Are you a visual learner? Does it help to have programming concepts shared with concrete examples and images? Would you like to see if your child might be interested in programming? This week on the show, we talk with author Shari Eskenas about her books, “A Day in Code - Python: Learn to Code in Python Through an Illustrated Story” and “Learn Python Through Nursery Rhymes & Fairy Tales.”

We talk about the books and what inspired her to bring programming to picture books. Shari discusses her goal of providing a fun way for beginners to experience learning to code.

Shari is also an electrical engineer with multiple patents and the founder of Sundae Electronics. We talk briefly about SoundBrake, which is an audio device that alerts headphone users to outside sounds.

Shari’s programming background is primarily in C, and we cover her path to Python. We also discuss how she is using Python and the Raspberry Pi to prototype new projects.

Course Spotlight: Reading and Writing Files With Pandas

In this course, you’ll learn about the Pandas IO tools API and how you can use it to read and write files. You’ll use the Pandas read_csv() function to work with CSV files. You’ll also cover similar methods for efficiently working with Excel, CSV, JSON, HTML, SQL, pickle, and big data files.

Topics:

• 00:00:00 – Introduction
• 00:02:05 – A Day in Code Books
• 00:05:32 – Showing Python classes and object oriented concepts
• 00:08:02 – What Python concepts did you want to cover in the book?
• 00:09:17 – Translating the book and concepts from C to Python
• 00:11:04 – Reception of the book
• 00:12:10 – Using real objects and names in code
• 00:14:05 – Sponsor: DataStax Astra DB
• 00:14:38 – Learn Python Through Nursery Rhymes & Fairy Tales
• 00:20:25 – Sundae Electronics and SoundBrake
• 00:26:47 – Video Course Spotlight
• 00:27:57 – Prototyping with Python and Raspberry Pi
• 00:38:19 – When did you start to learn Python?
• 00:39:31 – Real Python community
• 00:41:33 – How do you see yourself using Python in the future?
• 00:43:39 – What are you excited about in the world of Python?
• 00:45:02 – What do you want to learn next?
• 00:45:51 – Shout outs and plugs: Kickstarter campaign
• 00:46:40 – Social media connections
• 00:47:08 – Thanks and goodbye

Show Links:

• A Day in Code - Python: Learn to code in Python through an illustrated story
• A Day in Code: An illustrated story written in the C programming language
• Learn Python through Nursery Rhymes & Fairy Tales: Kickstarter
• Sundae Electronics
• Raspberry Pi Computers and Microcontrollers
• Raspberry Pi Remote Access
• CircuitPython: The Easiest Way to Program Microcontrollers
• Real Python Community

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