Introduction to SQLAlchemy

Preparation Information for Students

The Introduction to SQLAlchemy course features a prerequisite handout as well as a series of software installs that we'll use throughout the class. The prerequisite handout is essentially all the "SQL Review" material for the course. It's been moved out of the main presentation and into paragraph form, so that it won't take up time during the course itself for those students already familiar with SQL, and for those not familiar, it's material more in-depth than we could cover within the class itself, containing not just detailed descriptions of lots of relational database terms but also lots of links to external resources.

Please be sure to review the handout material. Basic familiarity with SQL and relational database terms and concepts will be assumed.

The handout and the required software installs are all part of the same package.

Downloading the Tutorial Package

The overview for the package is available on Bitbucket:

https://bitbucket.org/zzzeek/pycon2013_student_package

It can be downloaded via git or direct download, per the information listed on the "Overview" page.

Once downloaded, the handout is present as handout.pdf, as well as an HTML build in handout/index.html. The class software should also be installed and tested. We'll be relying upon virtualenv to localize the install, so it would be helpful for students to familiarize with this package as well.

The package includes all software except for virtualenv and Python itself, so that assuming Python and virtualenv are present, we should not need any network access in the class itself in order to rebuild the system; we should have USB sticks with the latest version ready to go.

Students are encouraged to please install and test the system ahead of time, and please feel free to add new issues for installation and runtime problems, as well as areas of the handout that are incorrect or need clarification. We have used this software many times before, but it is modified this year, including that it should work for Python 3 as well.

The course will feature myself (Mike) and two teaching assistants. We are hoping to be able to attend the 6:30 pm setup session on Wednesday, March 13 to assist with any lingering software installation issues; please check back on this page for updates.

-- mike