It has been a full year since the launch of Bamboo Weekly. I want to thank you for your subscription, feedback, and support.
I’ve always believed that the best way to learn something is through practice. The good news is that there are many Pandas exercises available, in books and online. However, many of these use data that is dull, fabricated, or unrepresentative of real-world scenarios.
I launched Bamboo Weekly to make improving your Pandas fluency more interesting, fun, and engaging.
I thought—and still think—that real-world exercises, based on topics in the news, are going to be more engaging, interesting, and ultimately effective in helping to learn Pandas.
I hope you’ve been both learning and enjoying from these exercises. I’ve been having a blast putting them together, and I can assure you that I’ve learned and refined no small number of Pandas techniques as a result of composing this newsletter.
Reflections
Like all products, Bamboo Weekly has evolved over time. For example, it took me some time to reach the current formula, in which each week’s first two Q&As are free for everyone, while additional Q&As and resources (e.g., office hours and Jupyter notebooks) are exclusive to paid supporters.
Each issue of Bamboo Weekly takes me about six hours to put together, and that doesn’t include the extensive reading and listening I do to find topics and data sets. Thanks to paid subscribers, I can spend that time putting together BW, rather than teaching Python and Pandas to companies around the world.
My favorite change in the newsletter has been the introduction of illustrations created via ChatGPT’s DALL-E image-creation system. I create about 10 images for each week’s newsletter, and then choose the one or two that I find most appropriate and amusing. I hope that you’ve been enjoying seeing them as much as I’ve enjoyed creating them.
This past year has been a difficult one, marked by my father’s passing and the ongoing conflict in Israel. I appreciate the outpouring of support that I’ve received from so many of you. My father loved the idea of this newsletter and even helped to name it, reflecting his many years as an educator who believed that learning was best when it was done with humor and encouragement.
Looking forward
I’m having a blast writing Bamboo Weekly, and don’t intend to stop any time in the near future. With nearly 4,000 subscribers now, my goal is to reach at least 20,000 in the coming year. Given that the number of active Pandas users is estimated at 5-10 million, I’m sure that this is possible.
Achieving this goal will be easier with your help: If you know someone who uses Pandas, then I’d appreciate you telling them about Bamboo Weekly. And if there are topics that you think would make it a more attractive, interesting, and useful newsletter, then please let me know.
As some of you may know, my new book, “Pandas Workout,” will (finally!) be published in the coming weeks, with more than 200 Pandas exercises. We’re still working out the details, but my publisher (Manning Books) expect that we’ll soon be able to do regular drawings for free books from their extensive catalog.
Finally: I’ve been publishing Bamboo Weekly on Substack during this year, and I don’t regret doing so. However, I’m working on moving to another platform, one that allows me greater integration with my other mailing lists and courses. I’ll let you know when the transition will go live, and I’ll try my hardest to make it as smooth as possible for free and paid subscribers alike.
Thank you again for your support throughout Bamboo Weekly's inaugural year. I appreciate the many comments and notes you’ve sent to me during this time, and look forward to many more years of improving our Pandas skills together.
All the best,
Reuven