Mailman 3 April 2020 - Edu-sig

Part-time opportunities for Python instructors
by Merav Yuravlivker May 7, 2024

May 7, 2024

Hi there, My name is Merav Yuravlivker, and I'm the CEO of Data Society - we deliver data science academies to Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and other international organizations. We're currently looking for part-time Python instructors and TAs, and my friend Jackie Kazil recommended I reach out to you and your list serv. All of these opportunities can be available for people who are employed full-time, professors, or grad students. We pay well and provide all the materials for the instructor, as well as instructor training and support. If possible, would you please be able to share the following blurb? Please let me know if there is anything else you need from me. Much appreciated! Best, Merav --- Data Society, a fast-growing data science training company, is looking for awesome Python instructors and TAs! We deliver data academies to Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and international organizations. All of our content is built in-house by an expert team of data scientists and instructional designers, so you can focus on what you do best - teach professionals how to find new insights and make their jobs easier. We currently have a few openings for TAs, as well as part-time instructors - all of these opportunities can be available for people who are employed full-time, professors, or grad students. We pay competitively, have a great support team, and provide amazing opportunities for additional projects if you're interested. To learn more, please visit our page for current opportunities <https://t.sidekickopen10.com/s2t/c/5/f18dQhb0S7lM8dDMPbW2n0x6l2B9nMJN7t5X-F…>, or simply reach out to Merav at merav(a)datasociety.com. -- Schedule a time to meet <https://t.sidekickopen10.com/s1t/c/5/f18dQhb0S7lM8dDMPbW2n0x6l2B9nMJN7t5X-F…> Merav Yuravlivker Data Society, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder 777 6th Street NW, 11th Floor Washington, D.C., 20001 Enterprise: solutions.datasociety.com Consumer: datasociety.com

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a short essay about programming
by kirby urner Dec. 8, 2022

Dec. 8, 2022

A common "error" (not too serious) that I see in beginning Python (and no doubt other languages, but Python is the one I'm teaching), is having a while condition that appears to put a lid on things, but then the flow all leaks away through break statements, such that the "front door" condition is never revisited. while guess != secret: guess = int(input("Guess?: ") if guess == secret: print("You guessed it!") break else: print("Nope, try again...") What's messed up about the above code is you never really go back to the top in the case where you'd get to leave. Rather, you exit by the back door, through break. So in that case, wouldn't have been simpler and more elegant, even more "correct" (dare I say it) to have gone: while True: # no ifs ands or buts guess = int(input("Guess?: ") if guess == secret: print("You guessed it!") break else: print("Nope, try again...") I see lots of heads nodding, and that could be the end of the matter, but then a next question arises: wouldn't this also be a more correct solution?: while guess != secret: guess = int(input("Guess?: ") if guess == secret: print("You guessed it!") continue # instead of break else: print("Nope, try again...") We're back to having a variable while condition, not a boolean constant, but this time we actually exit by means of it, thanks to continue or... while guess != secret: guess = int(input("Guess?: ") if guess == secret: print("You guessed it!") else: print("Nope, try again...") ... thanks to no continue. This last one is getting a thumbs up, but then I'd pause here and say "continue" can be easier on the eyes. It's unambiguous where it takes you, in contrast to having to scan on down the gauntlet, looking for possibly other open doors. "What happens next" should not require scanning ahead too far. Help us not to get lost. Be a civic-minded coder. I'm thinking of a programming style that advises two things: (a) if you use a while condition that's variable, that's expected to change, then your goal should be to always exit because of that, i.e. that should be your only exit point. Even if some other criterion suggests exiting, you have the option to flip that "lid" at the top, to crack that front door, and bounce the ball out. (b) which is why 'continue' is your friend. You are showing the user where your 'break' statements are, except you don't use "break" statements, as you've given a non-constant condition, and your aim is to make that your ONLY exit point. In short: never use break to exit a while loop unless your condition is while True. Instead, always flip the condition and exit through the font door. However, as soon as I make that rule I can think of good reasons to break it. The other programmers in the room are shaking their heads. Won't we lose information, needed elsewhere in the program, if we "artificially" force a True condition to False. Aren't we, in effect, lying? That concern could be addressed. Keep all the info true, just treat the "lid condition" (it "keeps a lid on it") as a flag. Go ahead and remember the user's guess. allowed = 5 tries = 1 exit = False while not exit: # no other way out guess = int(input("Guess?: ") if guess == secret: print("You guessed it!") exit = True # instead of break continue print("Nope, try again...") tries += 1 if tries == allowed: print("You've maxed out") exit = True continue I think we all understand the main issue: writing reader-friendly code, and rules for doing so. There's something comforting about approaching a while loop and knowing its not a leaky sieve, riddled with back doors, maybe even an exit( ) time bomb. But in the recursion world we want a minimum of two exits usually: when another round is called for versus when we've "hit bottom". Can we have it both ways? Conclusions: Lets not be too hasty with rules of thumb and: Lets keep the reader in mind when writing code. Just because the interpreter knows to compute the flow unambiguously, doesn't mean all ways of writing it are equally reader-friendly. What may seem a gratuitous gesture, an unnecessary flourish, may actually promote reader comprehension of your code, and that should be a goal as much as satisfying the interpreter. Kirby

