Python for Beginners Information Session

Key Takeaways

Hello. Hello everyone. We are starting soon. In fact, we are starting now. Um, good morning, afternoon, good evening, good night depending where you are. That that should cover everyone, right? Um, welcome to this session. As always with these live sessions, I'm going to fill this fill these first 20 seconds with uh talking about the weather or whatever until everyone joins properly, connects and everything. But I I'll I'll get started with the proper content uh in a few seconds. Um just making sure everyone is nicely settled. We have two sets of audiences um today. Well, more than two. Some of you are on Zoom. If you're on Zoom, you know who you are. You know how Zoom works, right? Raise your hand at any point if you need to ask questions. uh if you prefer to ask in the chat I'll keep an eye on the chat as well there and then there are uh many of you who may be joining on one of the platforms we're streaming this on various platforms YouTube uh Facebook X Instagram something else as well can't remember can't remember all of them um um in that case uh you know well you know where you are as well uh you can ask questions uh with most of the platforms I'll be able to see your comments come in so um do Ask questions. Um, I think there's one or two platforms where the comments don't always come in. I think X is one of them. But ask questions. If you see I don't answer your question. It's not because I'm ignoring you. It's because you might be on a platform that doesn't show me your questions, unfortunately. But mostly it's going to be fine. Good. Um, I filled in enough uh filling the blanks. Let's actually stop sharing my screen for now so you can see me in full glory. Um, whether that's good or bad, I'm not sure. Um, I'll leave it up to you to decide. Okay. So, let me make a start. Um, I'm going to be talking today about a course for beginners. So, if you're an experienced Python programmer, you're more than welcome to stay, but this is not for you. This is I'm going to be talking today about a new live course for running a real Python. It's aimed for beginners. Uh this could be absolute beginners who've never done any programming in any Python before or even those who maybe have started covering some of the basics. Maybe you've tried to learn it in the past from a textbook and from some tutorials but now you're looking for sort of committing to it. Uh you want you want some structure, some live guidance and uh and you want to sort of take it from there and and and and make sure you understand the fundamentals really well. So, um, if you're a beginner, this is for you. And if you're not, you can more than welcome to stay on. But, um, the content I'm going to be talking about today is is aimed for a course for beginners. Um, I mentioned this before as well. This is an information session. I will relatively quickly go through the key concepts I want, the key things I think you might want to know about the scores. But you will have questions. So, at any point, ask questions. I'll keep an eye on both chats. I have, as I've mentioned, I have my second screen. So, whenever you see me look on the left, it's my second screen. Um, but certainly at the end there will be time for questions as well. But don't wait till the end. If you have questions, just ask them as we go along. Um, good. So, many of you maybe already familiar with Real Python. If you're new to Real Python, then welcome to Real Python. But if you're already familiar with Real Python content, you're probably familiar with the tutorials. you might find at realpython.com. Uh some of you may have looked at the video courses as well. Um this year we've introduced something new at real python and these are live courses. These are cohort-based courses. So courses with a small group of of participants um with a live component and I'll be telling you more about this of course this is what today is about right. I'm giving you the the the executive summary if you like um with a live component but we've also designed them to be flexible because everyone is busy um most people will be trying to fit this course with their existing work or study commitments and other things. So we've tried to find the right balance between making this a thorough course which it is but also making it f making it flexible enough so that you can fit it within your existing schedules hopefully. So I'll tell you more about this in a bit. Um, and this is ideal for you if you want a a a real person. I am real. I'm not an AI, I promise you. A real person guiding you through sessions. Um, someone to ask questions to, but also that accountability of having every day some content you need to sort of keep up with and having other students in the course with you and that that I think is a many people find that a way of making sure you get the learning done. it keeps you sort of accountable and motivated. So that's what this course is ideally for. Um we've run several cohort courses, live courses in this format already. Um the ones we've run earlier this year were for intermediate learners. So you haven't missed anything if you're a beginner. But this format, we've tried it on a number of courses. It worked really well. We've even taken some feedback from students from our intermediate courses and sort of fine-tuned these courses. So, um, we think they work really well and I'll tell you what's going to happen in these courses in a bit. Good, good, good. Just making sure there are no questions yet, but then it's it's still early for you to have questions maybe, but go ahead and ask questions if you want. Um, today's session, I'll keep my bit relatively brief and then we'll see how many questions you have and we'll keep going and answer them all. I'm going to split today's session into two bits or rather I'm going to talk about two um separate things. Um, I'll share my screen in a second. So, let me get that ready. Um, firstly, the format of the course. That's important because you want to make sure that it's something you can commit to. And then I'll talk about the content of the course. Now, since this is a beginner's course, I'm going to keep the chat about the content fairly