Conquering Python for Charitable Orgs
Charitable orgs make the world a better place. I train them for free.
Remote training
Live online training for up to 5 students at a time. Customized, in-depth and personal training. Ten 2-hour sessions, at no cost. See below for topics.
In-person training
In-person clases for up to 25 new programmers, or 50 experienced programmers. I will travel to your location, and will customize the content for your team. Expenses + $500/day, for 3-5 days of training. See below for topics.
Class details
Audience: Anyone with a comfortable background in programming.
Length: 2-3 days, depending on options chosen.
Approach: Each topic starts with a very interactive, discussion-based lecture where I do live coding to explain concepts, punctuated by student exercises. The level of depth for each topic, and what optional topics we cover, is heavily influenced by the interest and needs of the students. Students receive book-length HTML and Jupyter Notebook files of the entire class content.
Pure Python (2 days)
Part 1: Hello Python
- The Object Model: Understanding that everything is an object is the key
- Control Flow: Uh oh, whitespace significance!
- Importing: Using libraries
- Lists: Python is pretty much a language about handling lists
- Strings: Constructing and using strings efficiently
- Files: Reading and writing
- Unicode: Yes, you do need to understand it! And I promise it'll be fun...
- Functions: Python is a quasi-functional language (fighting words)
- Handling Exceptions: It's so much more than just dealing with errors!
Part 2: Lists
- Comprehensions: Finally, you'll understand them
- Sorting: Default sorting and custom sorting
- Tuples: Why is there a kind of list you can't change?
- Sets: The most overlooked incredibly useful class
- Dictionaries: The mini-database
- Generators: The secret gem of Python
Optional topics
You can pick and choose among these based on your needs.
Data Science
- Regular expressions
- Pandas for parsing tabular data
- Series as a first-class Python citizen
- NumPy
- JSON
- Databases using sqlite3
- Map/Filter/Reduce
Automation and Workflow
- Command-line operations in Python: executing other scripts, etc.
- File handling: Copying and moving files around
- Websites: Accessing websites, using JSON
- Packaging code: How to create libraries for you and your team
Object-Oriented Programming
- Creating basic objects: What is this 'self' thing?
- Accessing built-in Python functionality: The 'dunder' methods
- Creating Exceptions
- OOP in Python: decorators, properties, class methods
Unit Testing
- Unit tests
- Test-Driven Development
- unittest2
- pytest