[Chicago] Python-heavy job opening

[Brian Curtin]

On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 1:53 PM, sheila miguez <shekay at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 12:58 PM, T Wilson <wilson.tamarrie at gmail.com> wrote:
>> hey Sheila,
>>
>>    What happened to the amateur python class you was going to put together?
>
> I'm glad you asked.
>
> Here's my state of the union of something.
>
> 1. ChipyFans
> 2. Chicago Python Workshop
> 3. Hack nights
> 4. Questions!
>
> 1. ChipyFans
>
> First off, join the ChipyFans meetup group,
> <http://www.meetup.com/ChiPyFans/>. I'm going to post future workshops
> there and retire the meetup group I made. Other people will post
> things there too, not just me. Infact, things are already there.
>
> 2. Chicago Python Workshop
>
> We've had one so far, and are planning another in December. These both
> are workshops for improving diversity in the python community, a la
> Railsbridge, Boston Python Workshop, PyStar, etc. You can see the
> curriculum and organization from the wiki home,
> <https://openhatch.org/wiki/Chicago_Python_Workshop>.
>
> In the future I'd like to be able to organize some more general
> beginner workshops, and then also some intermediate ones.  But I have
> to pace them out because I can't manage more than one every couple of
> months. Maybe once I have more experience I can do them more
> frequently. Right now I'm still learning a lot.
>
> 3. Hack nights
>
> I want to make sure everyone knows about the non-workshop project
> nights that happen around the city.
>
> There are some non-workshop events I've been attending:
>
> I've been trying to make it to all of the ps:one python office hours,
> and started a wiki page for it,
> <http://wiki.pumpingstationone.org/Python_Office_Hours>, I'd like to
> have some pages up for starting points for people to follow based on
> what they are interested in. For example, if someone doesn't have a
> project, they could show up and follow a self-paced curriculum like
> the Chicago Python Workshop's, which is completely for beginning
> programming, or they could follow some other curricula, to be
> determined. Around 5 to 10 people typically show up for office hours.
> I actually expected a little more, maybe we should send out more
> announcements? suggestions? Maybe it's just that people don't get to
> that part of the city if they don't live around there?

I think you should send more announcements, and perhaps people could
be a bit more talkative on the list when they're going to attend these
events. Just a simple "hey I'm heading to <event>, anyone else going?"
would work. Hopefully that's not too much noise for the list to see a
few small announcements like that.

On the other user groups lists I see, people tend to post about an
event and then a few people will follow up to say they're going, then
it sets off a chain reaction and people show up. Sometimes I think the
quiet turns people off. In the sprint I tried to organize about a year
ago, I got good vibes when asking in person, but when I sent the
emails only one person responded in private. I ended up ditching the
idea because I never heard from anyone...then I ended up hearing in
private that people would have just shown up.

We don't really need this with the standard ChiPy meetings since we
have the RSVP system, but I think people tend to be more interested in
going if they know others will be there.

> I found out about OpenHack Wednesdays at FreeGeek
> <http://freegeekchicago.org/calendar>, and I'm going to try to make
> those at least once a month. I haven't been to one yet, but I heard
> someone there teaches python, and has been teaching flask.
>
> 4. Questions
>
> Why don't more of you show up at ps:one for python office hours?
> Sometimes I see people ask questions on the mailing list, but they
> don't show up to the office hours. When I started going to the office
> hours, I expected more people to be there due to all the questions on
> the mailing list. Is it because you didn't know about them? because of
> the location? the time?

I don't know anything about them. Well, I could guess what they are
based on the name and what you've said of the event, but I've never
had a proper introduction to PSOne or the office hours setup.

> What kinds of topics would people like to have in a workshop? I would
> like some pandas stuff.
>
> Do we ever want a project night for a chipy meeting, or should chipy
> meetings always be talks? The Boston group has project nights.

Boston does both as far as I know.

Personally, I have more side projects than I know what to do with so I
don't really plan on adding any more, but I like the environment that
sprints/hack nights have, so I'd more than likely attend. However, I'd
probably just use the space to do my work in the company of others and
chime in here and there on what's going on, and bounce some ideas off
of others. Working from home and then doing side work all night gets
kind of boring.