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MineCraft with Python
by Jurgis Pralgauskis Dec. 4, 2022

Dec. 4, 2022

Hi, intro: many kids like MineCraft :) probably you know/heared of MineCraft Pi https://www.raspberrypi.org/learning/getting-started-with-minecraft-pi/ But there seems to be Py for real MC http://coderdojotc.readthedocs.io/projects/python-minecraft/en/latest/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Python-coding-for-Minecraft/ PS.: a nice article (from js4MC world) https://github.com/walterhiggins/ScriptCraft/blob/master/docs/YoungPersonsG… -- Jurgis Pralgauskis tel: 8-616 77613; Don't worry, be happy and make things better ;) http://galvosukykla.lt

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a "covid camp" specimen (online curriculum materials)
by kirby urner March 31, 2021

March 31, 2021

A Python camp for teens stuck at home. [Exhibit](https://github.com/4dsolutions/python_camp/blob/master/README.md ) (work in progress)

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Re: back to school... "1/3" --> float question, just eval?
by kirby urner April 11, 2020

April 11, 2020

I decided to try replying through the HyperKitty archived interface, where I’ve been examining the cosmetics of [our thread](https://mail.python.org/archives/list/edu-sig@python.org/thread/H6K… <https://mail.python.org/archives/list/edu-sig@python.org/thread/H6KKJR57V7G…>) to date with a critical eye. Also, I see I said “construct manager” a few times when I was meaning “context manager” — oh well. Hyperkitty pops me into an Apple mail client I never use. Some default Apple setting somewhere I suppose I could dig up. Lets see if this sends or will I end up cutting and pasting to Gmail in Chrome. Yes Wes, you’re pretty close on your educated guess/memory re that semi-esoteric species of class (the context manager), wherein ```__enter__``` is what actually returns the object of the optional “as” as in: with DB(“users”) as db: # <— optional object returned by ```__enter__``` which takes no args indented block ```__exit__``` triggered on exit, has info in args re any exceptions, I use *oops to gather up the 3-tuple. outdented (db stays available but __exit__ will have likely closed the connection, e.g. hung up the phone on the database) The arguments to class DB() go to the optional ```__init__``` as always, however ```__enter__``` gets to return the “db” (above) which then becomes available to the indented block (suite as Holden calls it) as a potentially useful object. Most typically ```__enter__``` simply returns the self (the instance of the context manager class itself). However in principle it’s free to return any object it likes, similar to ```__iter__``` (which should at least return an iterator, but only self if self is already such, per class generator API where ```__next__``` must also be there). [My pattern](https://github.com/4dsolutions/python_camp/blob/master/ContextMana… <https://github.com/4dsolutions/python_camp/blob/master/ContextManager.ipynb>) is to load up the target object db with a lot of tools for working with the database at hand, much as open(filename) may be use with with to create the filetype object. On ```__exit__``` the database closes. In between, I might even db.zap_tables() and db.create_tables(). Sometimes my DB is very customized to work with a very specific database. Other times I separate the ```__enter__``` ```__exit__``` part, could be a parent helper. The linked Notebook gives more context. Yes, completely agree on Jake Vanderplas as a go to guy for anything both pythonic and data scientific. From my campsite FAQ: Q: Where's a good place to begin with data science? A: Follow Jake Vanderplas <http://vanderplas.com/> and study his work. Wes, your pull requests came in smoothly and my current plan is to exhibit this program as is, as an example of what [super duper fluent Python](https://github.com/4dsolutions/python_camp/blob/master/camper_progr… <https://github.com/4dsolutions/python_camp/blob/master/camper_program.py>) actually looks like, with unit testing and the whole business. I might use git to dig up an old version (say from this last Monday), showing how ancient drafts might still be excavated in a repo, and then roll forward again, to the way it is now. That’s what git’s good for kids! I did the pull request process online for campers to observe, and commented on closing the request, how smoothly it all went. I’m hoping my practice of outlining a course in a hyperlink-rich Jupyter Notebook will continue to spread, not that I invented it or anything. I’m telling my campers this generic Notebook technology (not just Jupyter) is what their high schools might well be using soon, if not already. I’m eager to pack in a lot of serious academic content given these ["covid camps”](https://flic.kr/p/2iLG2qU <https://flic.kr/p/2iLG2qU>) aren’t just “summer camp”. They’re a continuation of their ordinary schooling, in a homeschooling context. Kirby

