[Edu-sig] 1 hour introduction to Python

[Grégoire Dooms]

Hello,
next friday I'll give a one hour hands-on Python introduction to our 
students in second year of Bsc in Computer Science.
The course is part of a tools class (other courses in this class are 
about svn, latex and so on).
They already know Java and Oz.

The first objective of the course is to arm them with shell scripting 
tools but I would like to convince them to continue 
learning/using/loving it for other tasks too.

I think I will basically do this (10-15 minutes per item) :
- language syntax
- read/write files, os.listdir and glob.glob
- os.system, os.popen, urllib.urlopen
- online documentation and other resources

Do you have ideas of subjects/features I could show them  ? Or useful 
resources ?
--
Grégoire Dooms


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Re: [Edu-sig] 1 hour introduction to Python

[Arthur]

Grégoire Dooms wrote:

Hello,
next friday I'll give a one hour hands-on Python introduction to our 
students in second year of Bsc in Computer Science.
The course is part of a tools class (other courses in this class are 
about svn, latex and so on).
They already know Java and Oz.

The first objective of the course is to arm them with shell scripting 
tools but I would like to convince them to continue 
learning/using/loving it for other tasks too.

I think I will basically do this (10-15 minutes per item) :
- language syntax
- read/write files, os.listdir and glob.glob
- os.system, os.popen, urllib.urlopen
- online documentation and other resources
  

Just suggest that you include in documentation the kind of questions 
one can answer for oneself from the interactive prompt.  I actually find 
it relatively rare to need to go to the formal docs.  dir(..) seems to 
answer a very decent % of the kinds of questions I tend to run into in 
practice - together with a measure of trial and error from the prompt.

Art

Do you have ideas of subjects/features I could show them  ? Or useful 
resources ?
--
Grégoire Dooms


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Re: [Edu-sig] Entering Squeakland

[Scott David Daniels]

kirby urner wrote:
 I think you owe it to yourself, and perhaps to us, to understand  and
 express why Squeak does not represent the perfect environment for pursuing
 the kind of educational ideas that you tend to express. If it in fact does
 not
 My own concerns start exactly there - with the word environment.

 My understanding is that many conclude that too much environment is what
 doomed Smalltalk to a  minor role in today's software world.
 
 Yes, there's lots to say about this (most of it not by me).  In
 SmallTalk what you save is the image -- which is the world as you've
 massaged it and messaged it up until now.  You pass whole worlds
 around, more than fragments thereof.  Context becomes everything.

This is both the strength and weakness of Smalltalk:
Then environment is a single, learnable model.  You can look into the
guts and see how it works.  Yo can change the way the system works and
see the effects of the change.  This is gold for the tinkerers among us. 
  What techie-kid has not wanted to take things apart and see how they
work with a bit of a twist?

It becomes hard to build separate things that work well with anybody's
hallucination of what the core is.  This is a problem with Lisp and Ruby
systems as well.

The other problem is the one world model which Smalltalk shares with
Lisp, APL, and Prolog (and many others).

 My guess is SmallTalk wizards long ago added the atomism people were
 missing, but by that time, the other language designers had already
 absorbed the OO paradigm, and were reimplementing it in C (to give us
 C++, Java, C#) and in Python.

But many shared Smalltalk things involve mucking with the core objects:
This is my nifty whizz-bang: just add these methods to 'object' and
then you'll find that 


-- Scott David Daniels
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: [Edu-sig] 1 hour introduction to Python

[w chun]

On 3/11/06, Grégoire Dooms [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Hello,
 next friday I'll give a one hour hands-on Python introduction to our
 students in second year of Bsc in Computer Science.
 The course is part of a tools class (other courses in this class are
 about svn, latex and so on).
 They already know Java and Oz.

 I think I will basically do this (10-15 minutes per item) :
 - language syntax
 - read/write files, os.listdir and glob.glob
 - os.system, os.popen, urllib.urlopen
 - online documentation and other resources

 Do you have ideas of subjects/features I could show them  ? Or useful
 resources ?


i have a one-hour presentation that i give to university students when
i get a chance to speak at one with an appropriate group.  attached is
the abstract of a talk i gave late last year to computer science
graduate students at san francisco state univ.

if you think a copy of my slide presentation would help you further,
just write me privately.

cheers,
-- wesley
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Core Python Programming, Prentice Hall, (c)2006,2001
http://corepython.com

wesley.j.chun :: wescpy-at-gmail.com
cyberweb.consulting : silicon valley, ca
http://cyberwebconsulting.com
info on my talk...

cheers,
-wesley


TITLE
What is Python?
/TITLE

ABSTRACT
Python http://python.org is an agile applications development programming 
language that is quickly gaining worldwide popularity. Downloads rocketed from 
200GB average per month in 2001 to 1.3TB in Feb 2005! What is Python all about 
and what can you do with it?

Although initially recognized for building Web/CGI applications, Python has 
become well-known for so much more: it is interpreted, interactive and 
inherently object-oriented in nature, featuring an easy-to-learn syntax that is 
clear and concise. It combines the robustness and power of a compiled language 
with the simplicity, low maintenance, portability and short development time of 
an interpreted scripting language. Engineers no longer have to concern 
themselves with memory management, language syntax, or managing complex data 
types -- you simply just think and code your solution!

Python is often compared to Perl, JavaScript, PHP, Tcl/Tk, C/C++, Ruby, and 
Java, and in many situations, presents a viable and advantageous alternative 
because of its ease-of-use, rapid development time, and innate nature of 
encouraging group collaboration.  Python is also available on both Java and 
.NET platforms: Jython is a Java-compiled Python interpreter which runs 
anywhere a JVM is available and provides access to Java class libraries, thus 
giving Java a scripting language development environment! Python classes can 
interact with Java classes and vice versa, making Jython a powerful tool in 
Java development. The Python implementation for .NET/Mono is called IronPython 
and will see an official release soon.

In addition to Win32, MacOS, and most UNIX-oriented operating systems, you will 
find Python almost anywhere, even Playstation, GameCube, Zaurus, and Nokia 
Series 60 phones!  There are plenty of standard library as well as 3rd party 
modules to help you get your job done, and if it still doesn't suit your needs, 
Python can even be extended (in C/C++, Java, or C#).  Python is currently used 
at Google, Yahoo!, Disney/Go.com, NASA, Industrial Light and Magic, Red Hat, 
CCP Games (makers of EVE Online), and many research facilities around the globe.
/ABSTRACT

BIO
WESLEY J. CHUN, with degrees in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Music from 
the University of California, is a full-time Software Engineer at IronPort 
Systems http://ironport.com, creating applications which run on an e-mail 
security gateway appliance, and in his spare time, serves as a Principal with 
over two decades of programming and instructional experience at CyberWeb 
Consulting http://cyberwebconsulting.com, specializing in software engineering, 
website design, corporate training, and technical documentation.

Mr. Chun is also a coordinator for the Silicon Valley-San Francisco Bay Area 
Python users group (BayPIGgies http://baypiggies.net), a volunteer moderator 
for the Python Tutor mailing list, and the author of Core Python Programming 
http://corepython.com -- the Python book in Prentice Hall's popular Core series 
(2nd ed. coming Summer 2006) -- as well as various technical articles for Linux 
Journal and cNet. Previously, he was an engineer at Synarc, Yahoo!, Sun, HP, 
Rockwell, Legato, and Xilinx.  While at Yahoo!, he helped create Yahoo!Mail and 
Yahoo! People Search using Python.
/BIO


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