[Tutor] Conceptual Question About Use of Python for Employee Training Program

[Mac Ryan]

On Sat, 25 Jun 2011 06:18:14 -0700 (PDT)
Adam Carr <adamlcarr at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Good Morning:
> 
> I am very new to Python but I am enjoying the learning process. I
> have a question about the application of Python to a problem at the
> industrial business where I work. My two main questions are:
> 
> 1. Can Python be used to achieve the goals of the possible project?
> 2. Where are the best places to look (books, blogs, websites, etc.)
> for programming examples or modules that would help me begin to
> assemble and test some code?
> 
> We currently have a Windows-PC based safety training program that was
> put together in MS Access around 2001....

<snip>

> Thanks in advance for taking the time to read my long note. I
> appreciate any help or direction that can be offered.

Hi Adam,

	from the way you describe your problem, to me the obvious
answer would be "web application". This way you will be able to:

1. Make sure all employees will use the latest up-to-date training
   material and software version.

2. Have a central DB able to track employees' activity (this opens up
   the possibility for extra functionalities like sending a "gentle
   reminder e-mail" to those who are not taking tests frequently
   enough, statistics on what topics employees struggle most with,
   etc...)

3. Be platform independent.

5. Save time on developing the GUI (which - done properly - is a very
   time consuming part of desktop projects).

That said, python is a great tool for web apps too. I personally looked
a bit into Django (www.djangoproject.com), which is one of the python
web frameworks and I was impressed by the speed you can prototype a
fully working application.

As for presenting the training material, for iteration #1 I would
simply make them available as a download link. But in following
iteration of the project I would also integrate them with the web (so
as to make the entire application truly portable. I once used S5 for a
project. Here you can see a presentation of it that is - coherentely -
done with the standard presented:
http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/s5-intro.html#slide1
However an alternative I did not experiment with is XOXO, which I read
has python code examples available (see
http://microformats.org/wiki/xoxo-sample-code-python)

HTH,
Mac.