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back to school... "1/3" --> float question, just eval?
by kirby urner April 10, 2020

April 10, 2020

Here's a thread I'm starting with my campers taking a PyCamp course. Yesterday we were co-evolving a calculator driven by looping menu. It does squares and square roots (one of the campers supplied this logic) and I was just getting around to introducing the y^x key as some call it, i.e. any number to any power, Python's pow(num, exp). Today we'll pick up where we left off. We used the shared whiteboard to draw radical signs as I intoned about how pow(3, 3) means like ```3 * 3 * 3```. Math Adventures in Python. We might also say ```3 ** 3``` (and not ```3^3``` like in so many languages). sqrt(num) is the same as ```num ** (1/2)``` and we can get the 3rd root of 27 with ```27 ** (1/3)```. [ Sorry for all the markdown by the way, if you're getting a plaintext version -- an option I'd advocate for browser based viewers of the archives someday (to see what it looked like way back when, Before Markdown). ] So here's what we're up against: say I want to raise 10 to the 1/3rd power, same as taking a "cube root" of 10 (tetrahedral whatever). The menu prompts: ```python num = float(input("Your number please: > ")) # yes a bit dangerous exp = float(input("...and your exponent: > ")) # user wants to do 1/3 ``` Of course that last statement raises an exception because float("1/3") doesn't work (isn't supposed to). What shall we do then? I'm thinking we parse anything that looks like a legal fraction and do the floating point conversion from int(p)/int(q). We won't allow input like 2.1/3.6 just int/int. I've already preached against eval() but if it passes my regular expression test first... Anyway, it's a discussion. These are like middle schoolers previewing high school, at a time when kid focused code schools were under some pressure to convert to "everything online". I used to drive to the schools. We don't have to use a regexp! A good excuse to say what these are though. Or test for the pattern but then use split("/") to pry numerator from denominator, once we know that'll work? https://github.com/4dsolutions/python_camp/blob/master/camper_program.py (snapshot -- part of the camp is they watch me git pushing updates to the camp repo). Rather perversely, I may set things back between camps i.e. I'll deliberately revert the code. Comments? Code? Kirby PS: I notice Python 3.8 is being rather more generous in its statistics module. Campers who wander from the base camp fire are likely to find themselves staring at pdfs and cdfs.

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A Quantum 'Hello World'
by Wes Turner April 10, 2020

April 10, 2020

"Ask HN: What's the Equivalent of 'Hello, World' for a Quantum Computer?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22707580 https://westurner.github.io/hnlog/#story-22707580 "Getting Started with Qiskit" > https://qiskit.org/documentation/getting_started.html > > Qiskit / qiskit-community-tutorials > "1 Hello, Quantum World with Qiskit" > https://github.com/Qiskit/qiskit-community-tutorials#1-hello-quantum-world-… > > "Quantum basics with Q#" > https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/quantum/quickstart?tabs=tabid-python > > Qutip notebooks: https://github.com/qutip/qutip#run-notebooks-online > > Jupyter Notebooks labeled quantum-computing: > https://github.com/topics/quantum-computing?l=jupyter+notebook > Quantum computing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing Quantum algorithm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_algorithm Quantum Algorithm Zoo: https://quantumalgorithmzoo.org "Quantum Computing for Computer Scientists" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_Riqjdh2oM - TIL about classical and quantum logic gates in terms of linear algebra, matrices, and tensors.

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