10 Sessions

I was going to call this Python in 10 Hours, but that’s not accurate.

10 Hours is the goal for class time. With questions and interaction, it really comes to about 10 sessions of 60-90 minutes.

Plus preparation and homework, making it more like Python in 30-40 hours. A week, give or take, which is how long we spend teaching this material in our live courses.

If you have some aptitude and desire, do the readings before class and make sure you understand the homework (and do it :-]!) you will have a solid working knowledge of Python.

You get back what you put in.

Python

Want to print this whole book? Try the printer friendly link at the bottom of every page. It will cleanly format the current page and all pages underneath it.

Python is a computer programming language.

We use Python extensively in the United Bible Societies for textual processing. In an effort to educate people around the world in the use of this tool, I’m preparing this short tutorial.

Structure

It will be structured as 10 one-hour sessions. (Right now, they seem to take about 90 minutes, but the goal is 1 hour sessions.)

It will have exercises.

It will be based on an electronic text. Some countries have difficulties obtaining books.

It will not be a rewrite of the text. Rather, it will supplement existing texts with goals, exercises, and pacing.

Requirements

You will need basic computer skills, such as:

• Using a browser
• Installing and starting a program

• Moving files on disk using Windows Explorer

Materials

Texts

You may want to start by printing these lessons using the printer-friendly link at the bottom of this page.

You will also find electronic forms of these texts at the bottom of this page.

Main text: DiveIntoPython. Download and print chapters 2 and 3.

Extra text: Python.org Tutorial by the inventor, very up-to-date.

Further exercises: Think Like a Computer Scientist, also available in printable formats.

Software

Activestate Python (Look for the free download. Sometimes you have to look hard.) We use this version of Python instead of Python.org’s because of it’s Windows COM support.

WingIDE Pro, because that’s what our development team uses and supports. It has especially nice help for debugging Unicode.

Download and unzip PyTrainExercises.zip, attached to the bottom of this page.