How to: Mar 28, 2025
1. freeCodeCamp just published this comprehensive tutorial that will teach you all about Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), and how computers use them to talk to one another. You'll get a full rundown of Clients, Servers, Requests, and Responses. You'll learn about various architectures like REST, SOAP, GraphQL, and gRPC. We've also included tons of diagrams and code examples to help you understand and retain the key concepts. (30 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-api-fundamentals-and-architecture/

2. Lots of people know how to use spreadsheets, but few people know how to use them well. freeCodeCamp just published an Excel crash course that will help you learn the key formulas and functions. It covers Conditional Logic, VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP for searching data, data cleaning methods, common time functions, and more. This is perfect for refreshing your Excel knowledge and learning a few new techniques that you'll inevitably use in the future. (75 minute YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-the-top-excel-formulas-and-functions/

3. On this week's podcast, I interview a developer who didn't get serious about coding until he was 32 years old. Francesco Ciulla says he hated coding and preferred working as a volleyball coach. But he eventually knuckled down and got good at it, and today his code runs on Europe's Copernicus satellites. We talk about his long journey into software engineering, and how even though he's a proud introvert, he's managed to give conference talks and teach fellow developers. (90 minute watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/programming-satellites-at-age-37-with-francesco-ciulla-podcast-165/

4. When you're building Python apps, you don't necessarily need a third-party tool to find performance bottlenecks within your codebase. The Python Standard Library already includes some pretty powerful built-in profiling modules. And this quick freeCodeCamp tutorial will show you how to leverage them. (30 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-pythons-built-in-profiling-tools-examples-and-best-practices/

5. And if you're looking for a fun project idea to practice your Python skills, you can code along at home with this tutorial and do some data analysis on your own YouTube metrics. Even if you just have a single cat video uploaded, that's enough data to play with. You'll learn how to use Jupyter Notebook, Pandas, Seaborn, and Matplotlib. First you'll export your data and run a correlation analysis on it. Then you'll visualize your data using a scatter plot chart. Finally, you'll be able to analyze your audience retention. (15 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/extract-youtube-analytics-data-and-analyze-in-python/

Quote of the Week:
*“I tried so hard
and got so far
but in the end
git push --force origin master”* — Francesco Ciulla, software engineer and guest on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast (In case you didn't get the reference, it's a Linkin Park joke)