Python presentations

[Jean-Michel Pichavant]

----- Original Message -----
> I have to give a couple of Python presentations in the next weeks,
> and
> I'm still thinking what is the best approach.
> 
> In one presentation for example I will present decorators and context
> managers, and my biggest doubt is how much I should show and explain
> in
> slides and how much in an interactive way (with ipython for example).
> 
> For my experience if I only see code in slides I tend not to believe
> that it works somehow, but also only looking at someone typing can be
> hard to follow and understand what is going on..
> 
> So maybe I should do first slides and then interactive demo, or the
> other way around, showing first how everything works and then
> explaining
> the code with slides.
> 
> What do you think work best in general?
> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
> 

I don't like decorators, I think they're not worth the mental effort. So if I were to intend to your presentation, I'd really like you to start demonstrating how decorators are life savers, or with less emphasis, how they can be worth the effort and make me regret all these years without decorators.

Some features in python have this WoW! effect, try to trigger it in front of your audience, that should really help them focus on the subject and be interested in your presentation.

Also try to keep the presentation interactive by asking questions to your audience (unless some of them are already participating), otherwise people will be snoring or texting after 20 minutes.

I think the key for a presentation is to make people interested in the subject and make them realize they can benefit from what you're presenting. Everyone can then google 'python decorators' for the technical and boring details.

I must add that I'm not en experienced presenter, so take my advices for what they're worth (hmm not sure about this grammatical construct :-/ )

JM