[Events] Minneapolis PyStar 4 (After Action Report)

[Gregg Lind]

Minneapolis PyStar 4 (After Action Report)
=============================================

author:  Gregg Lind (and any errors are entirely his!)


(Yes, this is ridiculously late, but it has some good stuff)!

* PyStar 4 was on Dec 17, 2011, at Clockwork (who are still awesome)
* we had (about 15) learners and 5 guides.
* engagement was very good, and we think that our initial exercise of
"Human Computer"
  was a big part of it (see below)

Requests for modules:

* 'find the exceptions'
* something having to do with csv / excel
* find duplicate images/files/mp3s.
* get songs for my albums


Specifics:

* Human Computer was AWESOME:
http://69.164.205.89/~gregg/book/build/html/humancomputer_fizzbuzz.html
  (idea by vaughns and GL).  We didn't touch code until 11:30, but
once we did, the questions were
  REALLY good.  People had a much deeper understanding of the
synchronous / procedural programming
  model, especially passing of control.  The 'sequence diagram' in
particular seemed to clear up
  many misconceptions.

* setup was done by 10 (easily).  We did simple gEdit + Python + (on
windows) GitBash.
  Most people required no assistence and were able to self-install.
  Install instructions could get trimmed down.
  Github accounts are useful later on.

* patches for XCodeless ``virtualenv`` still aren't landed.  (cf:
https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/issues/168)

* ipython (or bpython or something with tab completion would be
helpful).  Foolproof install
  instructions would help here (in particular, ``readline`` + ipython
on OSX is gnarly.)

* (possible) alternative to ipython (to get completion?)

    $ echo >> ~/.profile PYTHONSTARTUP=~/.pythonstartup

    (then put this in ~/.pythonstartup)

    try:
        import readline
    except ImportError:
        print "Module readline not available."
    else:
        import rlcompleter
        if 'libedit' in readline.__doc__:
            readline.parse_and_bind("bind ^I rl_complete")
        else:
            readline.parse_and_bind("tab: complete")

* github accts made it really easy to edit / bughunt / file bugs for
the pystar site.  This should be encouraged!
  Changing users into contributors is as easy as having them find and
fix a documentation bug :)


For next time:

*  add a few new modules
*  refine human computer
*  add stubs to js modules
*  it would still be nice to find a good online python environment.


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