Data Group in Azure, the same group that brings you SQL Server, Azure ML Studio ...