Open Office Hour: Q&A on Python for Beginners
About this course
An hour with a senior trainer to answer your Python questions. There is no fixed agenda, because the session is whatever the people in it need. Bring a problem from work, ask which tool to learn next, or listen while we work through someone else's question.
The format is deliberately unstructured. A question that would take three emails to resolve usually takes two minutes when you can ask it out loud and show the code. This session is run with beginners in mind, and their questions are the point of it. We are happy to take questions at any level.
You can also arrive with nothing and listen. Other people's questions are often the ones you had not thought to ask yet.
The session is held online, so you can join from wherever you work.
Who this course is for
Anyone learning Python who has a question and nobody obvious to ask. The session suits people partway through a first course or a first project, and people who have been reading and now want to check their understanding against someone who writes Python for a living.
This session also suits teams with one or two people picking up Python on their own, where there is nobody in-house to ask when something does not work. Sitting in on other people's questions is a large part of the value.
Prerequisites
None. You do not need to have written any Python, and you do not need to have taken a course with us.
You will get more out of the hour with a specific question or problem in mind, such as a piece of code that is not working, a decision you are stuck on, or a library you cannot choose between. Bringing nothing and listening is also fine, and common.
What you will learn
- Get a direct answer to a question about Python from a working practitioner.
- Find out why a piece of your own code does not do what you expected.
- Decide what to learn next, given what you already know and what you are trying to build.
- Hear the questions other people at your level are asking, and the answers.
Syllabus
Day 1: One hour, driven by the questions in the room
- Questions taken in turn, with time given to each rather than a fixed agenda
- Debugging a problem you have brought, live
- Which library or tool suits a job, and why
- What to learn next, and what to skip for now
- Whatever else comes up: any Python question is in scope