Teaching Pyhton on Wintel

[Kevin Altis]

ActivePython http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Downloads/ActivePython/ might
be best for your purposes if for no other reason than all the major Python
documentation is included as windows help files (.chm) so you don't have to
have web access to teach. The latest release even includes the HowTos, The
Whole Python FAQ, Dive into Python, the Non-programmers tutorial for Python,
etc.

If your scientists are wanting to access some of their existing data sets,
then going over some simple COM (data in Excel) and ODBC (data in Access...)
examples with the Win32 extensions will be a big plus for showing how you
can do useful stuff with a minimum of fuss. If they use web sites that
support XML and/or XML-RPC or SOAP you can show how built-in web tools and
common extensions in Python can allow them to access and automate data
collection they may be doing by hand. Practial task-oriented teaching avoids
the pitfalls of covering too many abstract language features without showing
real results.

ka

"Paul-Michael Agapow" <p.agapow at ic.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:1ev6xe3.15eskd91k2u1eaN%p.agapow at ic.ac.uk...
>
> Call me misguided, but I've decided to teach an introduction to
> programming class using Python. The audience are the scientists in my
> (evolution/ecology research centred biology) department and we'll be
> using the local computer lab, which is kitted out out with a network of
> modestly powered Wintel machines. So:
>
> 1. Any advice on which IDE etc. of Win Python to use?
> 2. Anyone done a similar class, like to advise on approaches or books to
> base it off?
>
> thanks
>
>
> --
> Paul-Michael Agapow (p.agapow at ic.ac.uk), Biology, Imperial College
> "Pikachu's special power is that he's monophyletic with lagomorphs ..."