brief because often if you are a beginner, then I could list a number of topics, but they may not mean that much to you, right? Or so I'll show you what's in the course, but I'm going to keep it brief and then if I if some of you have more questions, we can expand. So format and content, those are the things that that matter. Um, good. Let me then share my screen again if I can find where Zoom is. There we go. Perfect. Now, what I'm going to do here, there's nothing exciting to see, but I'm going to keep a running commentary. It's like a summary of the key points I'm going to talk about. So rather than showing you a readym made slide, the reason is I don't like slides. In fact, one thing I can tell you is when when we're running live sessions, um um I think I won't have any PowerPoint slides at all. Um I I I don't particularly like them. So in this case, I'm actually going to write as I go along. Right now, let me start by giving you a summary of the format, sort of the key points, and then I'll go through each one of these points and add a tiny bit more. Um first of all, it's an 8week course. Um, I'll tell you why we want it to be eight weeks in a bit. Um, um, so that's how long it's going to be. These first ones will start in mid-occtober. I'll tell you more about these. We will run these courses fairly regularly, but the first two cohorts we're going to have will be starting in about a month's time. Um, roughly, uh, you'd be expected to have about one to two hours of commitment daily. Now, I'll say more about this later, right? It's roughly. It will change. Some days will be longer, some days shorter. But the main point here is that this is not a 5 10 hours a day type of course. You can hopefully fit it relatively comfortably. And I say that, you know, one or two hours is not a an insignificant amount of time, but hopefully you can fit that um requires effort to put in that time, but it's not five 10 hours a day. Um and we we'll talk about how you can most of these one or two hours you can fit them where it's convenient in your day. Um what you cannot fit where it's convenient in your day to some extent is the live sessions. We'll have three live sessions every week. Um these will include let me see whether I can do this. Um one uh 90 minute structured session. One structured session. So what this means is I'll tell you more about this later but this means this is some of the content of the week will will uh focus on on this particular lesson and this is not the only uh content you have in the week. Um I'll tell you more about this and then there's be two Q there will be two Q&A sessions. So for these courses the the structured session will be on Wednesdays the Q&As will be on Monday and Friday. Um again I'll come back to all of these in a bit. Right. Um what else? um 10 students per course, per cohort. Um again, I'll tell you why this number and why I think it's really good. And last, but definitely not least, uh there's going to be a forum. This is a dedicated forum specifically for the course. So, this is the summary. I've gone through this quickly because now I'm going to go through each one of them and add a bit more on what to expect. Um 8 weeks. Well, there's nothing much more I can say about 8 weeks. But why 8 weeks? What we wanted to do here is we wanted a course that is thorough so that it can cover a significant amount of material. This is not just let's scratch some of the basics and then you can't really do much with it, which is what you'd get if it's only a a short course. So 8 weeks gives us enough time to cover quite a lot of the fundamentals and not to have to rush through them, to be able to digest them and discuss them. Um, we will have content we're learning of course, but we'll also have lots of projects. Um, there'll be I'll tell you more about the content later on, but there'll be lots of projects scattered around as well as a big project at the end. So, eight weeks gives us enough time to cover quite a few topics, cover them in detail and practice them as well. Um, now the commitment every day. This is something that you need to decide. Do you have about one or two hours of commitment every day? It's not a huge amount of time but still it's time that you will need to invest. Um it won't be exactly one or two hours every day. There might be some days which you feel are a bit longer. Um someone just asked me is that Monday to Friday? Uh yes that's Monday to Friday I meant. So um there will be some fun things I will suggest for the weekend if you want to but the main content is Monday to Friday. So, when I say 1 to two hours um uh a day, I mean Monday to Friday. We'll give you the weekend off, but of course, some of you may want to use the weekend to catch up with things. So, um the the dayby-day content, which I'll show you later, is Monday to Friday for these eight weeks. Um there will be some days which you might feel are a bit longer. um but they will be compensated by days where it's like oh yeah I've got through this in a in a slightly shorter amount of time. So it will vary slightly but roughly that's what you're expecting. Um on every day or on most days um some of the content will be in the form of uh typically there's going to be a welcome video from me to introduce the day and to link everything together. And then I've cured um daily content from the resources we already have at Real Python from tutorials and video courses. I've sort of taken bits from everything and in every day I've put them together in a series of lessons. Some you will read, some are video lessons. So it's a nice mix of the two so that you're not always just reading, you're not always just watching video lessons. And that's the content you'll be able to do whenever you want in the day because it's up to you when you can go and read some material, watch the videos, etc. There'll be some exercises for you to work on as well. Um, but that's not just it. The the stuff you do on your own um you fit whenever you want. But then there is the live aspect of it. And the live aspect comes in two forms. I'll talk about the live sessions in a bit and I'll talk about the forum later on. But that's the the forum is is the glue that brings everything