Need advice on starting a Python group

Fri Mar 12 07:51:43 EST 2010

News123 wrote:
> Jonathan Gardner wrote:
>>> On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 6:57 AM, gb345 <gb345 at invalid.com> wrote:
>>>>> And even when we've had volunteers, hardly anyone shows up!
>>>>>> Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>>>>>>>> Two things: One, only you and your friend really care. Let that sink
>> in. No one is going to carry the group but you two, at least
>> initially.
>>>> Two, there's a lot of people at movie theaters and the county fair.
>> Why? Because it is interesting and fun. Scientists work the same way.
>> Yes, a lot of people are interested in Python. Why don't you do a bit
>> of snooping around and see what people want to know about?
>>>> Let me give some examples:
>>>> * Interactive numeric programming with Python
>> * Rapid website development with Pylons (Trust me, everyone wants to
>> make a website.) Show how you are showing off data from one of your
>> experiments of projects and how easy it is to organize and manage
>> data.
>> * How you used Python on your latest and greatest project
>>>> Don't expect the audience to participate, except to show up and ask questions.
>>>> If you want to build a Python support group, then form an informal
>> group with your friends. Start a public mailing list and offer Python
>> advice and support for free. Integrate whatever code your org has with
>> Python, and manage and maintain that code so others can use it.
>>>> Finally, advertise. The more people see "Python", the more they will
>> be interested. Coca-cola and Pepsi are really good at this!
>>>>>>> attendance will be very low and be sure nobody cares to check whether
> anything happened on this group.
>> My suggestion is:
>>> I'd suggest to setup a group, to which one can subscribe with mail
> notification and for all the old ones perhaps even via nntp ;-) and of
> course via a web front end (though I personally hate web groups)
>> Afterwards you can 'friendly-fore-subscribe' some collegues. ;-)
> Just talk about your new cool group during lunch, etc.
>> Be sure, that most will be to lazy to unsuscribe.
>> Start discussing interesting topics on this group and then . . .
> maybe others start joining. maybo nobody cares and you have just to
> accept it.
>> bye
>>> N
>Python is not interesting enough by itself to grab students attention. 
It's just a tool to solve some technical problems.
So, either python has a direct benefit on the study itself (meaning it 
can help getting better results), or you'll have to make it intereseting 
as a hobbit. But python is not music, video, dance nor it is related to 
sport, sex or whatever things that usually interest people. So I really 
don't know how to make it interesting, I'm not sure it's even possible 
nor desirable.
Good luck anyway.
JM