DEV Community: Sandra Manyarkiy

On Learning Python

Sandra Manyarkiy — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 21:04:00 +0000

TL;DR - I didn't expect Python to be as much of a pain and joy as it was.

I have been learning Python for the past three months or so now, and I have had a love-hate relationship with the language. When I started out, I was pretty excited about learning Python. Almost every developer I have met with has told me that it is an absolute must that I learn Python. You hear that it's the language of the future, it's the only language that matters in this age, it has such a broad use(which to be fair it is true). The general vibe I was given is, "If you don't know Python, why are you even here?"

So you bet I was excited and very eager to get ahead of the curve while I had this chance. The beginning of the learning was pretty okay. There was the learning of functions and figuring out where it intersected with JavaScript. The transition at the beginning was rough but manageable.

Then came OOP. Now, OOP and I have history, and not a good one. I have always struggled with this topic in Java, so seeing it in Python made my blood run cold. I struggled going through the OOP concepts so badly that I almost gave up on learning them altogether. On some days, I'd just straight up ignore the topic, and on other days, I'd sit on the computer for hours just to get a concept through my head. I will say this though: for any beginners out there, if something isn't sticking, skim over it. When you get into thicker topics, trust me, the harder ones will look a little more enticing once you've gone through muddier waters. Thereafter you can go back to the previously tough topics and it'll make sense from there. At least that's what worked for me.

Anyways, here we are, at the end of the road, or rather, the beginning of one. I sincerely can't wait to see what more I can do with Python. It has been fascinating seeing what I can do using this language, and I know for sure there's lots and lots more to come.

So here's to seeing where this new beginning leads.

Just Finished A Group Project...My Thoughts

Sandra Manyarkiy — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 23:47:56 +0000

What do you do when you're tasked with leading a team, but you don't know much about what you're doing either?
It's always great when you get a project to work on. You have a vision of what you want to work on, the ideas are flowing at 2 a.m. (like they are right now lol), you have an idea of what you'd like to see in your app, and you start going hard working on it—locally and GitHub, locally and on GitHub, back and forth—until you're doing the finishing touches before you submit your work. What happens when you're working in a group?

It becomes... well, complicated. You can't control when everyone will work, so the git conflicts become so much that you feel like crying debugging it for two hours. You don't have a clue what everyone's vision is for the project, and you can't control how individuals code. I have to admit I was not prepared for the task that was ahead of me as a scrum master who barely knows how to code the language. So here are my two cents on how to lead a group when you don't know what you're doing:

Have an introductory meeting - speak to people. These are not people you just need to delegate to, you need to speak to your team to understand who they are, how they work, what are their preferred work times, what are their preferred communication styles. These things go a long way in understanding your team as people you are working with
How do I answer questions? - Google lol. That's how all developers have figured out since the dawn of modern search engines and that's how you'll figure out the answers to your team's questions because let's be real, you don't know the answers to the questions yourself, so don't act like a know-it-all, be humble enough to admit that you don't know and get to researching!
Give benefit of the doubt - Sometimes it's tough to deal with team members because of conflicting personalities but just remember you're probably not easy to deal with either in other situations. Just
Get ahead of the conflicts! - This ties to the point below, communicate with your team how you'd like the team to work, once everyone has spoken about what time they'd like to work, feel free to set clear expectations of what it required for the project and how you'll work(meeting times, distribution of work etc)
Communicate - There were times when I felt that I was talking to the void when I texted in the group, but tbh I'd rather talk to myself than miss out on informing my team about something important. It's important that you let your team know crucial updates when and how they happen.

It's important that you respect the team as much as you would like them to respect you. After all, a great leader serves those who he is tasked to lead. Good luck and Godspeed!

What are some of the toughest group dynamics you've found yourself in?

Why an API?

Sandra Manyarkiy — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 17:07:57 +0000

The simple answer is that using an API enables you to access publicly available data(which is a lot). Your able to access it by sending a request for information to a server and then getting a response with the requested information. Once you receive that data, you're able to work on it.

The long answer? Here we go.

An API is the abbreviation for an Application Programming Interface. It is enables two computers to speak with each other using special protocols. Adding an API to your project allows your computer to communicate with another computer asking for information or retrieving information from the other computer.

I know, I know...a lot of jargon but just hold on....let's break it down:

It is enables two computers to speak with each other using special protocols

To put it simply, this means that two computers(the one you are working/coding on right now and the one storing the information you want) have to have an in-between in order to speak with each other(get information and send requests).
The protocols being spoken about are the sending protocols and the getting protocols(we'll talk about this in another article).

Adding an API to your project allows your computer to communicate with another computer asking for information or retrieving information from the other computer.

As I mentioned, the information you want to use in your computer might be a lot and I mean A LOT. For example, think about the number of restaurants in your country. Do you have that data? Can you get that data by counting all those restaurants? Probably not. This is where the other computer comes in(the information-holder). Someone somewhere already compiled all the restaurants in your country(and beyond) and continues to record that information as the restaurants are open or are closed down. For you to have access to those restaurants, you need to find a way to access the information from the information-holder. An API will ask(request) the information from the information holder and return(retrieve) to you the data that has been found.

I really liked this bee analogy which helped me in understanding what was going on with APIs

I know that learning about APIs can be daunting as it was for me when I first came across it. I was at first confident that it was almost too easy to learn(I mean it's just a URL right?) but then reality hit me when I actually needed the data and all I was getting was errors. So I had to go back to the drawing board to understand why exactly do I need this? Is it useful? and most importantly can I teach it to someone else?(psst...look up the Feynman Technique)