PyCamp was developed and tested by TriZPUG and has been proven effective. TriZPUG is pleased to bring PyCamp to Houston with the help of a PyCamp alum from the University of Houston Southwest Technology Center, Mali Ozbay. PyCamp taught Mali functional programming with Python. Mali was so thrilled, he wants to bring PyCamp to Houston. Proceeds from PyCamp will be used to fund a Python Users Group in Houston.

Photos • Movie • When and where? • How to register? • Is PyCamp for me? • What to expect? • Who sponsors PyCamp? • Who is your instructor? • What you need to bring? • What you need to do to prepare? • What about a flyer? • Who's coming to PyCamp?

For more information, please email houston-pycamp@trizpug.org.

Things are looking up for Houston PyCampers

When and Where

• WHEN: January 8-12, 2007.
• WHERE: 232 Philip G. Hoffman Hall on the campus of the University of Houston Texas Learning and Computation Center.

232 Philip G. Hoffman Hall is a state of the art high technology classroom. There are wired 100Mb Ethernet connections and grounded AC power outlets at every seat. A video projection screen monitors the presentation computer at the front of the room.

Boot Camp consists of two parts:

• Check In - Monday, January 8, 2007, 8:30am, 232 Philip G. Hoffman Hall.
• Boot Camp Instruction - Monday, January 8 through 12, 2007, 9am-5pm, 232 Philip G. Hoffman Hall.

How To Register

Registration Is Closed!

The registration schedule was:

Complete by December 15, 2006 for early bird registration ($300).

Complete by December 31, 2006 for regular registration ($350).

Complete by January 5, 2007 for late registration ($375).

Qualify Yourself

Do you:

• Know how to interpret hexadecimal numbers?
• Know how loops work?
• Know what a variable is?
• Know what a markup language like HTML at least is?

If you answered "Yes," then PyCamp is probably for you.

What To Expect

Check out the PyCamp final syllabus. This syllabus has been revised due to testing during the first TriZPUG PyCamp. It reflects what beginners can be reasonably expected to usefully comprehend and retain in one week. Syllabi for Advanced PyCamp and SciPyCamp are also linked on the PyCamp syllabus in order to show the forward progression of the TriZPUG pedagogy. Successful PyCamp alums are encouraged to enroll in Advanced PyCamp and then SciPyCamp.

PyCamp represents a unique pedgogical approach. You will learn:

• By Example - Many programming courses take the rote "reference manual" approach where you are taught all the elements of a language and then expected to apply them from memory. You will instead start with working useful programs and become exposed to the elements of the Python programming language through actual code.
• By Following Along - Many programming courses lecture passive students. Others leave students to work through programming problems on their own. You will instead participate by stepping through working and useful code line by line, building up new features and making changes as you follow along in guided labs.
• By Pythonic Method - Every programming language has a culture and idioms which make it unique. Too many programming courses apply a generic approach to languages, resulting in programmers who write Java programs in Perl. You will learn the zenful practices which make Python the most elegant and practical of programming languages.

PyCamp Sponsors

Houston PyCamp is sponsored by The Texas Learning and Computation Center (TLC2). TLC2 fosters and supports interdisciplinary research, education and training in computational sciences and engineering through centers, laboratories and individual faculty initiatives. TLC2 has state-of-the-art computation, visualization and educational facilities for environmental studies, biological, biomedical and energy research, undergraduate and graduate education and teacher training.

Houston PyCamp is also sponsored by Enfold Systems. Enfold Systems delivers complete solutions for clients around the world. From support services to scalable websites, from custom applications to intranets, our extensive consulting and development experience will help ensure your success. Get Enfold Systems working on your solution!

