= Minutes 2010/06/05 =


== Python in Schools ==

Notes from Robert's talk on the recent proposal to the Western Cape education to consider Python as the primary language for use in high school IT studies.

 * Robert and Marco know Western Cape IT curriculum advisor, Mr Brock.
 * Current curriculum:
   * Western Cape and 3 others use Delphi
   * Other five use Java
   * Have to set two exams, two sets of examples
   * Interaction with Delphi very GUI orientated
   * Tension between the two groups
     * Language flamewars
 * New proposal:
   * Everyone switches to Python
   * Disadvantages all students equally. :)
 * Different cases:
   * Students continuing on to other languages.
   * Students who will only do school computer studies.
 * Teachers need / want an IDE for students.
 * Current status after meeting:
   * Western Cape people seem fairly convinced that Python is a good choice.
   * Western Cape IT people will now try convince Delphi users.
   * Need final proposal early September.
   * Will make decision in early November and start training teachers.
   * Curriculum to be deployed in 2012.
 * Should curriculum be moving to web GUIs?
   * Django?
 * Teachers themselves don't agree about what should be taught.
 * Specific skills become rapidly outdated.
   * Need to select skills that won't become outdated easily.
 * Lots of things are scriptable with Python:
   * Mayavi
   * VPython
   * !PyGame
   * Turtle
 * Learning by exploration?
   * How many students would actually do this?
 * How can CTPUG help out?
   * Robert will ask Mr Brock how CTPUG can contribute.
 * Marco and UCT are running another weekend Python course in August:
   * Perhaps CTPUG people could help out as tutors.
   * Perhaps invite teachers involved in language decisions to come help / observe.
   * Handily this is just before the September decision.
 * What is the current curriculum?
   * Would be useful to get a copy.


== !PiCloud Talk ==

Links to things discussed:

  * [http://www.picloud.com PiCloud]
    * High-level cloud computing interface using Python.
    * Provides call(func, *args) and map(func, sequence) functions.
    * Built on top of Amazon's EC2 and S3.
    * Code that can be run pretty much unrestricted (NumPy and SciPy provided, can upload own modules, can read and write to filesystem).
    * Can't listen for incoming connections.
    * !PiCloud service currently in beta and free. Later will be charged at approximately Amazon EC2 / S3 rates.
  * [http://code.google.com/p/boto/ Boto]
    * Lower-level interface to EC2, S3 and other Amazon Web Services.
    * Allows control and creation of EC2 instances, load balancers, etc.
  * Google App Engine
    * Code than can be run tightly restricted (data must be stored via BigTable, no access to custom C extensions)
    * Some ways for running GAE apps on your own hardware:
      * [http://github.com/jchris/appdrop AppDrop] (not actively maintained)
      * [http://code.google.com/p/django-gae2django/ django-gae2django] (run apps under Django, also not actively maintained)
  * [http://codespeak.net/execnet/ Execnet]
    * A library for setting up your own distributed Python computing environment.