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Tutorial Sales Still Rolling!

Although conference tickets are sold out, tutorial tickets are not. Whether you got a conference ticket or not, you’ll want to check out our tutorials, as our tutorials are perhaps one of the best values that PyCon offers. Some of the tutorial instructors are full-time educators, and some are the creators of the software they’re teaching. In any case, you’re getting expert instruction by some of the best in the community.

Tutorials cost $150 each, which gets you three hours of classroom instruction, and includes a coffee break. Both Wednesday April 9 and Thursday April 10 have two sets of tutorials: a morning session and an afternoon session, split by a provided lunch.

For Django Beginners

Kick off Wednesday morning with Kenneth Love’s “Getting Started with Django, a crash course.” Kenneth created a popular series of the same name, available at http://gettingstartedwithdjango.com/, featuring video tutorials to walk you through building websites with Django. At PyCon, he’ll take his extensive Django knowledge and impart best practices while going beyond the existing tutorial series.

The tutorial will go from the humble beginnings of a simple app, up through some intermediate improvements, on through deployment to Heroku. While it’s not quite a tutorial for absolute beginners, if you’ve gone through Django’s official tutorial, you’re all set to go from beginner to intermediate. A high bandwidth environment like an in-person tutorial is a great way to get on your way with something like Django.

For Python Beginners

If you’re a beginner to Python and programming in general, Jessica McKellar’s “A hands-on introduction to Python for beginning programmers” will get you started. She gave the same tutorial last year, and I brought my brother out to Santa Clara for it. He walked away having picked up the basics, and was excited to learn more, so I’d call that a success. I know he did.

This tutorial assumes no prior programming experience, so it’s a great opportunity to level up your skills and add Python to your toolbox. If you know someone who wants to get started, let them know about this great opportunity! If you’re reading this because you want to get started, go for it! You won’t be disappointed.


There’s a lot to choose from on the schedule, and there are three other sessions to improve your Python skills. We’ll follow up tomorrow with some Wednesday afternoon sessions!

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