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Nick Timkovich edited this page Apr 20, 2015
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Thoughts, arguments, and musings for how to conduct Python bootcamps.
i.e. learning by executing bits of code without having to write scripts over and over
- Forces awareness of the shell and paths
- Easier to transition between interpreter and running scripts
- Minimal system requirements
- Can't correct previous lines in a multi-line block
- Won't be remembered (students end up taking photos of the screen)
- Idiosyncratic methods of creating blocks of code (blank lines are syntactically important)
- Drag-and-dropping files into shell (name shortcut) is fragile under Windows (sometimes unescaped backslashes are OK, sometimes not)
- Copying/pasting is unintuitive under Windows
- Cannot use mouse to move cursor
- ???
- ???
- Naturally creates a record of what happened for students to review later
- Can rapidly modify previous code and re-execute (or duplicate cells)
- Mouse does things
- Python name autocomplete
- Path autocomplete
- Abstracts away Python and the shell
- Autocomplete works differently in some text editors (a crutch that might disappear later)
- Need another shell to run programs
- Executing cells non-sequentially (or re-executing cells) can mask what actually happened
- Correcting frozen shells is a multi-step process
- Conceptual disconnect about what the thing running in the shell is/does (students frequently close the shell or kill the process)
Arguable if this is even needed nowadays for some computational projects, but it's an important skill.
- Extremely intelligent autocomplete
- IPython integration(?)
- Free (as in beer)
- Extremely complex
If people don't have a "favorite text editor", recommend Sublime Text (works on Windows/Mac/Linux) and is a fairly low-bar.
- Simple
- Simple
- Rows are accessible from both sides of the room for TAs
- Power outlets:
- for each student
- arranged such that cables do not need to cross aisles
- Operating System
- Windows 7 or later
- Mac OS 10.?? or later
- Anaconda Python 3.4
- Notes:
- Sometimes the installer doesn't seem to modify PATH on Windows...this an install checkbox?
- Anaconda Command Prompt defaults to
cmd.exe
- Notes:
- Student distributions shall not be changed after they are released
- Split up videos for each bit of software to make them more modular?
- Adhere to PEP-8
- Lines <= 80 characters
- Spaces around operators
- Spaces after commas
- No superfluous parenthesis (
return()...)
- Avoid multiple chained function calls (more lines are OK)