Dabeaz

As the leaves start to turn, I'm finally pleased to announce the dates for my fall Python courses in Chicago.

• Python Concurrency and Distributed Computing Workshop (Nov 1-4).

  The concurrency workshop is back, but is now expanded to four full days. Since its start in 2009, the concurrency workshop has been my favorite place to try out new material and explore some really cutting edge Python topics. This is the same workshop that spawned the infamous Mindblowing GIL talk and subsequent GIL presentation at PyCon. More recent editions of the workshop have expanded to include Python 3, messaging frameworks such as ZeroMQ, and the use of NoSQL databases. Past participants have described the workshop as covering about the same amount of material as three college courses. If you like geeking out with other programmers and learning new things, you'll have a great time.

• Advanced Python Mastery (Nov 14-18).

  If you just want to learn Python basics, you can find about a million free on-line tutorials and videos to get you going. However, if you want to understand all of the deep Python magic used by various application frameworks, then this is the class for you. This is one of the only truly advanced training courses around that deeply explores the internals of Python's built-in objects, underlying object model, functions, and metaprogramming features. Topics include most of Python's advanced features including cooperative inheritance (super, mixins, etc.), descriptors, decorators, context managers, metaclasses, generators, coroutines, packages, and more. Even seasoned Python programmers will learn new tricks.

• Practical Python Programming (Dec. 12-16).

  If you're new to Python and want to learn more in the company of other enthusiastic programmers, then this is the class for you. A major theme of this course is on using Python to analyze data. Over the course of the week, you'll learn how to use Python to analyze datafiles, extract information from public web services (REST APIs), use popular extensions such as numpy and matplotlib. Most of the exercises in this course involve open data published by various government and city sources. So, not only will you get to learn Python, you'll get to do all sorts of neat stuff such as analyze crime data, locate huge rats, make maps, and more. It should be great fun.

More information about these courses can be found here. In the meantime, be sure to catch my talks at PyCodeConf, Oct 6-7, in Miami and at RuPy 2011, Oct 14-16, in Poznan, Poland.

posted by Dave Beazley  # 8:27 PM