together. So even while you're learning every day, you'll be able to go and post questions on the forum. I and other students, but I'll be there all the time discussing things. And then of course um let me move to the live sessions. Then we have the live sessions. Three live sessions a week. And this is where we can um chat and discuss things. Um one of the sessions, the Wednesday one, we'll be covering new content. So some of the content won't be covered in those uh lessons and video lessons but uh they'll be covered in a 90-minute structured session. Now I say it's a structured session every time I run these courses unlike here where I'm more or less in this session I'm mostly talking to you although you're asking questions when I'm teaching it's much more of a conversation and we'll come to the numbers later on. This is why it's important to have relatively small groups. So, this is a structured session, but it will still be a a conversation between me and the students. Um, but and this is really important because as you're going through all of the content every day, you will have questions. There's no way you won't have any questions. Um, uh, even if it's just am I can I check I've understood this correctly. And that's where the Q&A's come in. These are live sessions Monday and Friday. Um, one hour sessions, but sometimes we go over if we need to. If there are more questions, we'll we'll we'll we'll stretch as much as we need. And this is where I come to these sessions with no agenda, nothing structured I want to talk about. I always have a few backup things for discussion in case we're out of questions, but the Q&A sessions are as it says on the tin, right? Um you ask questions. Um I answer them. Sometimes I like to say this is not really a Q&A. It's a Q&A and D. The D is for discussion because you ask questions. Yes, I will answer them, but really I will answer them by opening up a discussion because often that's when we learn more. And sometimes the the parts we take, the threads we follow in these Q&As give us some really interesting discussions that you get to the point you say, "Ah, now I got it." So I think these Q&A sessions are really important and again we've run this format with other courses earlier uh this year and participants really found them useful because it's where you can really come and say look I think I understand this but I'm not quite sure and it's something you can only do when you're talking to to to a live expert to an instructor. So every week um there's going to be about three and a half hours of live content 90-minut structured session. Um, I I said 90 there. Of course, I meant 90 minutes, right? Let me fix it. There we go. Um, and then the Q&A session is typically 1 hour each. Um, that's every week of the course. Uh, 10 students per course. Again, um, there's so much I want you there's nothing much I can say about this, but I think it's really important to have relatively small groups because in the live sessions, it's really great that we can have a discussion. Um as I said unlike this session where I'm talking to you mostly um in all of these sessions whether it's the structure session or the Q&A by having a small group we can properly have a conversation and participants will be will feel comfortable to just jump in and say oh hey Stephen actually can I ask you something and if you have too many people you can't really do that you can't have a conversation so I think it's really important that we have small groups um we will be running two cohorts at the same time but they will be separate um the difference between them is when the live sessions will be. So, one of them will have a live session at this time. So, um I I'll give you the link later on so you can see the times in your own time zone, but one course will have a live session at this time. If this is good for you, that's great. There's another one later in the day. So, we'll have two courses. The live sessions will be separate. So, you'll have a group of 10 in one, a group of 10 in the other. When it comes to the forum, what we actually prefer to do is to put both groups together in the forum. because in the forum it's actually better to have slightly more people. So live life live sessions is better to have fewer people. In the forum we put both groups together because then the conversations are richer there. So let me say a bit about the forum. Um for me the forum is a really important part because the forum is there 24/7. So at any point um I'll I'll put an asterisk next to the 247 because I do have to sleep sometimes. Um but the forum is there 24/7. Um, so at any point when you're going through the material, um, you might think, "Oh, I have a question. I I really want to get this question out of me and ask it." Now, you go on the forum, you ask the question. Um, other students will be there, of course, but I'll be monitoring the forum throughout my waking day. Um, so unless it's my nighttime, um, you will get a response fairly quickly. And that's how we can keep the conversation going throughout the whole 8 weeks. Of course, the live sessions are also there to answer those questions. In fact, sometimes there might be a question in the forum. We start discussing it and then uh you might see me think oh actually you know what this is much better to discuss live. So let's discuss this in the Monday Q&A or the Friday Q&A or whenever it might be. But the forum is a way of keeping the conversation going um 24/7 with the asterisk that um we do sleep from time to time. Um again from previous experience of of having around these courses um the forum is a great way um I tend to also post some extra content in the forum. Maybe there's something about the day's content and um I feel to give I feel I want to give my perspective on it and again discussions will come out from from from the forum. Um let me have a look at any uh questions that have come in uh in the meantime. Um so I'll I'll be posting a link with all the details right so all the details on um when the sessions are exactly what times what dates um cost of the course I'll give you a link in fact it's realpython.comlive but I'll give it to you later on fact let me put it here um might as well