Python training in Malaysia

A guy contacted me recently regarding training. Me tried of course to look for local trainers here but some were either too expensive or just strangely did not reply emails. So it boiled down to having to do it myself. My junior programmer (or should I say sys admin since he said he wants nothing to do with programming) asked essentially can we survive being a Python trainer in Malaysia. Sadly, the answer is still no. Training here are few and far apart. After hearing my answer, his face showed a kind of demeanor that your neighbor would have if you drove up the drive way with your broken down Toyota claiming that this is dream car.

He must have been thinking that Java as a language is still better than Python since he can at least see some Java jobs on jobstreet and stuff. Generally that is still the whole conception of Python in Malaysia. Talks do help. We just need more. At least nowadays when I talk to corporates about Python they don't ask me why I suddenly bring wildlife into a conversation when they asked me what would the ideal programming language that their IT department should adopt for high productivity. I should hit the university level more to create more awareness. I have thought classes for corporates who were full of Python doubters and at the end of the class, all the Java people walked out at least respecting Python for what it can do and actually contemplating using Python in their environment.

It's really gratifying to see programmers who were initially so skeptical about Python suddenly light up to the possibilities of using Python for their work after being in the Python training with me. That to me is priceless and I wish that I could do more of these kind of Python gigs.

I think that awareness is the key for us Pythonistas to be able to survive doing the thing that we love so much here. I think that here at least if more people knew about the existence of Python it would really help and then I can finally tell that doubting junior system administrator ... "Yes! There is a future being a Python trainer!"

Project Documentation

Currently I am in the process of passing down my project to some juniors and I find the need to document it. Me being the lazy ass programmer that I am obviously started to look for something that would allow me to complete my documentation in as least steps and most painless way as possible. Found two main applications that I am using now:

1. Sphinx -> For main documenting work.

2. Happydoc -> For parsing and generating code documentation.

Both are quite easy to use and allows documentation to be generated in various format, which includes latex, html or pdf. Nice thing is both supports rest type reStructured text formatting which I just absolutely adore and is great to work with. I am especially impressed with Sphinx and the beautiful documents generated by Sphinx, coming with it's own search and everything. It's just what the lazy programmer doctor ordered. I am still evaluating both of these programs and am still open to other choices but so far these fit the bill nicely.