PythonicCampEn

Background on China

• in China most programmer s are not computer communication and technology majors
• in Chinese universities, the educational mode of institutions of computer science and technology is very primitive, which is same with mathematics education.
• What are the mainstream development technologies? in china, the main choices depend on the market share of IT companies
• then the students will choose the relative technologies to learn by:
  • Reading the books of the most popular technologies;
  • Learning the technologies with most technical certifications
• so! in china Python is far from mainstream

Problems need solve

• but, Internet companies need Pythoners more and more urgently:

• in Game Development, need to quickly bind python with functions witch complete by C / C + + / Lua / Perl / PHP, etc
• in WebSite Development, need to use python to complete web site or realize some web services, etc
• in Desktop Development, need to use python to quickly complete cross-platform deployment of automated testing / integration,etc
• ...

• How to do?

• Wait for the universities to prepare and open a good course?
• High salaries to attract self-taught Python programmers?
• Create the specialized schools to train programmers?

• PythoniCamp is a fast training method for junior and senior students to rapidly learn Python technologies.

What's PytohniCamp ?

• `KingsoftCollege`_founded by kingsoft.com, is a full-time training organization for junior students in holidays.

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• Usually lasts for 4 to 5 weeks
• Promises to give offers to excellent students
• The students finish the C++ programming exercises, and the teachers explain the exercises regularly

• PythoniCamp is a specified training from KingsoftCollege :

• Preaches and introduces Python, and promises to give offer to the best students
• For the voluntary participation of the trainees, make a four-hour introduction of basic syntax and development in Python
• Published a number of practical project requirements, which are the truly needed small system or tools of the teams within the company
• The development teams formed by the trainees themselves, experiments the iterative development under the guidance of the instructor

• Through the mailing list at any time for technical answers
• an open presentation to run the system demo every Friday
• All of the codes are committed to SVN repository
• All of the tasks / issues / defects are recorded in Trac

Why PytohniCamp ?

• Learnning swim, must in water
• students have formed a wrong software development concept in universities, they must be push into permission environments to refactory a correct concept:

• in enterprises, team work is indispensible
• Python development itself is not a mystery. To successfully complete the development, the difficulties are to accurately understand the requirements and communicate in or out of the team
• Good habits of code management / configuration practices . It's useless to build habits after a failure
• All commitments must be open, so that the credibility can be guaranteed
• Any time, a participator should be considerate of others, then your code / documentation / communication can be effective!

• Based on these assumptions , an atmosphere infinitely close to the real development environment can be created:

• master is able to provide everything, but can not take the initiative to offer, students must be aware that roar out of what is required to promptly
• master generally does not give the specific answers, only points out a direction, the rest is relied on the students' own efforts
• The project is a real dead line and the pressure for demon presentation ,so which team is better can be immediately notice by everyone

Basic recurrence

• Daily standup meetings have sound recordings
• Weekly standup meetings have sound recordings
• Weekly student activities score

• Evaluation criteria are not publicly released
• The quantitative evaluation according to the student initiatives
• the evaluation is rated in the perspectives of cooperativeness/ responsibility / communication skills, and they are the important characteristics needed in a real project environment

More sophisticated recurrence

• Rapid formation of the authority of the master
• Rapid formation of opposition between master and students
• Only the team which gives up opposition timely and seeks cooperation is able to obtain the real requirements to complete the project
• If the team is always united for against master, them will not complete project neither

Other capabilities of ...

• PythoniCamp is designed in this way is owing to:

• master are the company staff, they also have their own development tasks, can not be fully involved in the training projects like the trainees
• master do not have teaching background, they can only solve the problems occurred in the pratices
• In a real company environment, it is impossible that a kind-hearted memeber will help you complete the mission!
• In a real company project, there is no time for you to study the technologies, you can only squeeze time to learn.

• If the students have any imaginations about program development, it's risky for individuals and enterprises
• Experiencing the real development environment earlier has the following benefits:

• Enterprise can tell whether a student is fit for the IT industry
• Students are able to adjust themselves and form an appropriate habit.

• Considerable effects of PythoniCamp:

• The first PythoniCamp started on 2008-09,
• 22 students participated,
• only two quit the training.
• The 20 students formed 5 development teams
• finally finished 3 system.
• Among the 20 students, five students passed the assessment and three was hired by Kingsoft.

Conclusion

• Chinese students have solid foundations in normal school courses
• As long as the students have the Pascal / C / C + + / JAVA based students, it is easy to master the basic syntax of Python and complete the executable script
• The general guidance of the python camp teachers are active members of the communities, so that the final situation is:

• Colleges need not to organize experienced IT company staffs to have classes, but a good employment rate will be achieved
• Students do not have to spend the extra training fees, they can transfer the passive learning to the active learning in the shortest time, the employment rate can be improved
• Enterprise do not have to pay additional fees, then they can recruit potential students from the community list and previously teach the technical skills to improve the employment rate
• The communities can improve the influences without any extra efforts in the projects that have clear objectives and a variety of supports

that mean all win!

<<-- ZoomQuiet[2010-01-21 11:33:36]>>