Intro to Python Talk, Post-Mortem
posted by brian at 07:30 PM
It only just occurred to me that I should have blogged about this event before it happened to advertise... oh well.
So tonight Chris (with a little help from me) gave an introductory Python talk. It went pretty well and around 15 people showed up, including some surprise Python experts!
I wish I had helped Chris plan it a little better, because afterwards we remembered a couple things we should have mentioned. Some of these include more standard library modules that people might be interested in, like the threading modules, a few more of the common built-in functions (like range, enumerate, sorted), and the Cleveland Python Interest Group.
Other than that, it was a pretty good introduction to Python, from the basics like syntax to the high-level stuff like closures and magic methods. (Thanks to Gary, who saved the day by showing how easy it is to do closures in Python while I was rambling on about them like a moron.)
Next week I'll be giving a talk on Web Programming in Python. Confused by all the Python web programming frameworks? I'll help you pick a good one and show you how to make an application with it. Do you know PHP or Ruby on Rails? Then I can probably even answer your questions about exactly how it differs from Python web development. Time and location is TBD, I'll update this post when things are finalized.
Comments
I could have been a bit better prepared. I was uncertain of what the exact subject of the talk should be. It seems you were right in predicting that it would be a bunch of CS guys, so simply covering all the cool features would be the best plan. Looks like I'll have to come up with more things to speak about, in order to train my presentation skills.