On 7/17/2013 6:17 PM, Chris Barker - NOAA Federal wrote:
a) they don't ask for help as readily as they might.
b) the more experienced folks may not see (and their job description
may not) their job as trainers/mentors.
Don't give them that option. Pair them. Two people paired are more
productive than two people working on their own.
I would only recommend
PyCamp to "experienced developers" if they are having difficulty with doing
things the Python way or want a quick immersion in Python culture.
That's another reason to do some training up front, rather than leave
people ot figure it out themselves...
Give newcomers that up front boost. Once they get past the Python part,
they should be self-seekers. When they can seek and assimilate, that's
when I call them "experienced." Python promotes that. It's why I tell
people to come to PyCamp to become self-sufficient. Python training
should be mainly about teaching people how to "refuse the temptation to
guess" as the Zen of Python says.
I have people who come to class saying, "I want to learn how not to have
to look stuff up all the time," like they could cram everything they're
ever going to need to know in their heads and have it instantly
available when they need it years from now. That in itself it
unpythonic. I tell them, "let's get better at using Python's ways to
help you look stuff up as you code."
Python only has thirty some keywords and a few dozen built-ins to learn.
After that, everything falls out of the natural properties of everything
in Python being a first class introspect-able object.
If the idea is to give experience developers another boost, or just even
to use training as a kind of pseudo-pair programming week (that might be
the best metaphor for common ground here: training as pairing), check
these guys out:
https://store.continuum.io/cshop/python-for-science/
Now, there's nothing there that's not going to be in course that's not
in a few of the most recent books on pandas, scipy, matplotlib, and even
the back chapters of Python in a Nutshell. But you're going to get it
from the likes of these guys:
https://store.continuum.io/cshop/course-trainer-bios/
who, really, are the best. You've got the former primary maintainer of
Numpy who wrote all the initial documentation and the guy who wrote
SWIG. If anybody is going to waste a bunch of money, at least waste it
well. :)
--
Sincerely,
Chris Calloway http://nccoos.org/Members/cbc
office: 3313 Venable Hall phone: (919) 599-3530
mail: Campus Box #3300, UNC-CH, Chapel Hill, NC 27599
