Issue #717

Unit Testing Performance, Cursor, Recursive match, and More

Jan. 13, 2026

Unit Testing Performance, Cursor, Recursive match, and More
#717 – JANUARY 13, 2026 VIEW IN BROWSER
The PyCoder’s Weekly Logo
Unit Testing Your Code’s Performance
Testing your code is important, but not just for correctness also for performance. One approach is to check performance degradation as data sizes go up, also known as Big-O scaling.
ITAMA TURNER-TRAURING

Tips for Using the AI Coding Editor Cursor
Learn Cursor fast: AI-powered coding with agents, project-aware chat, inline edits, and VS Code workflow – ship smarter, sooner.
REAL PYTHON course

AI Code Review With Comments You’ll Actually Implement
Unblocked is the AI code review that surfaces real issues and meaningful feedback instead of flooding your PRs with stylistic nitpicks and low-value comments. “Unblocked made me reconsider my AI fatigue. ” - Senior developer, Clio. Try now for Free →
UNBLOCKEDsponsor

Recursive Structural Pattern Matching
Learn how to use structural pattern matching (the match statement) to work recursively through tree-like structures.
RODRIGO GIRÃO SERRÃO

PEP 822: Dedented Multiline String (d-String) (Draft)
PYTHON.ORG

PEP 820: PySlot: Unified Slot System for the C API (Draft)
PYTHON.ORG

PEP 819: JSON Package Metadata (Draft)
PYTHON.ORG

Django Bugfix Release: 5.2.10, 6.0.1
DJANGO SOFTWARE FOUNDATION


Articles & Tutorials


Coding Python With Confidence: Live Course Participants
Are you looking for that solid foundation to begin your Python journey? Would the accountability of scheduled group classes help you get through the basics and start building something? This week, two members of the Python for Beginners live course discuss their experiences.
REAL PYTHON podcast

Regex: Searching for the Tiger
Python’s re module is a robust toolset for writing regular expressions, but its behavior often deviates from other engines. Understanding the nuances of the interpreter and the Unicode standard is essential for writing predictable patterns.
SUBSTACK.COM • Shared by Vivis Dev

The Ultimate Guide to Docker Build Cache
Docker builds feel slow because cache invalidation is working against you. Depot explains how BuildKit’s layer caching works, when to use bind mounts vs cache mounts, and how to optimize your Dockerfile so Gradle dependencies don’t rebuild on every code change →
DEPOTsponsor

How We Made Python’s Packaging Library 3x Faster
Underneath pip, and many other packaging tools, is the packaging library which deals with version numbers and other associated markers. Recent work on the library has shown significant speed-up and this post talks about how it was done.
HENRY SCHREINER

Django Quiz 2025
Last month, Adam held another quiz at the December edition of Django London. This is an annual tradition at the meetup, now you can take it yourself or just skim the answers.
ADAM JOHNSON

Live Python Courses: Already 50% Sold for 2026
Real Python’s instructor-led cohorts are filling up. Python for Beginners builds your foundation right the first time. Intermediate Python Deep Dive covers decorators, OOP, and production patterns with real-time expert feedback. Grab a seat before they’re gone at realpython.com/live →
REAL PYTHONsponsor

A Different Way to Think About Python API Clients
Paul is frustrated with how clients interact with APIs in Python, so he’s proposing a new approach inspired by the many decorator-based API server libraries.
PAULWRITES.SOFTWARE • Shared by Paul Hallett

Learn From 2025’s Most Popular Python Tutorials and Courses
Pick from the best Python tutorials and courses of 2025. Revisit core skills, 3.14 updates, AI coding tools, and project walkthroughs. Kickstart your 2026!
REAL PYTHON

Debugging With F-Strings
If you’re debugging Python code with print calls, consider using f-strings with self-documenting expressions to make your debugging a little bit easier.
TREY HUNNER

How to Switch to ty From Mypy
The folks at Astral have created a type checker known as “ty”. This post describes how to move from Mypy to ty, including in your GitHub Actions.
MIKE DRISCOLL

Recent Optimizations in Python’s Reference Counting
This article highlights some of the many optimizations to reference counting that have occurred in recent CPython releases.
ARTEM GOLUBIN


Projects & Code


Brought to you by Real Python for Teamssponsor
Online Python training created by a community of experts. Give your team the real-world Python skills they need to succeed →

yastrider: Defensive String Cleansing and Tidying
GITHUB.COM/BARRANK

gazetteer: Offline Reverse Geocoding Library
GITHUB.COM/SOORAJTS2001

bengal: High-Performance Static Site Generator
GITHUB.COM/LBLIII

PyPDFForm: Fire: The Python Library for PDF Forms
GITHUB.COM/CHINAPANDAMAN

pyauto-desktop: A Desktop Automation Toool
GITHUB.COM/OMAR-F-RASHED

📆🐍 Upcoming Python Events


Weekly Real Python Office Hours Q&A (Virtual)
January 14, 2026

PyData Bristol Meetup
January 15, 2026

PyLadies Dublin
January 15, 2026

Chattanooga Python User Group
January 16 to January 17, 2026

DjangoCologne
January 20, 2026

Inland Empire Python Users Group Monthly Meeting
January 21, 2026
Happy Pythoning!
Copyright © 2026 PyCoder’s Weekly, All rights reserved.