This week I have had a wonderful experience in distance learning that I hope will turn out to be a useful technique going forward.
A woman on a tech email list I frequent posted an open invitation to others to join her in learning the Python programming language in a online virtual study group format.
I joined the ad-hoc group, whose collective desire to learn Python followed a lesson plan we would find on the internet. We did a fair amount of research on the courses that were available and settled on one we discovered online at penn.edu.
I have to admit that I didn't take it very seriously leading up to the first day of "class" and when push came to shove, it really is a method of staying honest with myself and some friends in an effort to make it though the lesson plan.
Python is interesting. I am not sure I am ready to give up my curley braces yet but without them I feel forced to consider program flow a little more. I am sure this feeling will wear off but for now, it's actually helping me write in a more structured way.
Unfortunately, this afternoon I have to shift from python to PHP because I have a Drupal project that I need to make some headway on and I am running out of weekend in which to accomplish the task.
