Have you ever got the feeling that, on your way back from a conference with short talks of less than a hour, you may have got lots of food for thought, but no real experience that can be immediately spent on your day-time job or night-time hobby?
If so, then hands-on training are exactly what you are looking for!
NOTE: Access to trainings is limited to people that bought a standard ticket; lite tickets do not provide access to trainings; moreover, it is strongly suggest to book the trainings you want to attend (see below).
Training structure
Hands-on trainings are special sessions devolved to a deeper understanding of Python technologies. Training will take place during the conference (from Monday 2nd to Friday 6th), in dedicated tracks, parallel to the regular talk tracks.
A training is different from a standard talk in many aspects:
- Longer duration: 4 hours. A standard talk lasts for 30 to 60 minutes, which is barely enough to introduce a topic. In a training there is room for going into more details, showing more examples, etc.
- Smaller audience. Given the longer duration, trainings will be generically attended by less people (10-30 on average). This will allow for a different, more informal presentation style, with more interaction between the trainer and the audience.
- Desks for your laptops. Training rooms have desks and cabled network, so that attendees can put their laptop on the table, connect it to the wire for Internet access, and even attempt some coding, at the discretion of the trainer.
- More code samples. We expect training to dwelve into lots of technical details, if not guided coding sessions. Trainers will be encouraged to provide working examples in advance, so that attendees can play with them during the training.
- Focus on learning. In a regular talk, the goal of the speaker is to make sure that the audience understand and remember a couple of main points, and will later check back on the topic by themselves if needed. In a training, the goal of the trainer is to teach a specific technology to the audience, up to a point where they are able to start running by themselves, in the right direction.
- Both basic and advanced levels. Training are not exclusively targeted at beginners. There will be training for people approaching a technology for the first time (eg: "Django: a quick walkthrough") but there will also be training for people that want to dive deeper into a technology they already know at some level (eg: "Optimizing your Django application for faster HTTP responses").
- Value for the money. While it is true that you can opt for the lite ticket (with no access to trainings) to save some bucks, please keep in mind that, if you were to ask a private company to provide you with trainings like those given at EuroPython, they will probably charge you at least like a full EuroPython ticket for just one of those 4-hours trainings!
Booking a training
Access to training is reserved to people that hold a standard ticket (lite tickets do not allow access to trainings). In addition to this, you can book the trainings you want to attend, directly from the schedule (click on the training, and then click on the "Book" button).
Reservation is not mandatory, but we will obviously give precedence to people that have a reservation; if the training is full (no seats left) and you do not have a reservation, you might be unable to attend the training. This is why we suggest that you book your trainings in advance, to make sure that you don't miss them.
