The online Intro to Python Coding course that I’m teaching on behalf of Tampa Bay’s own Computer Coach Training Center starts tonight at 6:00 p.m.. For the next five weeks, on Monday and Wednesday evenings from 6:00 to 10:00, I’ll be leading a class of Python learners through “code along with me” exercises in the Python programming language.
Dropping code science at BarCamp.
The format of the course will be pretty much the same as the one I use at Tampa iOS Meetup, where I lead the group through a “code along with me” exercise. I project what’s on my computer on the big screen, and everyone follows along, entering the code as I explain what’s happening.
Since Python has a REPL (Read-Evaluate-Print Loop), I can also have the class go through some exercises and try little coding challenges. It will be a “learn by doing” kind of class.
In order to minimize confusion, we’ll all use the same tools in the course, namely the Anaconda Individual Edition distribution of Python 3.7 and associated tools……and Visual Studio Code:
Both are available free of charge, and run on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
It’ll be fun! Watch this space; I’ll post some snippets from the course as it progresses.
Interested in signing up? Visit Computer Coach’s site and speak to them. Don’t dawdle — it starts tonight!
I decided to see if LinkedIn Premium will help with the job search and activated the one month free trial. I’ll keep you posted by writing about the features I find and my experiences with it.
When: Monday and Wednesday evenings, 6:00 – 10:00 p.m., starting Monday, July 13 and ending Wednesday, August 12 (6 weeks, twice a week)
Where: Online.
How much: $900 — and Computer Coach has grants that can cover the cost if you’re unemployed and based in the Tampa Bay area (contact them to see if you qualify)
What you’ll need:
A computer that was made sometime in the last ten years. My main computer is a 2014-era MacBook Pro, but I’ll be doing demonstrations on a 2012-era Lenovo ThinkPad running Linux Mint, a 2009-era Compaq laptop running Peppermint Linux, and a $35 Raspberry Pi.
An internet connection. This is an online course, after all.
This is not a passive course! This isn’t the kind of course where the instructor lectures over slides while you take notes (or pretend to take notes while surfing the web or checking your social media feeds). In this course, you’ll be actively taking part in the learning process, entering code, experimenting, making mistakes, correcting those mistakes, and producing working applications. You will learn by doing. At the end of each session, you’ll have a collection of little Python programs that you wrote, and which you can use as the basis for your own work.
The course will start at the most basic level by walking you through the process of downloading and installing the necessary tools to start Python programming. From there, you’ll learn the building blocks of the Python programming language:
Control structures that determine what your programs do,
Data structures to store the information that your programs act on,
Functions and objects to organize your code, and
Using libraries as building blocks for your applications.
You’ll write all sorts of programs…
You’ll use Python in “immediate mode” to perform quick calculations (and you’ll sharpen your command-line skills in the process).
You’ll write scripts to simplify or automate tedious tasks.
You’ll build web applications.
And since it’s a networked, data-driven world where no application is an island, you’ll learn how to use Python to interact with web services and databases.
Better still, you’ll learn how to think like a programmer. You’ll learn how to look at a goal and learn how you could write a program to meet it, and how that program could be improved or enhanced. You’ll learn skills that will serve you well as you take up other programming languages, and even learn a little bit about the inner workings of computers, operating systems, and the internet.
One of the reasons I write for raywenderlich.com — the premier mobile developer tutorial site — is that they’re wonderful people to work with, because they’re such good people. And as good people, they’ve put together something to help developers during this time of pandemic and quarantine: RW Community Care. It’s a series of office hours, livestreams, bootcamps, and more, running until August 22 — and all events are 100% free!
Here’s what RW Community care offers…
Read iOS Apprentice for free!
I learned iOS programming back in 2012 by reading and doing the exercises in an earlier edition of iOS Apprentice, which was written by Matthijs Hollemans. While I’d done some mobile development as a Windows Phone Champ during my time as a developer evangelist at Microsoft, it was this book that set me on my path as a mobile developer.
