Announcing: Even more Pandas practice problems

One of the high points of my week is writing Bamboo Weekly. It's fun for me to explore topics that I've heard about in the news, and even to reproduce their findings. It's even more fun to read a story in the newspaper a few days or weeks after I've explored a topic, and be able to assess their judgment based on actual data.

I keep hearing from BW subscribers that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it – which is music to my ears.

I've just released a number of improvements to Bamboo Weekly, and wanted to share them with you:

1. Old issues are fully open to the public. Until now, the full set of questions and answers were visible only to paid BW subscribers, including LernerPython+data subscribers. This will still be the case — but as of now, when an issue becomes two years old, it becomes open, no signup or subscription needed. Right now, this means everyone can read issues #1 (Government corruption) through #78 (Stock markets), a total of 155 posts with more than 500 Pandas exercises and fully worked-out solutions and explanations. New issues will open up as they reach their two-year anniversary. Not all of the data is current, the Pandas queries don't always reflect my current preferences, and the AI-generated images weren't always as cute as they are today. But this does give you a steady stream of interesting, real-world data problems and solutions — not the toy problems you see in far too many textbooks. I hope that this will give many more people the opportunity to explore, learn from, and enjoy a growing collection of interesting data problems.
2. Lots of added documentation and examples. A few months ago, I added two new pages, "Practice by skill" and "Practice by method." These continue to be updated each week, with cross-indexed references to the skills and methods used in each BW issue. As of today, I've expanded the "Practice by method" page to include detailed documentation and explanations about 16 common Pandas methods, from resample to groupby, from pivot_table to pipe, with more coming soon. The first mention of a method in a BW solution article will continue (as always) to be a link, but it'll now point to the BW article on the topic, rather than directly to the Pandas documentation. Methods I haven't yet written up continue to point directly to the Pandas documentation.
3. Integration with the LernerPython practice system. Each of the new method-explanation pages also links to an exercise on my practice system, the same one that powers all of the exercises at LernerPython.com. You can see all of the exercises at https://practice.lernerpython.com/classroom/bamboo-weekly/, and can use them to improve your skills, free of charge.

All this is possible thanks to paid BW subscribers, including members of LernerPython+data. They not only get access to all of the questions and answers, but also to office hours. Thanks for allowing me to research, write, and publish this newsletter every week!

I'm always trying to find ways to make Bamboo Weekly more interesting, relevant, and helpful. If you have any suggestions, just drop me a line at reuven@LernerPython.com; it'll go straight to my inbox.

Reuven