uh realython.comlive um so I'll send you there for all the details Uh another question is doing homework part of the one to two hours. Yes. Uh the idea is that um and by homework I mean there's going to be exercises, right? The idea is that it's all part of it. Now again it's very difficult for me to say look it's going to take exactly 1.5 hours every day. Why? Because first of all different people will you some of it is reading for example some people read quickly. Some people may want to go back and read paragraphs. Same with exercises. It's very hard to tell you this is going to take you exactly 7 minutes to do this exercise. But roughly the one to two hours every day. Um probably it's closer to two hours, right? So if you're thinking on whether you can commit to this, I think look at the two hours every day. But that would more or less include everything. Bear in mind some days will be longer. For example, when there's the 90inut session often when there's 90-minut session um I do not post any extra content. So the only commitment will be those 90 minutes but sometimes there might be some extra uh videos uh or or learning that is included. So in on Wednesdays uh one and a half of those hours is taken up by the live session right and and likewise on Monday and Friday there's the 60-minute Q&A which is sort of part of those one or two hours as well. So on Mondays and Fridays, if you're joining the Q&A, it might be a bit more than one or two hours because there's the 60-minute Q&A, but roughly the one to two hours should include everything, including exercises. Um, Uma asked me this 90-minute structure session, is it live or videos? No, this is live. So every day you will have some video lessons and some reading material. And that's the the stuff you can do in your own time. that's going to be there every day, Monday to Friday, with the exception of some Wednesdays when you will not have that material. But the 90 minute structured session is 90 minutes with me. Um, on a I was going to say on a Zoom session like this one, it's not like this one because uh it will be only 10 of you plus me. We'll be all seeing each other. Um, often one thing I say at the beginning of my teaching, not sessions like today, is let's imagine we're sitting around a table together. We're all seeing each other. We're all talking with each other. So, it's it's much more informal and much more conversational. But yeah, the 90 minutes is a live 90-minute session. Um, I'll be running this course. Um, incidentally, um, I I didn't I've just realized I did not introduce myself in the beginning. Um, you might see my name there. So, anyway, you know, I'm Steven. Um, I'm there. Let me go back to the introduction then. I'm a member of course of Real Python team and I'm in charge of the live content here at Real Python. So the reason I've remembered this is because I'm responsible both for designing this course and creating all of the material and for running it. So I'll be able to answer questions that you might have both on the content and why it's there because I've designed the course and how it's going to run in practice because um I'll be running this course. Um good. Uh I've got a slightly long question here. Let me quickly skim through it. Uh, is it worth while doing the course? Um, okay. I have a broad understanding of Python and have built some simple programs using Genai. Um, I find level of skill useful and I solution 54. Um, okay. So, this is a question. I'm going to summarize slightly your question, Margaret. You already have a broad understanding of Python. You've been using generative AI. Is this course for you? Now, I cannot give you an answer to that question. um because it really depends on how comfortable you are with Python. What this course is going to do is going to start from the basics. We it's suitable for those who have never done any Python before. So we we are going to assume no knowledge of Python although we understand that many people who join have done a bit but they feel like they can dabble a bit with Python. And I'm happy to talk about generative AI in the Q&As. It's a topic we've been discussing a lot and and I I have strong views about how it's useful for programming but also how it can be dangerous especially for beginners. Um if you have a a broad understanding of Python already, you will have things that you know already. Of course, you probably already know how to write a for loop. Um what I like to do in my courses is to not only show how we do things but to understand why we need to do them and that cannot be so obvious straight away and that's important when you get to put all the pieces together in a jigsaw. So from that point of view um there is benefit to gain. The question on the question of how useful is this course for you will really depend on how comfortable you are with the basics. In a few minutes I'm going to show you the content and probably when you see the content which is also on this page. In fact I'll be showing you this page. You might be you might be able to then have a sense of yes actually I still want to know those things. If you're in doubt after the session contact me and I'm happy to discuss not just with you right Margaret with anyone who is unsure. I'm happy to discuss uh individually with people and to see exactly what your situation is and I'll give you an honest answer. Right? If if this course is not for you, I will honestly tell you because I'd rather tell you that then you come and then they say, "Oh, actually, yeah, I knew all of that stuff." So, if anyone is still unsure after the session, um contact me and I'll I'll I can help you individually. Um so, um Evar, I'm not sure if this is intermediate course. Uh ah okay so same question there are you not sure whether is this or the intermediate course is right for you um same answer to the one I've given Margaret hopefully that has answered you as well if need be contact me afterwards I'll have a chat with you uh do we have a certification of the course completion yes this is the real Python certification those of you have done video courses in real Python you get a um at the end you sort of get your the platform gives you a certification likewise the