Houston PyCamp is also sponsored by Continental Airlines. Continental Airlines is the world's fifth largest airline. Continental, together with Continental Express and Continental Connection, has more than 3,200 daily departures throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia, serving 151 domestic and 136 international destinations. More than 400 additional points are served via SkyTeam alliance airlines. With more than 44,000 employees, Continental has hubs serving New York, Houston, Cleveland and Guam, and together with Continental Express, carries approximately 61 million passengers per year. Continental outranked all other U.S. carriers to be chosen as the Best Airline for North American Travel in Business Traveler magazine's 2006 Readers' Choice Best in Business Travel Survey.

If you or your organization would also like to sponsor PyCamp, please email houston-pycamp@trizpug.org.

Your instructor

Your instructor is Chris Calloway, applications analyst for the Southeast Atlantic Coastal Ocean Observing System at the University of North Carolina and is a TriZPUG organizer and open source activist. Chris taught the original PyCamp and has organized many boot camps and sprints for TriZPUG. Chris has been developing in Python for seven years and has 27 years of of IT experience, primarily for IBM. Chris has previously developed and taught 40 hour courses in Java technology.

What You Need To Bring

• A laptop (required!) with a wired ethernet adapter and any of the following OS platforms:
  • Preferred: Windows XP or 2000 with latest service packs with an accessible Administrator login password and Python 2.3.6 or better installed. (Note: do not install more than one version of Python at a time on Windows.)
  • Mac OSX 10.3 latest revision or better (Python is included).
  • Linux with Python 2.3.6 or better installed (comes with most Linux distributions).
• An AC power adapter for your laptop.
• A CAT 5 Ethernet cable

What You Need To Do To Prepare

• After registration, you will be subscribed to a private email list where you will be sent instructions for modest installations to perform prior to PyCamp.
• Please install the FireFox web brower on the laptop you will be bringing to PyCamp if you haven't already. You will need it for the next important step (and many others).
• After installing FireFox, please fire up an instance of FireFox and use it to install the Edgewall Python Sidebar in your FireFox browser. To install, just click on the "Add tab to Mozilla" image while viewing the Python Sidebar page with FireFox. The sidebar installs as a bookmark. A good place to put the bookmark is in the Bookmarks Toolbar folder of your FireFox browser. Then clicking on the bookmark in your toolbar will open a sidebar with a large amount of tabbed Python documentation right in your browser.

  Edgewall is a company which makes cool open source project management software with Python called Trac. When you learn Python, you learn the scripting language for Trac, and can extend it for any systems engineering approach. TriZPUG uses Trac for collective programming projects. The material for PyCamp is in a Trac instance where you can participate in developing it yourself.

• Please insure a reader for PDF files such as Adobe Reader is installed on the laptop you will be bringing to PyCamp.
• Please have an SSH and SFTP client on your laptop such as Putty. Mac and Linux users, you already have one.
• Please have a ZIP file decompression client on your laptop such as WinZip. Mac and Linux users, you already have one.
• Optional: you can chat with the rest of your fellow PyCampers during PyCamp without disturbing anyone if you have an IRC client installed and tuned to the #trizpug channel.
• Optional: The last two days of PyCamp concentrate on SAX and DOM. So, you would not hurt yourself if you:
  • arrive at PyCamp with at least a cursory understanding of HTML. The w3schools free online HTML tutorial takes about an hour to complete.
  • arrive at PyCamp with at least a cursory understanding of CSS. The w3schools free online CSS tutorial takes about an hour to complete.
  • arrive at PyCamp with at least a cursory understanding of Javascript. The w3schools free online Javascript tutorial takes about an hour to complete.
  • arrive at PyCamp with at least a cursory understanding of XML. The w3schools free online XML tutorial takes about an hour to complete.
• Optional: You will not be damaged if you arrive at PyCamp with at least a cursory understanding of Regular Expressions. PyCamp covers understanding regular expressions. Quickly. Very quickly.
• Optional: If you want to get a jump on PyCamp, then you can look at two open sources of Python training materials upon which PyCamp relies heavily:
  • Dive Into Python
  • Software Carpentry

Get the Flyer

Print out the flyer and help publicize PyCamp in Houston.

Participants

The list of participants is updated daily during the registration period.