I owe a lot to this book, which is why it was a big honor to co-author the eighth edition with Eli Ganim. For the summer, you can read it online for free at RW Community Care. Whether you’re completely new to programming or — like me, back in 2012, experienced at programming but new to iOS development — you should check out iOS Apprentice on RW Community Care!
RW Talks
RW Talks happen weekly, cover all sorts of topics that mobile developers will find interesting, ranging from the deeply technical to the inspiring. Upcoming talks include:
Can’t attend some of the other live events, or prefer to collaborate on discussions as a community? Or maybe you’re more the type to hash out challenges or problems with a group of like-minded developers? There’s a Discord server that you can join!
Office Hours
Not everyone has easy access to a senior mobile developer, especially when everyone seems so busy these days and our teams are more physically separate then ever before.
Want a senior member of the development community to look over your current project, run a critical eye over your professional résumé, or review some code you’ve been struggling with? This program is designed to do just that.
If you need someone to help you with deeper questions on your particular project, or to lend a critical eye to your resume or job search, you need Review My Stuff!
The current coronavirus pandemic has given me a chance to do some spring cleaning at home, which in turn led me to revive some old computers that have been sitting idly in a closet. I figure I could put them to work doing interesting things.
Compaq 610 (2009-era 4GB Core 2 Duo)
Installing Peppermint on the Compaq 610.
I’ve given an old Compaq 610 a new lease on life with Peppermint OS, a lightweight Linux distro that runs really well on old machines (the Compaq is a 2009-era machine with a Core 2 Duo processor). I also installed VS Code, Node, Anaconda, and React on it, making it a lean, mean machine for that upcoming Python course I’m teaching.
As with the Compaq, I set up the ThinkPad with VS Code, Node, Anaconda, and React. Since it’s got the processor power and 16 GB RAM, I also put Android Studio 4 and Flutter on it. Between some mobile projects in my near future, and the need to have a machine for running servers and other automated tasks, it’s going to prove to be quite useful.
The Raspberry Pi’s “hard drive” is actually a microSD card that fits into an easily-accessed slot near one of the edges of the board. The process of updating the Pi’s OS is pretty simple: You use the Raspberry Pi imager on another computer with an SD card slot (and a microSD-to-standard SD card adapter) to rewrite its contents.
The Raspberry Pi is a pretty good Python machine, and I may end up using it while teaching that Python course, if only to show what’s possible on a computer that’s smaller than a deck of cards (when it’s not in a case) that you can get for about $50.
Since it’s powered by an ARM chip, it offers an opportunity for a kind of programming that most other machines don’t offer: ARM assembly programming!
The actual code from the first assembly program I wrote on my newly-reformatted Raspberry Pi: A “Tiger King”-themed version of “Hello World”.
It looks like it’s going to become an ARM-based world:
ARM-based chips power IoT devices,
Smartphones are generally powered by ARM-based chips, and
With this upcoming sea change, it doesn’t hurt to have some familiarity with ARM assembly language. Even though smartphones have ARM chips, the Raspberry Pi is a much better platform on which to learn ARM assembly, as it allows you to do development and execution in the same place.
It may have been a while since I’ve done assembly language programming — first on the 6502 in high school on Apple ][s and Commodore PETs, and later in university on NS32000 boards connected to Digital Unix machines — but I found my return pretty simple. It didn’t take long for me to cobble together a “Hello World!”-style app on the Pi.
I’ve hung onto an old Lenovo ThinkPad T430 that’s been performing yeoman’s service over the past few years as a trusty Linux development machine and server. Its CMOS battery finally ran out, which meant that it no longer kept proper time when removed from power, which meant that I always got this message on startup:
As promised, it arrived the next day. Here’s the box it came in:
I’m not complaining. There are all sorts of economics-based reasons for shipping something so tiny in that size box, and I’m grateful for the huge “crumple zone” provided by that box.
Replacing the battery was a snap: Disconnect the old battery’s connector, and then attach the the new battery in the same way.
I got curious. What was under the yellow protective plastic cover?