scores at the end will give you a sort a real Python um certificates to show that you've completed this course. Um I'll probably want to do more automation programs than web applications. Um how will this work uh how will this how will course work be spread across these two types of activities. Um here we're focusing on the basics of programming. Um I often like to say that learning how to program is a bit like climbing a tree. You first have the main tree trunk and then you have lots of branches going off. The branches are the specific applications of Python or any programming. You might want to do web development. You want to want to do automation. You want you might want to do scientific programming. You might want to do whatever else. Those are the branches. Before you can go down those branches, you need to climb the main tree trunk. And that's the fundamentals of Python. And they are identical to whatever application you want to do. you need to be able to understand um all the topics we're going to be showing you in a bit, right? Loops and functions and basics of object-oriented programming those are common for any application. So in some ways these are the fundamentals of Python that programming with Python. So Python is the language which we're using of course but here we're learning programming not not just Python of course and they're the fundamentals you need for any application. So in this course we're not focusing on any specific application of programming. We're actually getting the fundamentals understood really well. Hopefully that uh answers your question. Let me keep scanning there. Um uh okay. Um will this be a good base to learn? Uh so agentic AI into a program. We will not be talking about any again I think I've answered this question in the previous one. Margaret um we are not going to be looking at any specific applications of programming here. We're looking at the fundamentals of programming which you can then use for whatever application you need. Many almost every application of programming is slightly more intermediate. So the focus here is on getting the fundamentals of programming really well understood. Um, so we will not be looking at any specific application, but of course everything we're learning in this program is an a a must-have for anything you're going to do in programming. So either you know it already in which case maybe the course is not for you or you will need to know it in order to do whatever application you want to achieve with Python programming. Um, okay. Uh let me have a quick look at whether I wanted to say anything else um on here. Let me swap screen. Um I've talked about the format in answering some of your questions. I've already answered some of the course content, but let me quickly take you through the course content. Um I'm going to skip all of that text. I'm going to start from here. Uh this is the URL I've shared with you and I'll share it with you again. realpython.com/live. I'm going to really quickly go through this, right? Because um if you're an absolute beginner, many of these things won't necessarily make sense to you and if not, you can always come and read it later on. Um week one, we obviously start from the basics. I've mentioned earlier and I mentioned again, this course is for either absolute beginners who've never done any programming before. Uh some of you in other sessions have asked me, I've never done any programming before. Is this the right course for me? Yes, because we're we're not going to assume any knowledge and that's why we're going to start with the basic building blocks, things like variables, if statements, while loops, um, etc., etc. But those of you who have done some of the basics, then you might say, well, I've actually come across if statements, I've come across while loops, but I feel like I want to bring everything together and really understand them well. So many of you I know will will not be absolute beginners but will feel like they want to get the fundamentals really well understood. Um so with all of these topics we're as I've mentioned before yes we're going to see how how to write an if statement but that's the easier part. The harder part is why do we do things the way they are? Why is Python built the way it is? So we are going to be sort of digging a bit further underneath the surface to really understand why these tools are the way they are and then that will help us link them together nicely. Um you'll notice there are lots of mini projects here. So as we go through there's going to be lots of projects. So yes we're going to have learning the the theory if you like but then we're going to be applying it a lot in projects. So you'll see that throughout we're going to have lots of projects um that start and stop um covering um the topics of the week. Um when you go to realpython.com/live, you'll be able to see the times here in your own time zone. So to see whether they're useful for you. Um week two, we'll move to on through iteration and looping and lists. Again, repeating something over and over again. And the data structures in Python that allow us to do this are really important. getting a program to repeat something over and over again is is something we do in every computer program. Um, lists are one of those ways we can store information in Python. That's really common and it's really important to get a really good understanding of how lists work because they are everywhere in Python. Um, and again, I won't read through everything, right? You can go to this link later and read through the bullet points yourself. Um, week three is the superpower in programming. Defining your own functions is what makes programming so useful because when you define your own function, you're defining your own Python words if you like. You're creating a mini program within your larger program which does one specific thing. And being able to do that gives you so much flexibility when you're programming. So we'll talk about not just using functions but defining your own functions. So creating your own Python words if you like. Um and this is such an important topic in all of programming. Um in all of modern programming. Um equally important is being able