📅 Today’s topics

• Review HTTP request-response
• Learn about MVC web applications
• Get to know Django!

🎯 Project: Uptact

When you start your first dev job, you will see a lot of code all at once and will have to be able to read it and understand what it does so that you can modify and add to it.

In this project you will do just that: modify existing code to augment its functionality. This is due Friday morning.

Each person should accept the assignment invitation and work in their own repo, but please work on this assignment with your assigned buddies. Buddy groups are welcome to combine and unite forces. The point is: nobody should struggle alone.

For each part of the assignment, talk over with your buddies how you each think you can accomplish the tasks. Be willing to try things your buddy suggests even if you aren’t sure it’s right! You will learn a lot by seeing what happens (and what doesn’t) when you make changes.

Talking it through will help clarify your understanding of how Django works, and having a buddy around will be helpful when you inevitably run into errors.

code_buddies = [
  ('Stephen', 'Jamie', 'Manny'),
  ('Shawna', 'Gerardo'),
  ('Philip', 'Jessica'),
  ('Ambar', 'Hillary', 'Joey'),
]

👉 Django Uptact

🔖 Resources

Database

• DB Browser for SQLite - an optional but super helpful tool to be able to see your SQLite database directly. You can download it or install it with Homebrew.

Django

• MDN: Django Introduction
• Official Django documentation
• Django Girls Tutorial
• Django Topic Guide (this is a useful table of contents for the Django docs)
• Pretty Printed Django Videos: Videos 1-10 are the ones specific to Django. There are other videos on related topics; they are useful but not relevant to the material we’re covering right now.
• Django Chat Podcast: How to Learn Django
• MDN Django Docs -> See especially the Intro section
• Pipenv documentation

HTTP

• How the web works
• An overview of HTTP

🦉 Code

• Diagram of Client and Server
• Diagram of Django’s structure
• HOWTO: Starting a new Django project
• Tour of a Django App

Today, we’ll take a brief survey of classes and objects in Python to get us ready to take on Django.

Today’s topics

• Python Classes
  • Instantiating an Object
  • Attributes
  • Instance Methods
  • “Magic” Methods

🔎 Mystery Word Project Retrospective

• Something I learned by doing this project is…
• Something I want to understand better or know more about is…
• In this project, I was happy that I was able to…

🐍 Code Break

Creating classes and objects

🎯 Project

Today you are beginning a Django tutorial, where you will see classes implemented. Please complete at least part one by Monday, 5/2.

🔖 Resources

Object-oriented

• Real Python - Object-Oriented Programming in Python 3
• A Byte of Python: OO
• Inheritance and Composition in Python OO
• OO-Programming – This is a chapter from a book called Beyond the Basic Stuff With Python by Al Sweigart. He has written a ton of great books on Python and makes them available to read for free online at inventwithpython.com. You might check out Automate the Boring Stuff with Python. It’s a fantastic beginner book.

Classes in Python

• Python Docs: Classes
• StackOverflow: How do I design a class in Python?
• Special Methods (aka magic methods) in the Python Docs
• A Guide to Python’s Magic Methods This is a great reference, but watch out! It was written for Python 2, so a few things may be different in Python 3.

Useful resources for debugging

• Scope of Variables in Python
• 🐛 Debugging Python For Fun & Profit (video)
• Code Style Checks in Python We installed flake8 on the first day of this phase. This post gives you some detail about what it’s for and why you need it.

🦉 Code & Notes

• Jupyter Notebooks Notebooks 13-15
• Code from class: Word Frequency OO

Breaking down programming problems into their smallest pieces is one of the most critical skills in programming. You’ll need to practice this for the weekend assignment.

🗓️ Today’s topics

• Modules and import
• Program shape & design

🤓 How to approach a large project

tl;dr: Plan, be methodical, and talk to colleagues.

Sketch it out before you write code

Developers need to sketch out their ideas. (This is the true purpose of whiteboards for engineering teams, not grilling job candidates on obscure algorithms…) A pencil and paper is a great tool for programming. If that isn’t your style, use a stylus and tablet, a Google Doc, or whatever you like to jot things down. Don’t start in the code editor, in other words.

• What is the program/product’s purpose or goal? Restate it in your own words to be sure you get it.
• What is its core purpose? See if you can clear away anything not strictly necessary and get down to the simplest version of what it does.
• Bullet list out the main things it needs to do to achieve its purpose.
• Then go back and look at each bullet, and break it down further. What steps might need to happen first?
  • Each step could be something you know how to do OR something you don’t know how to do. Examples:
    • Get the contents of a file
    • Figure out some way to choose a random word
    • Keep track of what letters have been guessed
• Go back and re-read your list.
  • Are you missing any steps? Is there anything out of order?
  • Could any step be made clearer or more precise with more detail?
  • Is each step really just one step? Do you need to break them down into more than one, or do some steps need to be combined?
• Revise this list until it looks solid to you.
• Talk to other people working on this assignment and compare your lists.
• You will probably have to revisit your plan and revise it as you discover new problems to solve while you work. This is expected and ok. It is all in a day’s work for a software developer.

Once you have a plan you think is somewhat doable, then you can start writing code. Use pseudo-code to help guide you. Work through your steps in the order that makes sense, keeping in mind that you can hard-code values as placeholders where you need to.

🗝 You have to run your program repeatedly to get feedback about what is happening.

🗝 Don’t forget to use your print statements to give you necessary information as your program runs.

🗝 Change one thing at a time and work methodically.

🗝 Take breaks. It’s hard to think when you are tired, frustrated, or stressed.

🗝 Talk to other developers when you are stuck. Talking through the problem will often clarify what you need to do. See Rubber Duck Debugging.

🐍 Code Break

Try working with a module

🎯 Project

This is due on Thursday.

Mystery Word

🔖 Resources

• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python
• RealPython: Modules and Packages: We’ll get more into packages next week, so just read through the section on modules for now.
• RealPython: How to Run Your Python Scripts: Much of the beginning of this article is review of things we’ve talked through in class, but it is a good synthesis of what we’ve covered.
• Python Docs: Tutorial on Modules
• Python Docs: Module Index
• Python Docs: __main__

🦉 Code

• Python notebooks 12 - Modules

We can use the generic term sequence for any object that provides an ordered structure for a number of items, such as a string (a group of characters), a list, or a dictionary (keys and values).

Files are important as inputs for our programs. Today we’ll learn about working with text files.

📅 Today’s Topics

• More strings
• Working with files
• List comprehensions

🐍 Code Break

• Try working with strings
• Try working with lists
• Practice with list comprehensions

🎯 Project

We will work on this project in stages both inside and outside of class today. It is due on Tuesday morning.

Word Frequency

You will find this helpful in understanding the starter code.

• What does if __name__ == "__main__" do? And these for reading the files.
• Working with Files in Python
• Reading and Writing Files

🔖 Resources

RealPython

• Strings and Character Data in Python
• Lists and Tuples
• Dictionaries
• Sets
• Python Debugging with pdb

Python Docs

• Sequence Types
  • Methods and Operations to Use with Sequences
  • Common Sequence Operations
• Common String Operations
• String Methods

🦉 Code & Notes

• Python List Comprehensions
• Working With Files
• Intro to Python notebooks (Notebooks 6-9)