pynwTo catch up on my blog the second topic that came in my mind was my very first attendance at a Python user group last Thursday. It was organised by Python NorthWest, a meetup group took place in SpacePortX in Manchester. If you have an interest in Python programming language and would like to learn more or share your ideas, this is the one you should go for. You can be a complete beginner or a very advanced Python user. The group meets every third Thursday of each month at 7pm. They alternate between talks and coding sessions.

This month’s meeting involved a talk followed by discussion lead by Egor Zindy, titled “Interfacing Python/NumPy with C – to prototype imaging applications”. Egor started off explaining what he does for his day-to-day job and this was one of the many projects he used python for. He designed a user interface using Python with C, to analyse images and videos of microorganism under microscope. A couple of examples were demonstrated; it was very interesting. He then moved onto looking through some code he’s written for this interface and the group gave him some suggestions on other possible programming languages instead of C. Eventually Egor wanted to create a user interface for users with no knowledge of any programming languages. I must admit as I am still learning Python at beginner level, the level of the discussion was beyond my knowledge. In the long run, I hope I will be able to understand more once I have learnt a little bit more about the language, the best way to measure my progress I suppose.

After the meeting we went to have a drink or two at a nearby pub, it was a very good opportunity to network and to find out more about each other. For those who attend these meetings regularly, it was a good a catch up with each other.

On a different note, whilst browsing for useful learning tools on Python programming language, I have been using Udacity on my phone and learn Python on the go. The course “Intro to Computer Science” not only teach you the Python language, but a good introduction on concepts in computer science. There are many other free courses on this site, I would definitely recommend anyone to learn from Udacity.

I am looking forward to go to the next meeting when possible, it will be a good couple of months since I will be attending an online course when the meeting will be happening. So…hopefully when I attend the next Python user group, I will understand more!

Next up, I will be writing about the amazing BarCamp!