to store data somewhere. Um programming is about having information data and then we want to do something with those data. We need to store them somewhere and that's what data structures come in. We've already talked about lists in week two. Well, we will talk about lists in week two. Here we're going to talk about some other structures. Um, dictionaries are very common. Um, and a few others, etc., etc. So, we'll understand here the difference, you know, when do I use this type of container and when do I use a different type of container? What are the pros and cons? How do I make that choice? Um, in week five, we're going to talk about a topic which sometimes is considered a bit more intermediate, but here we're going to introduce the concepts of what's called a paradigm, often fancy word. It's a style of programming, object-oriented programming. And there are two reasons we want to do this. First of all, it's an important aspect of modern programming. And we're not going to try to go into too much detail of object-oriented programming because this is a beginner's course, but we're going to look at the basics. We're going to get a taster of what object-oriented programming is so that you're ready for diving deeper if this is a type of programming that's important for you. There's another reason, however, Python is inherently an object-oriented language. So, in order to understand how Python works, we really need to understand the basics of OOP. So, there's two reasons why we're introducing what seems like a slightly more intermediate topic um in a beginner's course. But don't worry, we're not going to be diving too deep into OOP, which can get a bit too complex. Um, week six, we're going to talk a bit more about objected Python. Um, and again, here we're linking it not we're linking it to lots of other things we've done earlier in this course and see how everything makes sense. This is when things will start to click in places like ah this is why in week two we said this about lists. Now, because I understand the object-oriented side of programming, it makes a bit more sense. And debugging is such an important skill. We're going to spend a bit of time on week six. Uh, no one writes code with no errors and everything works perfectly. There are bugs and therefore we need to be able to find those bugs and fix them. And that's what debugging is. It's a really important skill to learn. will start learning the key the key um tools and strategies to use for debugging. Um debugging is a bit of an art as well as a science. So we'll we'll look into that. That's weeks one to six and this is where we're going to cover all of the content because weeks seven and eight we're going to be working on a project. So um seven and eight you see are exactly the same. Um, it's a two-eek project and what we're going to be doing here is using pretty much everything we've learned in weeks one to six and put them together into a a twoe project that will work together. We'll work on it together. Um, you'll be doing lots of work on your own, but of course that's where the forum, the Q&As, the live sessions all comes in so that we can stay in constant discussion on the forum and the live sessions. But this is not about me writing the project and you copying it. There's no fun in that. And more importantly, there's no learning in that. This is about you trying it out and then me coming and helping and showing you perhaps how I would have done it. It's very much you working on a project with my guidance and my help. And that brings us to um the end. So, as you can see, uh we're going all the way to December the 5th. And if you've noticed, we start on October 13th. Um there will be two cohorts as I've mentioned. Um the the difference is the live sessions. One will be at this time, the time of the session, and other one will be later on. And you'll be able to see the times uh listed there. A word of caution depending where you are in the world. Uh the clocks in October may change at different times. So you may notice that uh these are set to uh GMT times. So depending on where you are, there might be a week there where the clocks change but don't change anywhere else. But have a good look at the times to make sure that they work for you. Bear in mind that the clocks change depending where you are in the world at different times throughout this course. Um uh Margaret, please show week eight again. I will. Um but I'll also give you the link to this. Um so week eight, um we're simply saying, you know, we're carrying on with the project, right? Um, let me in fact copy this and paste it in the two chats I have. Um, if I can. No, never mind. I'll type it by hand. I was trying to copy it there. Um, real python.comlive. So, that's there. And I'll paste it in the Zoom one as well. Um let me have a quick look at my notes in case there was something I wanted to tell you that I did not tell you. Um more or less I've covered everything. So what I'll do now is um let me go back to uh my slides. Um well the session has started. Let me go back there. Um the timer is still there. Never mind. Um, I'll wrap things up now, but I'll keep an eye and if anyone has questions, those of you on Zoom, if you prefer to talk live, raise your hand and let me know. Um, if you're on one of the streaming services, ask a question. If I don't see it in front of me, it's because not all questions come in from X or wherever, I think. Um, but you're more than welcome to find me. You'll find me on social media. Um, or contact me through Real Python. Just send an email through Real Python. They'll forward it to me. So if anyone wants to contact me directly um please do so and I'll I'll I'll help you figure out whether this course is for you. So as I've mentioned this is Python for beginners uh 8week course. Each cohort will have 10 students because we want to keep it nice and brief. In fact I should do this in the summary here. Um uh roughly one or two commit hours commitment every day but that will change. Um we will be meeting three times a week for those of you who want to come to all the sessions. Um, if you are joining this course, I do encourage you to join these live sessions and they're they're I think they're