Intro

Programming: a general overview

I don't think I'm qualified enough to teach you programming as an art — that's something you have to master yourself
- You was taught how to write in the school – but they don't teach you how to write poems
How it's going to go for people who'll stick around:
- ifs and loops — what we starting with today
- writing own context managers and using metaclasses to force your will onto customers — best example is So you want to be a Python expert? by James Powell
  - I highly recommend all of his lectures, start with basic ones
- ifs and loops — as said by one of the best programmers there is — John Carmack, THE John Carmack of Doom and Quake fame. And he knows what he's talking about — his code runs on anything with a processor and screen.
What I can help you with is the tool — Python in our case

You tell me — you came here
- Ask for actual answers
What is see as good in Python — but mind that I'm not trying to sell it to you:
- Show and tell!
- quick to start getting things done
  - ```
  python
  'Hello, World!'
```
- simple syntax and concepts
- lot comes in the box and even more made available by huge and active community
  - ```
  import itertools
  list(itertools.combinations('ABCD', 2))
```
- popular — thus a lot of opportunities
- import this
What I'm not a fan of (but remember that I'm biased):
- my personal pain of last few days — it's easy to get into dependency hell, especially on ARM CPUs
- whitespace code block structure — it seems weird at first, nice after that and makes you irrationaly angry in the end, more so when you try to keep your code to some standards of cleanliness

For me:
- At first I was just learning along with the group
- Now I'm getting some kind of pleasure from teaching — which I wouldn't expect few years ago
- Making me doing something aside from work and degrading with youtube
For you:
- You'll know Python a bit better than before
- You'll have project done if you go through with it
- You'll have something else to do aside from work and degrading with youtube
What's Nielsen's interest in it
- Why do they allow this in work time, especially when we now have such lack of hands in ML team?
  - Ask for actual answers
Structure:
- I'm not entirely sure, but mostly will be based on last editions of Learning Python (Lutz) and Think Python (Allen B. Downey) — you might as well get these and flip through in free time. They're pretty easy to find both in paper or digitally. Get English version.
- We will be going in the small-to-big direction: learning small things and trying to build bigger picture with the parts we know so far. Except for next lecture, but you'll see.
- This is going to be learning experience for both parties — I'll be writing the course (and publishing the notes on GitHub) as we go
- I'll try to find exercises for topics and publish them in group channel
- Few lectures in we'll have first big task, and probably second most difficult one — come up with projects to finish before the end.

It's best to have *NIX laptop — Linux is perfect, older (x86) Mac is good too. Apple silicon macs are ok, Windows — my condolences
- Linux comes with Python, or at least it's easy to get it and get it working properly
  - show prepare_ec2
- Macs do come with Python, but on lot of versions it's broken, and default is 2
- Mx Macs have different CPU architecture which means additional packages have to be built (and most importantly C extensions compiled) for it before distribution — and not every developer has access to Mxs. Python itself works fine
- Windows is a mess — I used to have Python on my personal win machine, which is left in Odessa for now; and I ended up getting entire separate laptop for running Linux for Python reasons. Situation is getting better, I've heard, and there are many good guide — start with Realpython one
For first few lectures all we'll gonna need is working Python3 interpreter
End result of your preparation should like this:
- python or python3 launches Python REPL (Read–eval–print loop)
- pip, pip3 or worst-case scenario python -m pip should produce pip help info
Personal GitHub account — for now just have it, we'll use it later
- Don't forget RSA!

Python has great documentation, get used to it
- You might even find why it's called Python there
IDE of your choice:
- PyCharm if you like swiss army knife approach
- VSCode if you word «Electron» doesn't send shivers down your spine
- Sublime or Notepad++ for now will work wonders
- JupyterLab/Notebooks
Terminal is good for you:
- even windows one, although I'll recommend getting some ConEmu for it — conemu or tabby, with either WSL or at least GitBash
- On *NIX that's your first tool of choice, and any UI solution is second
Best way to learn is do:
- Python was created as addition/replacement for Bash scripts to make small handy tools — you should do it too
- Don't bite more than you can chew from the get go, but don't underestimate yourself — most likely you'll be able to do it with enough patience and persistence
- Automate it!
Writing lectures is far more difficult that I imagined — I've been writing for almost two albums (those would be Protomen — Father Of Death, Act II and Polkadot Cadaver — Last Calls in Jonestown) now with ideas being with me for a few days at least; and editor shows that I'm only at around thousand words, which is about three minutes of reading
Don't hesitate with questions and findings — we have (do we?) a channel just for that reason. Don't keep your problems and discoveries to yourself. Teamwork makes a dreamwork!