Jupyter Notebooks is a great way to visualize the concepts of code. It is a very good fit to teach others the basics of coding by directly showing the results, instead of discussing theoretical behaviors. Binder provides a solution to create a Jupyter Notebook environment from scratch for students to play around.
Access this Binder at the following URL
https://mybinder.org/v2/gh/Klaynie/LearnToCodeAsGroup/master
The Exercise Notebooks are intended as a playground for people who are unfamiliar with coding. Solutions are provided for all exercises. Writing your first program can be done in 3 easy steps.
Before working on the exercise be warned that the changes are not saved in the cloud. This is part of the trade off to have clean, fresh environments in the browser every time you access the mybinder link.
To save your work there are two possibilities. The first version is recommended for students who intend to only work in the Jupyter Notebooks themselves and do not need an IDE (e.g. Data Scientists). The second version is aimed at more sophisticated students (e.g. Programmers).
The first option to save your work is by downloading the files manually on your local machine. You can download the files by choosing the 'File' -> 'Download as' - 'Notebook (.ipynb)' option from the menu as shown below
The second option to save your work is to use VS Code and create a clone of this repository. See below section taken from the VS Code documentation for a brief explanation on how to clone a repository:
You can clone a Git repository with the Git: Clone command in the Command Palette (
Ctrl+Shift+P). You will be asked for the URL of the remote repository (for example on GitHub) and the parent directory under which to put the local repository.For a GitHub repository, you would find the URL from the GitHub Clone or download dialog.
You would then paste that URL into the Git: Clone prompt.
Sometimes the mybinder homepage will not start correctly. In case the page does not load within 10-15 seconds, please hit 'F5' to refresh the page. If the issue persists please reach out to me.
The lessons are intended to be a "Cheat Sheet" of the book "Think Python" from Allen Downey. For comprehensive explanation of the topics please check out his work. You can access the book on the website https://greenteapress.com/wp/think-python-2e/
Additional notes and remarks are added by advice taken from discussions with my friends and colleagues and watching/reading Uncle Bob Martin.
Special shout out goes to my friends tfelix, domiimob and Feliys, who are passionate coders with a big heart for all things programming. They took many hours out of their lives to help me getting started with programming and gave me valuable feedback along the way. Without them I would not be where I am today.