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Teaching Python

Episode 53: Developing for Mobile, the Web, and Desktop with Russell Keith-Magee ( @freakboy3742 )

This week's guest is Russell Keith-Magee from the Beeware project. Our conversation this week is about teaching students Python with native desktop applications, mobile, and the web. Plus, why do we have to use the command line? And do coding books from the early 80s hold up in Python?

  • Django core developer and the founder and maintainer of the BeeWare project
  • Former president of the Django Software Foundation
  • BeeWare is a collection of tools and libraries for developing desktop and mobile applications; BeeWare aims to make it easy to write a native application for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, or Android that you can then distribute to end users as an installable app.
  • BeeWare isn't a single tool or library - it's a collection of projects that can be used to help develop, debug, and launch Python software. Each tool follows the Unix philosophy of doing one thing well. Each tool can be used in isolation, or they can be chained together to provide a rich set of programming tools.

Special Guest: Russell Keith-Magee.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

  • Write once. Deploy everywhere.— BeeWare — Write your apps in Python and release them on iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS, Linux, Web, and tvOS using rich, native user interfaces. Multiple apps, one codebase, with a fully native user experience on every platform.
  • Introduction to command line · HonKit — Let us introduce you to your first new friend: the command line! The following steps will show you how to use the black window all hackers use. It might look a bit scary at first but really it's just a prompt waiting for commands from you.
  • Computer and coding books from Usborne — Usborne has been publishing award-winning computer books since the 1980s. Our latest books will give today's kids a clear understanding of computers and coding, which are compulsory school topics in the UK. To celebrate the release of Coding for beginners using Python, we've released five more 1980s Usborne coding books. Scroll down to download the free pdfs. 
  • starship_takeoff.py — Sean's Python version of a Usborne BASIC game. STARSHIP TAKEOFF Adapted from Usborne Book Computer Spacegames https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxv0SsvibDMTNlMwTi1PTlVxc2M/view
  • Code With Mu — Code with Mu: a simple Python editor for beginner programmers.

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