On Saturday Feb 11th, I’ll be teaching an Introduction to Python workshop. It will go from 10am to 4pm, with a break for lunch.

Python is a popular programming language, known for its simplicity, ease of use, and elegance. An excellent language to start programming in.

We’ll cover some basic programming concepts. What that will include will depend on how fast we go :)

Please RSVP — we have limited space!

Python Newbie Nights on Thursdays will be on hiatus for a couple of weeks, returning in mid-January. Folks aren’t around as much and I’m a bit burnt out, so it just seemed like the right time to take a break. Watch this space for the class’s return!

-Leigh

During last week’s python class we got to the part in our wonderful textbook where the concept of recursion is introduced.  My friend Susan posted a witty line to my facebook feed regarding the teaching of recursion:

I normally teach recursion by checking to see whether they understand recursion, and if not, teaching recursion.

Within the class we have a variety of levels of experience with programming in general, and recursion in particular.  I’m curious to hear peoples’ favourite recursion teaching tools, examples, or other witticisms.  What’s your favourite programming problem to solve recursively?

-Leigh

For the past couple of weeks a few of us have been meeting up at the lab to learn some Python.  Some of us are complete beginners, while some of us have been programming profesionally for years.  It makes for an interesting evening and we’re been learning lots.

We’re basing the sessions on the book Python for Software Design: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist, which is available for free online.  We’ve been impressed so far with the book’s clarity and the quality of the example code it comes with.

After a few successful sessions, we’ve decided to make this a more regular / official meeting at the lab.  It’ll be every Thursday at 7PM until around 9, though we have gone later in the past, and some of us show up earlier as well.  Feel free to drop in our IRC channel (#hacklabto on freenode) if you want to see if anyone’s already at the lab.  For this Thursday if you feel like catching up before you come out, we’re at chapter 4; don’t worry, though, we’ll be able to get you caught up if you’re a total beginner :)

-Leigh