For a previous year / day I learned that you can take the boarding pass as a 10-bit binary number.

Thanks to this I could replace a lot of range/partition code with a single `int(..., 2)`.

Unlocking new mental models! 📈

Want a structured plan to bridge the gap between "code contributor" and "technical leader"?

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The intersection of all three (A ∩ M ∩ S)?

That’s the AI Age Unicorn 🦄 — the technical leader who can execute the vision and lead the team.

Architect (A): Defining the technical vision and system strategy.

Engineering Manager (M): Leading and optimizing people and processes.

Senior Software Engineer (S): Mastering complex execution and deep code contributions.

I think to thrive the future software engineer 3 most valuable skills will be:

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Cool things I learned:
- work with different panels making a nice layout
- open files in an overlaying Vim window
- fuzzy search to target different repos from within the TUI

Amazingly I have a pretty rich + functioning interface with little over 300 LOC 📈

Nice reminder: if you only care about the top K items, reach for heapq instead of a full sort.

Refactor:

- sorted(..., key=... )[:top_n] ➡️ heapq.nsmallest(top_n, ...)
- sorted(..., key=..., reverse=True)[:top_n] ➡️ heapq.nlargest(top_n, ...)

Same behaviour, but now it’s O(n log k) instead of O(n log n) when k << n.

On Python >= 3.10? Long if/elif chains are prime candidates for this.

And seeing match/case so much in Rust, I appreciate it even more in Python now 🐍😍

What other (more_)itertools gems have you used recently? 💬

👉 Where have Rust (or other language)-inspired patterns improved your Python the most?

--
None of this turns Python into Rust, but borrowing (no pun intended 😄) Rust’s strictness makes your Python code more predictable, easier to refactor, and more pleasant to work in.