ShowMeDo Blog

On my personal blog I have written a long entry on Making Python math 196* faster with shedskin.

I compared stock Python 2.5, Psyco and ShedSkin output on an artificial neural network problem. The goal was to quickly estimate how fast a C version might solve the problem without having to actually write C (thus saving hours, sweat and tears).  ShedSkin converts Python code to C++ for compilation with g++.

Psyco speeds things up by a factor of 2.6, ShedSkin by a super-impressive 196 times.

Leonardo Maffi has continued the benchmarks and shows that hand-coded C is between 1.5 and 7 times faster than ShedSkin’s output.  Auto-generated code that is within a order of magnitude of hand-written code is darned impressive in my book!

He also notes the difficulty of writing a bug-free C version vs the simplicity of dealing with Python (and D) code.

As a side note - Mark Dufour and team at ShedSkin are interested in having extra hands help with the push to a 0.1 release which supports enough Python to be useful to many.

Florian, one of our authors, has written a blog on how ‘How I do my screencasts‘.

“…I log into my tutorial account and start making the screencast, with recording on. It has to be noted that I have no second monitor showing me the code I am supposed to write, so I pretty much write it from memory. With longer screencasts I might have a paper with notes lying next to me. …”

His method is probably shared by most screencasters, though editing tends to follow (at least for me) to clean-up the recording, remove empty space and smooth out any audio glitches.

Lucas’ Club series for Python beginners which introduces the Python standard library is now complete.

Batteries Included - The Python Standard Library has 9 episodes for Club-subscribers which introduce the core elements of file-system access, using the shell, regular expressions, math, dates and talking to websites.

“I will thank you for getting this in-depth basic explanation of the basic modules. It really fills in some missing holes on my knowledge of using this.” - JZA

Each video is around 5 minutes long and includes examples of normal use.

Episodes:

1. Series overview
2. The “sys” module
3. The “os” module
4. The “shutil” module (shell access)
   
5. The “glob” module (file pattern matching)
   
6. The “re” module (regular expressions)
   
7. The “math” module
8. The “urllib2” module
9. The “datetime” module

Other recent Python videos include Making a Django Dev Environment, TurboGears 2, Agile Python Development, Python for Math Education, Database Programming, Google App Engine and pyWin32

Lucas Holland joins Kyran, John and Ian as an author for ShowMeDo’s Club.  The Club creates tutorial videos for beginner and intermediate Python programmers.

For his first series Lucas covers elements of The Python Standard Library.

Half of the videos are published, the series will be fully published in the next two weeks.  Each video is around 5 minutes long and includes examples of normal use.

Episodes:

1. Series overview
2. The “sys” module
3. The “os” module
4. The “shutil” module
5. The “glob” module
6. The “re” module [forthcoming]
7. The “math” module [forthcoming]
8. The “urllib2? module [forthcoming]
9. The “datetime” module [forthcoming]

Other recent Python videos include Making a Django Dev Environment, TurboGears 2, Agile Python Development, Python for Math Education, Database Programming, Google App Engine and pyWin32

I’m rather excited to announce this new and rather long Club ShowMeDo series called Common Variables and Containers.  It is aimed at new/intermediate Python users and builds upon the previous ‘What Does Python Look Like?‘ series.

In 14 episodes I introduce the user to all the common Python datatypes and containers.  This includes showing common usage and explaining newer ways of doing things with Python 2.5 (and linking to examples of out-dated docs so the user is aware of older techniques).

“Excellent tutorial - Well thought out example, clear, with a logical progression that builds on itself. In the end the goal of the tut is attained very well.”

Each episode is 5-10 minutes long, the first seven are published and the rest follow over the coming weeks:

1. Overview (Variables and Containers) (Free)

2. Variables are Objects

3. Variable Scope

4. int and float

5. decimal

6. str(ings)

7. unicode

The aim of the series is to give a visual introduction to all the common datatypes that the user will see when learning Python.  This backs-up the material that can be found on the web and in books - screencasts are great for building up memories of ’seeing it in action’.

This series is a part of Club ShowMeDo, these videos are for paying subscribers (Club membership is given for free to anyone who submits their own screencast).  The Club screencasts are a part of our 311 Python screencasts, most of which are freely available, created by us and our open-source authors.

“Great video, lots of good basic information to help me start learning Python. Easy to watch the videos and then open up an interactive prompt and try out the new features I just learned. I also like the web links for additional details.”

If you want to try the Club, remember that we offer a full refund guarantee if the Club isn’t what you expect and you are free to cancel your subscription at any time.  We want you to feel comfortable whilst trying us out.  We’re always open to feedback and suggestions for the topics you’d like to see us cover.

Other recent Club videos include Database Programming, Google App Engine and pyWin32.