an important aspect of how this course works and it's where you get a lot of value there and in the forum where the conversations keep going. Um, 10 students per course and as I said realpython.com/live takes you to the page I was showing you earlier. Um, Zach, did I miss anything? Um so in real python.com/live if you think you've missed anything all the information is there uh dates and times and your time zone cost how to book etc etc um so realpython.com/live uh and the so the live sessions will be for this course Monday Wednesday and Friday there are three days two of them are Q&As's Monday and Friday and Wednesday is the slightly longer structured session, but the live sessions will be Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. They'll all be the same time. In fact, I'll go back to um there uh the times. If you go to realpython.com/live, you'll be able to see the times in your time zone. Here, they're showing my time zone. I'm based in the UK, so these are the times I will be teaching, but you'll be able to see them in your time zone. And you can see that there are two sessions. So, if you choose to book on the course, you just book in and then we'll ask you whether you prefer the first or the second time zone and uh um we'll slot you in there. Um a reminder that clocks change at different times in October. Um um somewhere here. Anyway, keep an eye on the times. Uh the clock changes at some point in October. It changes at different times here in Europe, in the US. In some other parts of the world, it doesn't change at all. So keep an eye on um shifting from daylight saving to non- daylight saving. Have a look at the times there to make sure they're always suitable for you, including in the October, November period when clocks change. Good, good, good. Um are there any other questions you wanted to come up with? One thing, um I'll get I'll give you time to think. Um let me go back to there. So that's the site with all the details. Um some of you may have joined uh in the summer I ran some free workshops um to give a taste of what Python for beginners looks like. Um so if you want to have a look and I was teaching those as well, you can find them on the real Python YouTube page. There were three of them. So if you want to get a taste, they're obviously quite different, right? because those workshops were very much me talking to a larger audience. Whereas in these courses, the key part of these courses that's a small group. So every live session will be a discussion between me and you rather than me talking to you. But if you want to have a look, go to the real Python YouTube page and you'll find the three workshops I've run um over the summer months if you haven't joined them already. Um Margaret is on Zoom. So, what I'll do is I'll give you the ability to unmute yourself if you want to and uh Margaret feel free to uh jump in if you want. >> Hello, Stephen. Thank you for the presentation. Um, so thank you for giving thank you for giving someone else a different voice to listen to otherwise they've been listening to my voice for the last 40 minutes. So, thank you for jumping in. Margaret, go ahead. >> Yes. So, um I think it might be too basic for me, but at the same time, if I jumped into an intermediate course, I would have some disadvantages. And I'm just saying this because this is probably going to be a quandry for some people that have been teaching themselves. Um what I'm going to say is I'm probably going to be prototyping. I'm an accountant and what I'll hopefully be doing is like coming up with solutions. So able to do very simple code and I'm reluctant um I suppose I'm a bit reluctant about giving the time because I know you need to give time if you want to get good at stuff and what I've noticed is so I've built programs I've built some simple accounting programs but I've typed none of the code myself. The AI has done it all for me. So if somebody said to me write a bit of code I wouldn't be able to do it on my own. You know I've never actually really typed code. I've just copied it. Um but a programmer said to me you know a lot of um programmers are just copying code from you know is it some what's the name Stack Overflow. So what would you say to that? Um in your course I presume people will be able to write all the code and how how quickly I mean you know it depends on people's um level of learning but they will be able to write code at the end of your course and not you know be dependent on Gen AI. >> Yes. So, um, Genai, now we could spend, uh, an hour talking just about Genaii or longer. I'll So, Genaii is obviously great. I use it every day. Um, and I talk to lots of other programmers and educators who use it every day. And the consensus at the moment seems to be or consensus what most people believe, what certainly I believe is that the better programmer you are, the more effective you can be with AI. Now, you're going to tell me, "Ah, yeah, but I don't know any programs and I've been using it fine." And that's great. Uh, there are some self-contained applications you might need where you give the prompt to AI and it gives you code, it works, it does what you need, cross your fingers and it's okay. The problem is that uh the code AI gives you is not always perfectly correct. I I I come across this, I would say I get a 50/50 hit with AI, right? Whenever I ask it for something the code may work but I will spot things where like ah that can be problematic. It is working but if I have a certain type of input something is going to happen. So this is what I mean by those the more programming you know you in general right the more programming someone knows the more effective jai is because you can ask it to create code you can look at it and then you can prompt it further saying oh I don't quite like what you did on line 50 because of this reason and then jai will come and say you're absolutely right let me fix it for you so so that's the only j danger with relying solely on the vibe coding genai I I'm not saying it doesn't work. It may work for smaller projects. The problem is when it doesn't work, it's going to be a problem and it's going to be a difficulty in figuring out why it doesn't work or possibly there's