I peeled it off the old battery and found this:
The yellow protector concealed a run-of-the-mill CR2032 3-volt “coin”-type battery, and nothing more. The remote for my BOSE speakers uses one, as does my hand-held luggage scale. They also power the light on proctoscopes, in case you were wondering what kind of batteries yours took:
You can buy them in 5-packs at your local drug store, and their unit price comes to about 50 cents each.
I have a bunch of them in my drawer, and could’ve simply taken the connector from my dead battery and taped it to a fresh one. The red lead goes to the battery’s + side, while the black lead goes to its – side:
The money doesn’t bug me as much as the missed DIY opportunity, even if it was an incredibly minor one. I’m posting this for the benefit of anyone who has to replace a CMOS battery soon: You can do it without shelling out for an “official” battery!
On the most recent Amazon Prime Day — an annual trick that Amazon pulls in order to boost sales in the same vein as Cyber Monday, but in the summer — I managed to limit myself to buying just one sale-priced thing that I didn’t really need: the CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Starter Kit. It normally sells on Amazon for US$75, but it was on sale that day for US$60.
The Raspberry Pi 3 is the current version of a series of single-board computers about the size of a deck of playing cards, and are:
Supported by a community of software and hardware innovators and enthusiasts who produce all sorts of add-ons, peripherals, software, and guidance for making the most of the Raspberry Pi.
I plan to use the Raspberry Pi to make some initial delving into IoT (Internet of Things) development, and as part of my journey into developing for that category of computer that I call “tiny and shiny” — smartphones, tablets, and now Raspberry Pi / Arduino-type boards.
Here’s the CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Start Kit box:
When I opened it, I saw this:
The first thing you should see is a greeting card that also provides an email address for assistance, should you need it. The other side of the card has a diagram explain what each of the GPIO interface pins on the Raspberry Pi 3 board is for.
Below the card was an HDMI cable:
And below that were three boxes:
From largest to smallest, the three boxes contained the Raspberry Pi 3 board and SD card (which functions as its “hard drive”)…
…a case for the board…
…and a power supply for the board:
Below the boxes were these items:
One bag contained a USB microSD card reader. It allows you to use your regular computer to download updated or different versions of the Raspberry Pi OS or software and transfer them onto the microSD card:
The other bag contained two heatsinks for its chips. They already have heatsink adhesive attacked to them; you just have to peel off the backing and stick them onto their respective chips:
At the bottom of the box was the “quick start” guide:
Here’s the board mounted in the lower tray portion of the case:
And here’s the board with the middle section of the case attached:
And here’s what the Pi looks like once the case is assembled:
Assembling the case is pretty easy, as no tools are required. It simply snaps together.
Here’s the case on my desk, placed beside a $20 bill for size comparison:
The Pi case is smaller than the hard drive that I connected to it (you can see it below the Pi):
I decided to take the beginner route and start up the system using NOOBS, short for “New out of the box software”. It came pre-loaded onto the SD card that came with the board, and it installed Raspbian, the official supportedRaspberry Pi OS, and based on Debian. Once the OS is installed, here’s what you see when you boot up the Pi:
Once it finishes booting up, you’re taken to a GNOME desktop:
I used to have a stack of USB keyboards, but I’d given most of them away to friends and family, and my last couple are still back in Toronto. Figuring that I’d end up taking the Pi to meetups, BarCamps, and other demo sessions, or perhaps use it as a living room media center / internet device, I went with the Logitech K400 all-in-one keyboard, shown below. It’s currently on sale at Walmart for US$20:
And thanks to Anastasia Sistevaris, an intern at Wiley, I got hooked up with a set of Raspberry Pi books, the first of which arrived recently: Exploring Raspberry Pi by Derek Molloy. I’ll do a writeup of this book in a later article:
Watch this space for more Raspberry Pi articles as I start noodling with my new toy!
In order to minimize confusion, we’ll all use the same tools in the course, namely the Anaconda Individual Edition distribution of Python 3.7 and associated tools…
…and Visual Studio Code:
Both are available free of charge, and run on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
