I taught David Beazley’s 3-day Intro to Python class in Austin last week, and I really enjoyed it. I’ve always liked speaking in front of people (well, after the very first time, which was terrifying), and three days with a group of 15 made for a good intimate dynamic.

Interestingly, I learned a few tidbits about Python along the way:

• The builtin enumerate() function has a two-argument form so that you can specify the first numbering value: enumerate(seq, start), handy for numbering lines in files, which should of course start with 1, not 0.
• The -i switch to the Python interpreter will run your program, then leave you in the command prompt when it ends. This can be good for interactively testing the functions defined in the file, or for debugging if an exception happens.
• If you use “python -i” and need to debug, pdb.pm() is the thing to use. It places you at the point where the last traceback was raised. It seems like magic, since the exception has already risen to the top level of the program, but pdb.pm() puts you “back in time” before the exception started its climb up through the stack.
• 4 + True == 5. Useless, but there it is.

I liked explaining Python’s elegant power, and it’s fun to show experienced C programmers a different way of looking at programming. Trying to fit all the material into three days is a challenge, and there are interesting side-topics that I know we can’t get into, which is a shame, but there’s only so much you can do in a given amount of time.

Austin was a really fun city to explore on my own, too. If I had been more confident that I’d have energy left at the end of the day, I’d have tried to arrange some social events with other Python peeps. But the “Keep Austin Weird” vibe made it easy to wander around and find food trucks to eat at. My first night, driving down East 6th street, I saw a cluster of closed food trucks, with just one open, lit like a beacon at the back:

How could I not eat at a tiny truck named Pig Vicious manned by a giant tattooed bearded cook?