Share desired topics or activities at a meeting

[Robrecht De Rouck]

Hello fellow Python enthusiasts,

Share activities you would be interested in

I think it would be helpful if everyone shared (not necessarily exhaustively) what they would like to learn from this group/what their specific interests are. That way we can get an idea what the most common points of interests are/help in determining some activities. I will give 2 examples of an activity that would interest me.

Two examples of an activity I would be interested in

Problem solving exercises in Python

1. Group up 2 people.

2. Take a small problem preferably solvable without relying too much on packages. E.g. a problem from http://projecteuler.net/ .

3. Either both people work together on the problem or one is in the role of solver and one in the role who is aware of the solution and guides the other when necessary.

4. Don't immediately start coding but try to talk through the solution step by step: 

    I. Try to rephrase what the problem is if it is not clear. 

    II. Try to explain how you would solve the problem in clear steps, be as explicit as possible. 

5. Write down the solution and see if it works.

6. Evaluate how it can be improved. (E.g. memory efficiency, execution speed, coding style, ... ) 

Cause an error exercise

You are given the name of an error and than you are asked to cause the error.

E.g. Cause an IndexError: index out of range.

Working together 

The most interesting thing about coding with someone else for me is that it forces you to be explicit about everything you do. You discover new details you hadn't thought about, you are forced to find arguments for choices in your code. 

But in order to do this successfully, there is one thing you should try to be aware of: In order to create an effective learning environment everyone needs to feel that they will not be ridiculed if they would make a mistake. Everyone is in a different situation, everyone has been a beginner at something at some point in their life and there is probably almost always someone better or worse at something then you are. So being better in comparison to others in a learning environment is not so important, its being better then yourself a few days ago that is much more important on the long run. 

Python diversity statement

Also know that the official Python community endorses the 'diversity statement': "The community is based on mutual respect, tolerance, and encouragement, and we are working to help each other live up to these principles. We want our community to be more diverse: whoever you are, and whatever your background, we welcome you. "

http://www.python.org/community/diversity/

And lastly

This doesn't have to be an expected activity. I am merely spreading some ideas and asking if anyone is interested to do such an activity with me during or after a meet up.

I am not only interested in exercising Python skills but also sharing vim configuration and most used commands. People who are interested in exercising Regex or SQL, we could make a few questions for eachother and try to solve them. Even if it is only one question per meeting it would be cool.

In general I think it would be interesting to experiment with groups of different sizes. When you only do presentations for one large group people will hold back more because the risk for criticism and their results are greater than when speaking to smaller groups. So I think it would be cool to also do activities in smaller groups.