Code Studio rocks; diversity does, too

If you want to quickly get some kids introduced to computer programming concepts, you could do a lot worse than using Code Studio from code.org. That's what I did the last couple weeks - took two hours to lightly shepherd the Dayton YWCA day camp through a programming intro.

It's really well-organized and easy to understand - frankly, it pretty much drives itself. It's based on block-dragging for turtle graphics and/or simple 2D games, all easy and appealing stuff. (They even got their turtle graphics branded as the sisters from Frozen ice-skating!) I didn't need to do much more than stand there and demonstrate that programmers actually exist in the flesh, and occasionally nudge a student over a bump. Though, by pair programming, they did most of the nudging themselves.

Here's most of my awesome class. Sorry I'm as bad at photography as at CSS.

Hey - we got demographics, huh? Right - if you announce that you're teaching a coding class through your usual geeky circles, they spread the word among their circles and recruit you a class that looks pretty much like the industry already looks. And if you seek a venue through your geeky circles, the usual suspects will step up to host. In badly segregated Dayton, that means "as far from the colored parts of town as possible." That's less than inviting to the people who don't live there.

But if you partner with groups that already have connections in diverse communities - like the YWCA, which makes anti-racism one of its keystones - getting some fresh faces can be pretty easy! And there are venues available outside the bleached-white exurbs you're used to - you just need to think to look.

Another benefit of Code Studio is that it's entirely web-based, so you don't need to restrict your demographics to "kids whose parents can afford to get them laptops". The public library's computer classroom did the job with flying colors.

Seriously, this was about the easiest outreach I've ever done. I'm working on the follow-up, but I think I'll be able to find further lazy options. Quite likely it will leverage CodeAcademy. So, what's your excuse for not doing it in your city?

Now, in other news: You are running out of time to register for PyOhio, a fantastic, friendly, free, all-levels Python conference, and my pride and joy. The schedule is amazing this year, and for better or for worse, I'm keynoting. So please come and add to my terror.

auto-generate SQLAlchemy models

PyOhio gave my lightning talk on ddlgenerator a warm reception, and Brandon Lorenz got me thinking, and PyOhio sprints filled my with py-drenaline, and now ddlgenerator can inspect your data and spit out SQLAlchemy model definitions for you:

$ cat merovingians.yaml 
-
  name: Clovis I
  reign:
    from: 486
    to: 511
-
  name: Childebert I
  reign:
    from: 511
    to: 558
$ ddlgenerator --inserts sqlalchemy merovingians.yaml 

from sqlalchemy import create_engine, Column, Integer, Table, Unicode
engine = create_engine(r'sqlite:///:memory:')
metadata = MetaData(bind=engine)

merovingians = Table('merovingians', metadata, 
  Column('name', Unicode(length=12), nullable=False), 
  Column('reign_from', Integer(), nullable=False), 
  Column('reign_to', Integer(), nullable=False), 
  schema=None)

metadata.create_all()
conn = engine.connect()
inserter = merovingians.insert()
conn.execute(inserter, **{'name': 'Clovis I', 'reign_from': 486, 'reign_to': 511})
conn.execute(inserter, **{'name': 'Childebert I', 'reign_from': 511, 'reign_to': 558})
conn.connection.commit()

Brandon's working on a pull request to provide similar functionality for Django models!

G+ Public Hangout Fail

tl;dr:Do not use public Google+ Hangouts under any circumstances, because people suck.

Before the PyCon 2014 CFP came due, PyLadies hosted several G+ hangouts for talk proposal brainstorming. Potential speakers could talk over and flesh out their ideas with each other, producing better talk proposals. More importantly, it was a nice psychological stepping stone on the way to filling out that big, scary CFP form all alone. I thought they went great.

I wanted to emulate them for Postgres Open and PyOhio, which both have CFPs open now. The PyLadies hangouts had used EventBrite to preregister attendees, and I unfortunately did not consider this and the reasons why. Instead, I just scheduled hangouts, made them public, and sent out invitations with the hangout URLs, encouraging people to forward the invites onward. Why make participating any harder than it has to be?

The more worldly of you are already shaking your heads at my naiveté. It turns out that the world's exhibitionists have figured out how to automatically detect and join public hangouts. For several seconds I tried kicking out and banning them as they joined, but new ones kept arriving, faster than one per second. Then I hung up - which unfortunately did not terminate the hangout. It took me frantic minutes to find how to delete a hangout in progress. I dearly hope that no actual tech community members made it to the hangout during that time.

I had intended to create a place where new speakers, and women especially, would feel safe increasing their community participation. The absoluteness of my failure infuriates me.

