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Python courses and Private courses - gently updating our product to keep it ahead of the game

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2011-10-20 15:59:22 - Graham Ellis

It's remarkable how stable our courses and training have been over the years. After all, you don't want to learn to program in a language, and then invest significant resources in design and coding, if you're going to have to start again in a year or two! However, technologies do move on and languages need to support them, and new features that get added as a result (or for other improvement reasons) ... and those need to be taught. And as a result of some of those additions, other features may fade gently. Bearing in mind the huge established codebase out there, and how long it can take for new versions to be fully adopted, this is indeed a very gentle fade, with my knowledge, notes and examples retained for years to enable me to train the people who are learning not just to write new code, but to support old or even ancient code.

Python Course

I've just updated the descriptions of our Learning to program in Python and Python Programming courses. The changes are not fundamental - they're incremental. In this and previous changes, the following subjects have been added or enhanced as they've become more important, and relevant to at least a significant number of our clients:

string.format; decorators; properties; new style classes; unittesting; regular expressions; sets and frozensets; Django; ironpython; Python 3

It's always difficult to know what to remove ... but the following subjects are now faded / reduced in their coverage:

GUIs [overview, no detailed study of any alternative]; cgi; zope and plone; old style classes [especially the old attribute / property stuff]

Equipment for on site courses

"Just provide me with a room and the students and I'll do the rest" ... thus I used to speak. And we carried a whole classroom of equipment with us on site, necessitating driving, heavy shifting (it's got lighter over the years, but 12 laptops are still heavy!). I would be quite happy to carry on doing that if it was the best way - but sometimes it isn't any longer. Many of our delegates work on their own laptops for much of job, and can bring their laptops on the course with them. And that's good news - they can learn the practicalities of the language in their own operating environment, and using their own data.

I'll still carry at least one of two systems with me on every course. "Just in case" shall we say. I'll always provide if requested (and indeed that will remain the default), and I'll insist on using our own equipment for server configuration courses and courses where admin / root access is needed.

But ... that does allow me to offer flexibility. And it does allow me to offer £20.00 per delegate per day off on site courses provided that it's all planned for ahead of time. So - better, and lower cost. Can't be bad!

No more dreadfully early mornings

Have you noticed how extra speed limits are popping up all over the place on our roads? And although there's talk of raising the motorway speed limit to 80 m.p.h. you won't be able to travel at that speed much of the time due to traffic, or to being on other roads. Every increasing congestion. Every more likely to get held up on the journey, and that's not good when I'm driving out very early on a Monday morning to set a course up. So - come the new year "up at 4 and out at 5" will be a thing of the past. If I'm staying away to give a course, then I'll travel out the night before. It's better for my health, and it's better for the quality of your course.

Which post code areas will be changing? RG - Reading, SO - Southampton, BS - Bristol, NP - Newport and Oxford.

At the other end of the day, I've often driven home late into the evening. For sure, there gets to be a point where I stop and take a break, but as from the new year, I may be spending an extra night near you before I head home. This will apply for DE - Derby, LE - Leicester, NG - Nottingham, RH - Redhill, ST - Stoke-on-Trent, PL - Plymouth and TF - Telford.

For courses in BA - Bath, SP - Salisbury and our own SN- Swindon areas, I'll continue to commute from home. For other locations in the South West, South, South East Wales and into the southern Midlands I'll continue to travel out the day before the course, but head home in the evening after the final day. And for East Anglia, the rest of the Midlands, North and West Wales, the North East and North West, Scotland and Northern Ireland, I'll continue to travel out the night before, and not come home until the following day.