Passion, Curiosity, and the Importance of Connection

Yasoob Khalid is a blogger, developer at Microsoft, and author of Practical Python Projects and Intermediate Python. Growing up in Pakistan, he saw that there was a lack of resources for learners in developing countries, so he started to blog about what he was learning. Over time, this grew into free online books and resources that anyone around the world can use to learn Python.

During our conversation, we talk about everything from making learning open and accessible, to the role that teachers and mentors play in our learning, as well as the ability to write and publish what we learn to improve our own understanding. We even sprinkle in a bit of Club Penguin.

Join us to learn about how to go from basic to intermediate Python and so much more.

Special Guest: Yasoob Khalid.

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Links:

• Yasoob Khalid — I am Yasoob! You might know me from Practical Python Projects or the Intermediate Python book. Welcome to my personal blog which is going to be the new home for all of my old and new articles.
• Practical Python Projects Book - Yasoob Khalid — The Practical Python Projects book demonstrates how to combine different libraries and frameworks to build amazing things.
• Club Penguin - Wikipedia — Club Penguin was a massively multiplayer online game (MMO), involving a virtual world that contained a range of online games and activities. It was created by New Horizon Interactive (now known as Disney Canada Inc.). Players used cartoon penguin-avatars and played in an Antarctic-themed open world. After beta-testing, Club Penguin was made available to the general public on October 24, 2005, and expanded into a large online community, such that by late 2007, it was claimed Club Penguin had over 30 million user accounts. In July 2013, Club Penguin had over 200 million registered user accounts.[1]
• Applesoft BASIC - Wikipedia — Applesoft BASIC is a dialect of Microsoft BASIC, developed by Marc McDonald and Ric Weiland, supplied with the Apple II series of computers. It supersedes Integer BASIC and is the BASIC in ROM in all Apple II series computers after the original Apple II model. It is also referred to as FP BASIC (from floating point) because of the Apple DOS command used to invoke it, instead of INT for Integer BASIC.
• Intermediate Python — Python Tips 0.1 documentation — Python is an amazing language with a strong and friendly community of programmers. However, there is a lack of documentation on what to learn after getting the basics of Python down your throat. Through this book I aim to solve this problem. I would give you bits of information about some interesting topics which you can further explore.
• CMU School of Computer Science — Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science is widely recognized as one of the first and best computer science programs in the world. Our programs train the next generation of innovators to solve real-world problems and improve the way people live and work.
• Logic & Proofs – Course from Professor Sieg — An introductory logic course, designed for students from a broad range of disciplines, from mathematics and computer science to drama and creative writing. It is also designed to reflect aspects of the logical tradition (going back to Aristotle) as well as the practical applicability (for example for the construction of Boolean circuits). Below one finds a detailed description of the course with many of its special features.
• Talks - Brett Cannon: Python's syntactic sugar - YouTube — Did you know that it only takes 11 pieces of syntax and some special functions to implement all the rest of the syntax of Python 3.8? It turns out you can take something like + and unravel it into Python code, letting you implement what Python does for a certain piece of syntax all on your own!