Hey, Google: public G+ hangouts have been completely broken, not by technical failure, but by the degraded human condition. You need to remove them immediately. The option can only cause harm, as people accidentally expose themselves and others to sexual harrassment.

In the future, a "public" hangout URL should actually take you to a page where you request entrance from the organizer by text message (which should get the same spam filtration that an email would). But fix that later. Take the public hangouts away now.

Everybody else, if you had heard about the hangouts and were planning to participate, THANK YOU - but I've cancelled the rest of them. You should present anyway, though! I'd love to be contacted directly to talk over your ideas for proposals.

PyOhio Stone Soup

Loved PyOhio once again! Thanks so much to everybody who came, participated, and made it happen! I get such a rush of joy from seeing the Ohio Union fill up with happy Pythonistas.

PyOhio has been a classic case of the Stone Soup story. When we started planning the first one, we really didn't have the resources to pull off a conference; we were just a handful of PyCon 2008 attendees who wanted to bring something like PyCon home. But as we put it together, people appeared, pitched in, and we had a modest, amateurish - but fun! - little conference in the Columbus Public Library. PyOhio 2008 drew participants and volunteers who helped make PyOhio 2009 bigger and better; 2009 drew in more involvement for 2010; and so forth, year after year.

July 26-27, 2014. See you in Columbus!

The IPython Notebook Revolution

Among the many great talks coming to PyOhio at the end of this month:

The IPython Notebook Revolution Catherine Devlin If you think of IPython as simply an enhanced version of the live Python prompt, you are in need of re-education. No matter what you do with Python, applying the IPython Notebook imaginatively will revolutionize the way you do it.

I'd like to focus on aspects of IPython outside the traditional number-crunching, plot-making realm, simply because those have been covered so well already - videos by the actual IPython team already have. I'd like to fill up a talk with edgy, imaginative, experimental uses of IPython that aren't well-known yet, or that suggest new ways IPython (and especially the Notebook) may be used in the future. I have a bunch of ideas along those lines...

... but I'd like your input! I don't want to miss anything awesome just because I wasn't aware, and there's a lot being done in the IPython world - more than I've been able to keep track of. Erik Welch has already thoughtfully given me a bunch of links and suggestions from SciPy. Let's crowdsource my talk even further!

Some of the goodies I already plan to include:

• notebook-based presentations
• ipython_blocks: probably my Holy Grail of imaginative uses)
• d3js in IPython: (OK, this still fits the data graphing theme, but it's also ultra-snazzy)
• ipython_sql: (everybody's got to toot her own horn sometimes)
• ipfl (web-style forms in a Notebook - very preliminary but an interesting idea)
• xkcd and hand-drawn mode
• Wakari

How would you shake up people's notions of "what IPython is for"?

Ohio LinuxFest

I feel bad for not blogging after PyOhio. I just have trouble finding words. Along with PyCon, it's a sort of family reunion for me.

But anyway - next conference: Ohio LinuxFest. This weekend, so sign up now now now move move move - I think today is the pre-reg deadline. It's always a great event, draws people from all over the East and sometimes further. Look for our PyOhio table to have a Python chat (or help staff the table, and introduce other attendees to Python joy). OLF is one of the best places in the region for midway mingling.

I'm speaking on HTSQL. I spoke on it at Indiana LinuxFest in the spring, too, only this time it follows several months of using it seriously at work. The experience has only made me more enthusiastic about HTSQL. Check it out... there's still time to be an early adopter and sneer at everybody else after it becomes famous.

See you in Columbus! Register now!

now that's agile

My favorite anecdote from PyOhio 2009:

William McVey prepared slides for his Sunday PyOhio presentation using reStructuredText and rst2s5, but he wasn't satisfied with S5's presentation quality. He tried rst2odp to generate an OpenOffice Impress document instead, but it failed him.

So he convened a Saturday night sprint on rst2odp at PyOhio. Working past midnight, a small team fixed the rst2odp flaws. William regenerated his slides and presented successfully on Sunday.

Finally, in a mighty feat of recursion, he described the feat in a lightning talk Sunday evening, using slides generated by rst2odp, including a slide that contained the source code of the lightning talk he was giving, including the slide with the source code...

PyOhio

a regional Python miniconference

Ohio had a good representation at PyCon, and we agreed that the time has come.

http://pyohio.org

announcement-only list: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pyohio

planning list: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pyohio-organizers

Almost everything is up in the air right now... all we know for certain is that we're aiming for one day, presumably a Saturday, in the Columbus, OH area. Join us, and help the plan take shape!