[Baypiggies] newbie nuggets

[Anna Ravenscroft]

On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 4:21 PM, Shannon -jj Behrens <jjinux at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was talking with a friend today, and he brought up the fact that we
> hadn't had a newbies night in a long time.  I think that the problem
> with having a newbies night every year or so is that there are
> programmers who have to learn Python all year long.  Clearly, there
> are training classes, but I think we could do more.
>
> I'd like to propose a slight addition to our normal meetings called
> "newbie nuggest".  I propose that *at the beginning of each meeting*,
> we have a *10 minute* section devoted to newbies in which we cover one
> intermediate topic.

Or pretty basic topics (not "this is a string" but "this is the new
string templating")

>   It doesn't make sense to cover how to write a
> "for" loop every month, but it would make sense to cover something
> like generators.
>
> The format is that one person covers one topic.  Slides are optional.
> Showing some code, perhaps in the Python shell, is required.  I think
> this would be a great way to give some of the less advanced Python
> programmers something to contribute to BayPiggies.  Even if you don't
> know what how to write a function decorator now, you could probably
> learn it well enough to talk about it for 10 minutes before the next
> meeting.
>
> Here are some suggested topics:
>
> * Function decorators.
> * List comprehensions.
> * Generators and generator expressions.
> * Function pointers and map.
> * Using "else" with "for",  "while", and "except".
> * Using StringIO.
> * Using IPython (and installing it with an egg).
> * Using "try/finally" with file handles vs. using the "with" statement.
> * Using lambda.
>
* Starting with pygame!
* using datetime
* using decimal
* using pytz
* file handling basics
* string formatting/templating

> I think these could be short, sweet, and helpful for a decent
> percentage of our audience.

+1
Great idea JJ! And I like starting the meeting with newbie-friendly
stuff - so they don't have to wait through more advanced stuff to get
to something they can understand.

-- 
cordially,
Anna
--
Walking through the water. Trying to get across.
Just like everybody else.