Who are PyLadies?

An international group of people trying to involve women in the Python programming community.

Why?

About 10-15% of programmers are women. That's very little. It's not that women are stupid or awkward or have no logical thinking. They are discouraged by other things; a lots of small details that create a not very friendly environment. PyLadies are trying to solve this problem, for example by creating an environment that is more enjoyable for new programmers.

PyLadies in Vienna

  • 2013 - PyLadies meetup group is founded and first one-day workshops are organized
  • 2015 - PyLadies Vienna become dormant for some time
  • 2019 - PyLadies in Vienna re-started as half-day workshops on various topics
  • February 2021 - First PyLadies Vienna beginners course
  • Many more in the future!

What will you learn here?

We will focus on the basics of programming. We promise to give you a better understanding of concepts such as variables, data types, conditions, loops, functions, exceptions, modules, and more.

What shouldn't you expect?

This is not going to be an intense IT course. We are not going to dwell into the details of programming or into complex theories. We're here for fun, we hope you will be there for fun as well. This course does not aim to focus on any specific aspect of programming such as web application development or data processing. If there will be some interest from the group we can get deeper into certain topics or aspects of programming, but that is not the primary intent.

Coaches

We are here to help you with problems. The important thing to note is that coaches should not touch your keyboard (even virtually). Finally - we are here in our free time. Please respect that.

If you have any questions about the course, if you have comments, suggestions, hard feelings or you just want to share something - feel free to contact us at pyladies.vienna@gmail.com or via discord.

Gather features

During lessons, we will use some tools that gather.town is offering to help us mentors, know how you are doing.

On the carpet in this main teaching room you can see two large words, WORKING and DONE.

During a lesson, when we are doing an exercise, you should move your avatar on WORKING side of the table, and when you are done, move to the DONE side. This way we can keep a better overview how the group is doing.

We will not continue until everyone is on the DONE side!

Trouble?

When you have troubles, there are two ways how to proceed.

If you think that your trouble is general and solving it might help others, simly ask directly in the main room.

If you think, the issue is related just to your personal setup or you do not feel comfortable sharing the screen with everyone, raise your hand (on the bottom panel, next to your name is hand emoji symbol) and leave the teaching room to one of the numbered private spaces.

One of our coaches will follow you there and help you.

Requirements for completion

To successfully finish the course and acquire a completion certificate, there are several conditions:

  • Submit all homeworks (do not need to be 100% correct!, but have to be submitted)
  • Submit two projects: one during the course and one final project
  • Submit 3 course feedbacks
  • Attendance on 70% of all lectures (don't worry, we are flexible on this point)

Homeworks

It is preferred by us that all homeworks are done via Google Collab, an online Python coding notebook interface with sharing options.

You can find our tutorial here: Google Colab Tutorial. This tool will allow the mentors to provide a better feedback.

What to do after this course?

  • You will need to practice a lot so you don't forget everything.
  • You can also practice and learn some advanced stuff (e. g. algorithms, data structures) at Hackerrank
  • There are also a lot of games where you practice by "coding" a game or playing a game by coding (the beginnings are not really hard, they will give you a foundation) - e.g. Coding game, Code combat, Checkio, Cyber Dojo, Code Wars.
  • You can join our meetups, where we focus on different topics or simply work there on your project.
  • If you have a project in mind, you can go to our facebook page, slack channel or meetup event and there will surely be soneone to help you.
  • We recommend to follow Humble Bundle where they once offered a large bundle with books, videos, and some software for Python development, or books about how to develop games with Python.
  • We have good feedback on the book Automate the boring stuff with Python.

    And now, the mentors will introduce themselves.

Once they finish, it will be your turn, so think about what you want to say - your name, why you want to learn python, where are you located and tell us something surprising about yourself!)