a bug that it might seem like it's working now, but are you confident you can trust it in perpetuity? So, that's the only caution with AI and uh some some views and again here it seems like I'm selling this course, right? I'm I'm telling you what I think from someone who's been teaching beginners from preAI times. Um um I'm I'm not as young as I look, but probably I don't look young. So So I've been teaching programming for a while. Um it's that uh some what's what is different now compared to five years ago is that five years ago if you had a knowledge about the fundamentals of programming it's probably not good enough to get you to write um programs you need for your everyday life you need to sort of keep going a bit further what Genai is doing now it's giving you the ability the the more programming you know, the more effective Gen AI is going to be. So knowing the fundamentals of programming actually means that you may be more effective at using AI tools. You can spot what's an issue. You can actually have a conversation with it with it on a technical point of view. For example, why did you use a dictionary there instead of a list? And then you can see what AI does. But in order to be able to prompt it those questions, of course you need to know the fundamentals and and know what's the difference between a list and a dictionary for example. So I'm not saying you cannot use Genai without any knowledge of programming but there are risks that come with that and those risks are uh unless someone is looking at that code and making sure they can pick issues that might not be evident you might have bugs that go into the real and depending on what you're using the code for of course you know you want to have confidence that you can rely on the code AI gives you. I've given you a long >> I agree with yeah I I agree with you. I mean, I've read I've read a little bit and that's what I kind of gathered. And you write the longest code instead of like 10 lines of code, maybe you should be writing five. So, I hear what you're saying. I just have to decide, do I want to be more of a programmer or not? And if I do, I I I you know, I should do this course because obviously I don't have deep knowledge. So, yeah, I I take on board what you said and only I can decide um about that. Um but yeah, everything you've said is true. I think I mean I know I I think I agree with everything you said. I just need to work out if I'm just building prototypes what I have is probably good enough but if I want to do more then you know I should do a fundamental course with a teacher. >> Yeah and and the reason I gave a longer answer is because I think it's it's a question many would have had sort of look with geni how does it change? Um I have to say that from a learning point of view is great because um you know in this course there's me who's going to be your go-to. You can go and ask on the forum. Okay, maybe you won't get a reply as prompt as from Jennai, but you're you know and we're we're talking live but beyond this course um one especially the more knowledge you know the quicker you can learn. I mean I've been using it myself right there have been some topics in programming some specialized topics I had never done before. Um I've I've actually been doing it for my other sort of non-programming stuff. I've been learning some other things I've been wanting to learn for a while and I've been using AI not to do the work for me in this case to help me learn. But once again, it always feels like the more knowledge you have, the more you can get out of AI even as a learning tool. So, so in some ways it's great to have Genai. It's going to help us a lot with productivity. It's going to help us a lot with learning. There are the caveats that we need to be cautious and some knowledge will derisk how we use AI. >> You >> um good. Uh I have uh a few more questions which I'll have a look at. Um so someone on Facebook asked me how do I enroll? Um in fact there you go. I've sent you the link and you told me you just joined or you just joined the session maybe not the course. So, realpython.com/live is where you'll find all the information, uh, a lot of what I've told you today, of course, um, and also all the details of the course, the cost, the dates, when the sessions are, and and if you want to join, of course, you'll have a link there to join. Um, do we have any uh uh discounts for Real Python subscribers? The answer is I'm not sure. If you send an email to the main Real Python info@realpython.com um ask there um as I've mentioned before I've been in charge of designing the course and running it. I'm not so much into the details of the logistics of sales etc. But uh if some of you are already members of real Python just uh send an email to info@realpython.com um and uh someone from the team will be able to help you there. Um will we get a session recording? Those of you who are on Zoom, yes, I will send you an email with the link. Uh those of you who are not on Zoom, if you want a recording, it will be on uh uh it will be on YouTube on the on real Python YouTube page. Um probably not instantly, but uh at some point later. So you will find it there or if not find me on social media or send an email to real Python info@realython.com and we'll send you a link. So the session is being recorded. Um, if you're on Zoom, I'll send it to you. If you're not on Zoom, if you can't find it, uh, find me and I'll send you the link. Um, good. So, uh, uh, Jim there is asking, well, saying, well, I feel like this content is too basic for me, and this is why I wanted to have the session, right? because uh it this course is going to be brilliant for some people but if you feel like you already know the basics and you feel like you know them well enough then this course is a is a it's a Python for beginners course. So uh this is why I want to have the session. It's why I wanted to show you the content. Feel free to go to the content and if some of you are not sure um Jim there you seem like you know it's not for you and that's fine. Um I'll I'll answer your intermediate one in a bit. Um, but if someone is not sure, you're a bit on the fence, contact me. I'm happy to to sort of look into everyone's wh