I started out with a very vague idea, of learning programming last year.

I went to Pycon India, fell in love with the community, decided to learn software, and came home all charged up. (Btw, I was so intimidated, I did not speak to a single soul.)

The plan was to sort personal issues, tackle a couple of major work projects so that I could then focus on learning, clear the decks and go full steam ahead come April.

While I made headway, I was also missing the hum and bustle of Pycon that had so charged me, but I did remember one session I attended, that had left me smiling was a sponsored talk of all things, by a certain Mr. Das. Off the cuff, naturally, warmly delivered.

So as I was looking for … someone to talk to, somewhere to belong, who comes along but Santa Das.

While that trip didn’t quite happen due to personal reasons, we still kept in touch. (Why he would do that with a newbie-know-nothing like me, I don’t know. The man has a large heart.)

And when the new session of #dgplug was announced, I jumped at the chance!

To those not part of the dgplug summer training, read all about it here. The brave1 souls at the Linux Users’ Group of Durgapur take in a bunch of kids (and adults) who want to learn all about the magical world of software programming and give them tools with which they can paint on that vast canvas.

Our goal is to bring in more upstream contributors to various FOSS projects.
Through this training we show the path of becoming an upstream contributor.

— from the DGPLUG summer training page

Communication skills, free software projects, documentation, system administration, source code management, time management, conference proposals and obviously basic programming – the whole gamut is covered here.

So while any odd duck can learn on their own, the DGPLUG summer sessions will help you become a well rounded individual who can code and contribute to the world. A software finishing school, if you will :)

Kushal and the training and it’s successes have been featured in opensource.com time and time again.

A look at the guest speakers (including the all father of Python and the cream of the Indian Developer community) should be enough to convince you to come join.

It’s only been a week, and I’ve been having a ball! We covered communication skills, touch typing and the vi editor this week! If you hurry, you can catch up and work with us.

And for my new #dgplug family, here’s a little something, something2 about me to close this post with …

  1. Yes, I am obviously hiding my big, fat tummy in the pic. :) 3
  2. I’m like a poor man’s, still failing James Altucher.
  3. Yes, I’m a lot older than most of you. :) 4
  4. I’ve been at this IT thing a long time. (since 1997, in fact.) 5
  5. And yes, only now do I get the bright idea to learn software.
  6. I love the fact, that I get you to be my plus-minus-equal.
  7. You folks make me feel all warm and enthusiastic and welcoming and make me feel like I found my tribe!
  8. I’m still head over heels in love with my better half, and live with her in a cozy li’l Thane (Mumbai) home, not far from my parents :)

I look to learn so much from you and know so much more of you over the coming months. I wish you all make good art!

  1. (& foolhardy, dare I say :P ) ↩︎

  2. My grandma says that :) ↩︎

  3. dropped 7 kgs to 89. Only another 20 to go! ↩︎

  4. not necessarily wiser :P ↩︎

  5. land line telephone fixer boy, hardware tech support at small firm, hardware tech support at huge firm, freelance engineer, consulting engineer, consulting manager. ↩︎