Introduction to RBO

For many years now I have been trying to start my own blog. I just never got around to it. My go to excuse to myself was: “I just don’t have time. I am too busy juggling family, work and life.” The truth is, there is time, you just have to make some time available and cut some time out of other unimportant areas in your life, whilst keeping a balance of course.

When trying to find half an hour to an hour a day, a few days a week, to deploy the blog and write these posts, I actually noticed I have more time available than I initially thought. Don’t get me wrong, I love taking a break and just vegging it out on the couch with a good movie, series or sport. In the end, when I counted all of those hours over the course of a few months and a year, it was pretty scary how much time I spent in front of the television or wasting time on other non-essential activities.

I also found it ironic how the more “busy” I have become over the years, the more time I actually have, whereas when I watched a lot of TV or played computer games it felt like I had no time at all. I even now have a family with two kids, but yet here I am starting my blog after years of being a bachelor.

Secondly, don’t procrastinate or day dream about it, just go sit in front of your computer and do it. I used to tell myself: “Let’s do it tomorrow”, but that never happened. There is no time like the present and if you are like me and you want to start a blog or a website, just go and do it now (obviously after reading the rest of my post first).

Anyways enough about time and procrastination and getting back to the blog, I wanted to always write about technical topics. I have recently been writing some technical articles at work and posting them on the internal Wiki’s. I really enjoyed it.

I specifically wanted to write about Python software development, the Python eco-system and packages as well as the Python community. I love Python, if it was not already obvious enough. I can’t thank Guido and the PSF enough for the language and community they created.

It was not the first programming language I learned, but it was the first one that stuck and where I actually used it for work and larger projects. I learned Delphi and Pascal at school, C++ at university and played around with Javascript, C# and Java, but none of them appealed to me the way Python did.

I believe Python found its way into my mind, heart and fingers:

• with its clean look (I prefer the whitespace of Python way more than the curly braces and over complicated syntax semantics of its peers);

• the batteries included standard library and thousands of packages on PyPi;

• and of course who can forget those peculiar yet practical and clever ideas contained in the Zen of Python.

So without further ado, here we go, my first post, well technically my second as this introduction was the first. Please do reach out to me on Twitter or LinkedIn with your thoughts about my blog or if you just want to talk about Python.

Thank you for your time and support, really appreciate it.