From e07f4cc5578f2f17e592982e7a52b77d62265814 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Renato Alves <alves.rjc@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2021 19:43:16 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Add first session of 2021
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+# EMBL Python User Group - 2021-01-19
+
+## What I wish I had known when I started learning how to code
+
+* Learn how to ask programming questions:
+ * http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
+
+* Find a community of like minded coders
+ * EMBL Bio-IT chat #python
+ * IRC Freenode #python #pydata #bioinformatics #django
+ * Reddit #python
+ * Stackoverflow
+ * ...
+
+* (ana)conda will mostly save you sanity
+ * but pip install is pretty great nowadays
+ * If conda is too slow resolving dependencies have a look at https://github.com/mamba-org/mamba
+
+* Virtual environments
+ * conda / anaconda
+ * venv and virtualenv
+
+* Use an editor that helps you
+ * Syntax highlight
+ * Code completion
+ * Linter - flags errors or potential problems
+ * Has debugging abilities
+ * [VSCode](https://code.visualstudio.com/) - great for multiple languages, remote interaction (port-forwarding, ...), integrates jupyter notebooks
+ * [PyCharm](https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/) - also great option, very complete and professional grade IDE (Integrated Desktop Editor) - see [Professional vs Community (free) edition](https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/download)
+ * [Atom](https://atom.io/) - versatile and modular editor - used as base for other editors (e.g. [Juno](https://junolab.org/) for the Julia programming language)
+ * [GitPod](https://www.gitpod.io/).io - Online VSCode-like experience - same environment for everyone needing only a browser to get started - see also [GitPod browser extension](https://www.gitpod.io/docs/browser-extension/)
+
+* Don't worry about performance, readability is more important
+ * Be kind to your future self
+ * Consider if the more verbose option is more readable than the very concise one
+ ```python
+ output = {x:y for x in ones for y in twos}
+ ```
+ vs
+ ```python
+ output = {}
+ for x in ones:
+ for y in twos:
+ output[x] = y
+ ```
+ * Use functions, leave classes for later.
+ * text is not text -> And why do we need Bytes and Strings
+ * Use descriptive names
+ * Follow a code style (e.g. PEP8, Google Python Style)
+ * A linter will help you (flake8, pylint, ...)
+ * Use docstrings - follow sphinx or numpy style - avoid mixing styles
+ * Comment/document things!! (in addition to docstrings)
+ * Describe **why** not **what** is happening
+ * Bad: If we don't have a zero here the code takes 10 times longer to finish
+ * Better: This function accepts 0 or 1 and 1 is the slower version
+ * Great: Valid values 0, 1: when 1, the code checks if planets are aligned before beginning ritual, this reduces failures but increases execution time.
+ * Tests are great, but they might be hard to get right
+ Doctests are a great alternative which serves as documentation too e.g:
+
+ ```python
+ def divide_and_conquer(values, position):
+ """Breaks the list of values in to two at the specified position
+
+ >>> divide_and_conquer([5, 6, 7], 2)
+ ([5, 6], [7])
+ >>> divide_and_conquer([1, 2], 10)
+ ([1, 2], [])
+ >>> divide_and_conquer([1, 2], 0)
+ ([], [1, 2])
+ """
+ return values[:position], values[position:]
+ ```
+ * pytest - great test runner
--
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