Simeon Franklin

Google IO Talks Mini-Review

I'm at Google IO blogging the talks I go to...

Posted May 16th, 2013 in Programming Technology (Comment)

Python/Django Talk tonight at USF in San Francisco

All are welcome tonight @ 6:30 at the University of San Francisco in the Kudlick Classroom (Harney Science Center 235) where I'll be presenting for the Special Lectures series for the Computer Science department there.

Please see the Special Lecture Series schedule for details. My talk is titled Django - Tips, Tricks and a dash of Python Magic. I'll be giving a brief overview of the fundamental pieces of the framework, a quick run-through of essential 3rd party Django apps, and discussion of advanced Python language features we can use to make our code more ~~Djangoic~~ ~~Djangoish~~ ~~Djangoical~~ like the rest of the Django code we use.

Posted April 17th, 2013 in Python (Comment)

PyCon 2013 Poster Video is up!

My video interview from the PyCon 2013 Poster session is up!

Posted April 17th, 2013 in Python (Comment)

My PyCon 2013 Poster

Just getting this up quickly in response to the very enthusiastic responses I received today at PyCon. Nobody yelled at me! (Guido did frown a bit though.) And very many of you came to tell me the same two things:

I agree.
What can I do to help?

I'll have more to say - both in explaining my ideas and in answering that second question - but in the meantime I just wanted to put up my poster for those who asked (warning: 1mb .pdf). Thanks again to everyone who stopped by my poster to chat. If you just can't wait to begin the conversation (or you didn't get a chance to yell at me!) I can be reached on twitter @simeonfranklin or via email (simeon at marakana dot com).

Posted March 17th, 2013 in Python (Comment)

Modesto Scripting Language Meetup API Mashups

Recently the Modesto Scripting Language Meetup had another hack night. The theme of the meetup was Twilio apps and API's in general. We had presentations on Twilio and the Meetup REST API.

Posted January 3rd, 2013 in Programming (Comment)

Ask an Expert - I'm wising up

After discovering that I was answering somebody else's test questions for them yesterday I'm less likely to answer questions like:

McDonald’s sells Chicken McNuggets in packages of 6, 9 or 20 McNuggets. Thus, it is possible, for example, to buy exactly 15 McNuggets (with one package of 6 and a second package of 9), but it is not possible to buy exactly 16 McNuggets, since no non- negative integer combination of 6's, 9's and 20's add up to 16. To determine if it is possible to buy exactly n McNuggets, one has to find non-negative integer values of a, b, and c such that 6a + 9b + 20c = n

Posted November 3rd, 2012 in Python (Comment)

Ask an Expert - Interlacing Strings

I get random questions from the internet… I hate to be helping people with their homework or interview questions - but sometimes the questions are fun! A commenter writes:

I have to write a code in python to concatenate two strings together, by successively alternating elements of each string (starting with the first character of s1). If one string is longer than the other, then the remaining elements of the longer string should simply be added at the end of the new string. For example, if we lace abcd and efghi, we would get the new string:'aebfcgdhi'.

Ok! Let’s tackle this problem a couple of different ways.

Posted November 2nd, 2012 in Python (Comment)

Scheduling Tasks in Python

A student wrote in to ask about using the sched module to schedule re-occurring tasks at a particular time of day in Python. Here's what I came up with...

Posted August 14th, 2012 in Python (Comment)

Using Django's Multiple Database Support

In a recent Django class one of my students posed the problem she was learning Django to tackle - she would be responsible for writing a web-based administrative interface to a database whose structure she wasn't allowed to modify. Can Django do that?

Absolutely - and Django even comes with a management command to bootstrap working with a legacy database. Let's create a brand new project, use a popular sample database as our target, and using Django's multi-db support to store Django's built-in model data in a separate database.

Posted August 13th, 2012 in Django Python (Comment)

Understanding Python Decorators in 12 Easy Steps!

Ok, perhaps I jest. As a Python instructor decorators are a topic I find students consistently struggle with upon first exposure. That’s because decorators are hard to understand! Getting decorators requires understanding several functional programming concepts as well as feeling comfortable with some unique features of Python’s function definition and function calling syntax.

I can’t make decorators easy - but maybe by walking through each piece of the puzzle one step at a time I can help you feel more confident in understanding decorators[1]. Because decorators are complex this is going to be a long article - but stick with it! I promise to make each piece as simple as possible - and if you understand each piece, you’ll understand how decorators work!

Posted July 1st, 2012 in Python (Comment)

Javascript The Good Parts Talk

Modesto Scripting Languages Meetup is up to 22 members and 4 consecutive meetups!

Posted June 4th, 2012 in Programming (Comment)

What Generators are for

I teach Python classes and enjoy exploring language features from the perspective of newbie's to the language. Usually I can explain the rationale for Python language features by showing a compelling use case. But what about generator functions?

Posted May 22nd, 2012 in Programming Python (Comment)

Short tutorial on Django and Celery

I filmed a short tutorial on setting up a developer config of Celery with Django. Celery lets you call Python functions as asynchronous tasks, to be run by a separate process. Production usage of Celery involves installing a queue service of some kind (RabbitMQ, etc) but for development use it is possible to just use the Django ORM to store tasks in the database and run the celery daemon as a program in the foreground ala Django's runserver command. Video after the jump...

Posted April 26th, 2012 in Django Python (Comment)

Top 10 Rookie Mistakes in PHP

At the most recent Modesto Scripting Languages Meetup I presented a talk on the Top 10 Rookie Mistakes in PHP.

Posted April 26th, 2012 in Programming (Comment)

Fernando Perez and IPython at Baypiggies

Fernando Perez will be presenting at Baypiggies this coming Thursday (7:30 at Symantec Mountain View on Apr 19th, 2012). I'm a big fan of IPython and really enjoyed the IPython sessions I sat in @ PyCon2012 - come by and pick up IPython tips that will make you a more productive programmer daily!

Posted April 12th, 2012 in Python (Comment)

Getting started with Jython

A student in my Python Fundamentals class asked me to demonstrate how to get started with Jython - this is what I could figure out in 30 minutes...

Posted April 4th, 2012 in Python (Comment)

Pycon 2012

PyCon 2012 rocks. Dancing robots! Great tutorials, great talks, and 2,200+ Pythonistas!

Posted March 9th, 2012 in Python (Comment)

List Comprehensions for Modesto Scripting Languages Meetup

Monday night we had our second Modesto Scripting Languages Meetup. This was our first presentations-style meeting and all the presenters did a great job - James did a live demo of building a simple app in web.py, Nathan covered the MVC pattern in web applications and I talked about list processing generally and list comprehensions in Python specifically.

Posted March 2nd, 2012 in Python (Comment)

Data Visualization with pyprocessing talk

Last Thursday I presented at Baypiggies. I have to say this was not one of my most polished presentations ever - I volunteered at the last minute when we didn't have a speaker. I had started a talk on the port of Processing to Python for PyCon and hadn't finished my sample programs or the talk structure when I didn't make the cut for PyCon. But taking my own advice not to waste a rejection I (sorta) finished up my talk in the couple of days before Baypiggies and filled in. Read More to see the slides and source code for the talk.

Posted February 28th, 2012 in Programming Python (Comment)

That's me, Python Expert

This is actually an announcement after the fact, but I am now a full time Python instructor for Marakana. Yes, my official job title is now Expert and instead of working as a freelance programmer I teach other programmers how to transition to Python. This has been a huge but welcome shift for me! Let me explain how I got here.

Posted February 14th, 2012 in Programming Python Technology (Comment)

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