Recent free videos include Making a Django Dev Environment, TurboGears 2, Agile Python Development and Python for Math Education.

Continuing from the last post we’ve published two more Club ShowMeDo videos in the first Python Beginners series named What Does Python Look Like?

The current four (of six) episodes are:

1. 3 Minute Oveview (What Does Python Look Like?) (Free)
2. Variables and Naming
3. Write and Run (and Unit Tests), No Compiling
4. Indentation and Colons

There are two more episodes to come, they’ll be posted next week.  After that a much longer Python Beginners series starts, this one will cover all of the basic datatypes including usage examples.

Kyran has published the first five episodes of A Gentle Introduction to the Google App Engine Python SDK in Club ShowMeDo, more will follow over the coming weeks.

“Google has chosen Python as its initial application development language, allowing new users to leverage the considerable power and usability of such frameworks as Django or Pylons. This series will introduce the GAE, focussing on the use of its Python SDK and webapp framework. …”

This series currently looks at:

• Overview of the series
• Installing the SDK + ‘Hello world’
• Using the framework
• Google’s User Service
• Handling Forms

I planned on making a long series of videos for the C language (see “C programming tutorial“) because ShowMeDo, the best site for educational screencasts (no advertisement intended) lacked C screencasts. Also C is great for starting in a good position(not too high-level, not too low) as a programmer.

This series is a very informal introduction to programming, it starts with ’study skills for programmers’, where I suggest how to overcome the overwhelming feeling one gets starting to venture into learning something new. I invented the HPA philosophy (Humility, Patience, and Analisys) to guide the audience to have humility and realize how ignorant (no ofense intended) one can be, even while having Oxford P.H.D. in physics. After that, patience comes into play, as no learning can be made if you retreat as soon as you feel weared or uneasy about it. And later analisys to decipher what some author has written/said in a tutorial, documentation, and such.

C is short programming language, there are very few keywords (in comparison to any other popular language), and most algorithms and data structures are based on pointers and C structures. It is a procedural -paradigm language, because you have to think and thereof specify the tasks the computer has to perform to arrive to a certain goal.

In our C tutorial, I try to be nice with the audience and teach the most confusing aspects of C first, for later having fun with the code (other authors leave the frustration for the end, which is incorrect, since the author could have deceived the audience to believe that what was conceived as ‘X’, is rather a very different concept… say ‘Y’).

C is still useful in this cyber world full of object oriented programming languages. And it will be that way for ages to come because of it’s flexibility. C is powerful, and it’s widespread use is sure to permit you land on a programming job.

Nobody can respect a serious programmer that stumbles in doubt when a C code snipet is shown to him/her. That is why even if you do not plan to program in C as a professional, I always recommend to know the basics, as it is probable that he/she will find C snipets recurring over and over again at conferences, books, internet articles, Podcasts, programmer friends, etc.

Even the most popular programming languages are made out of C. This is not publicity, it is simply an unavoidable standard ( C can get sometimes in your head and go BOOM).

Contributing to the programming internet community in mind, “C programming tutorial” is a series of videos for beginners to the programming world, that teaches to write code easily while explaining the details of syntax and programming concepts.

Gasto.

For a while I’ve been mulling adding text-only tutorials to ShowMeDo - basically a regular video page sans the video-box. By adding Guides we can write short tutorials which help to connect our video series together and also link to external tutorials.

The first Guide is Starting with Python:

• Installing Python
• Language overview
• Writing your first program
• Learn Python with Club ShowMeDo
• Tutorials and Forums
• Books and Training

Each of these entries are rather short - just several paragraphs linking to local screencasts and external tutorials. I’ll expand them as I receive feedback.

What’s interesting having written this first is just how obvious it is that many of our videos show you how to use specific tools…and so few teach you how to program.

Kyran and I had already decided to focus on teaching Python beginner programming in Club ShowMeDo, I’m about to start preparing my first absolute-beginner series next week. Hopefully we can quickly address this gaping hole in our collection!

Marius und ich haben die ersten beiden Videos einer neuen Videoserie online gestellt. Es handelt sich bei dieser Serie um “Programmierung mit Python“. Sie knüpft direkt an unsere Einsteigerserie an und soll den Schritt vom Beherrschen der theoretischen Grundlagen zum Schreiben praktischer Programme erleichtern. Dazu werden wir in jeder Episode ein kleines Programm schreiben, das mehr oder weniger nützlich ist, aber völlig funktionsfähig. Wir erhoffen uns, mit dieser neuen Serie wieder so erfolgreich zu sein wie mit der Einführung in die Programmierung mit Python.

Wir sind natürlich wie immer offen für Kritik - positiv und negativ - und Anregungen bzw. Anmerkungen.

Lucas