Python is fun (useless social thread) ;-)

[Jarek Zgoda]

Re: Python is fun (useless social thread) ;-)

John Salerno napisa³(a):
[color=blue][color=green]
>> And I still don't get this "web application" hype, and all these "web
>> frameworks" scare me, as I internally don't trust any magic.[/color]
>
> Yeah, I dabbled with CGI, but I haven't seriously looked into anything
> like TurboGears yet. Of course, my problem is that I don't *need* to
> learn TurboGears, Django, etc...I just feel the desire to learn them
> (which is bad, in a way, because then I have no reason to use them!) And
> of course learning a framework like this means learning a lot of other
> parts too, like CherryPy, Mochi or something like that, etc. :)[/color]

Yea, that's right -- all these frameworks are of no use for me too. I
think I should learn at least some basics of them (like how WSGI stack
works), but my spare time is at most 2 hours at evening, so I choose
things that are closer to my current tasks, like new GUI framework (i.e.
Kiwi for PyGTK or Wax for wxPython) or new networking library.

Anyway, noone is expected to be an expert in every aspect. ;)

--
Jarek Zgoda

http://jpa.berlios.de/

[BartlebyScrivener]

Re: Python is fun (useless social thread) ;-)

>> I'd like something a bit like a module,[color=blue][color=green]
>> but I'd like to make several of them,
>> and not have them interfere with each other."[/color][/color]

Thank you. I sense what you are saying, but at this point I'd be
thinking, "Why not just make several modules?" :) I'll get to it. I've
got my hands full just learning everything else.

rd

[Diez B. Roggisch]

Re: Python is fun (useless social thread) ;-)

Sybren Stuvel schrieb:[color=blue]
> John Salerno enlightened us with:[color=green]
>> Did you have to learn it for a job?[/color]
>
> Nope, but I do most of my job in Python nowadays. I heard rumours
> about it being a nice language. After my first look at it, I was
> hooked!
>[color=green]
>> Also, how did you go about learning it?[/color]
>
> I first followed the tutorial, then simply started using it. And I
> watch this newsgroup to see if there are new things to learn.
>[color=green]
>> Was there any necessity in the specifics you learned, or did you
>> just dabble in something (e.g. wxPython) for fun?[/color]
>
> Mostly dabbling, although I learned (and improved) TLSLite because I
> needed it for my graduation project.
>[color=green]
>> Are there still some things you feel you need to learn or improve?[/color]
>
> I'd love to be able to calll functions from Windows DLLs on x86 Linux.
> Don't know if it'll be possible, though. Ideas anyone?[/color]

WINE? If you can run a DLL on linux, you can ultimately run a windows
python on linux I guess :)

Diez

[Scott David Daniels]

Re: Python is fun (useless social thread) ;-)

Scott David Daniels wrote:[color=blue]
> John Salerno wrote:[/color]
....
And I didn't quote him at all, so my post looks like it was
attributed to him, rather than in response to his message.

--Scott David Daniels
scott.daniels@a cm.org

[John Salerno]

Re: Python is fun (useless social thread) ;-)

Scott David Daniels wrote:[color=blue]
> Scott David Daniels wrote:[color=green]
>> John Salerno wrote:[/color]
> ...
> And I didn't quote him at all, so my post looks like it was
> attributed to him, rather than in response to his message.[/color]

Heh heh, I thought that for a few seconds until I realized I didn't
pursue a PhD. :)

[Luis M. González]

Re: Python is fun (useless social thread) ;-)


BartlebyScriven er wrote:[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
> >> I'd like something a bit like a module,
> >> but I'd like to make several of them,
> >> and not have them interfere with each other."[/color][/color]
>
> Thank you. I sense what you are saying, but at this point I'd be
> thinking, "Why not just make several modules?" :) I'll get to it. I've
> got my hands full just learning everything else.
>
> rd[/color]

To grasp the basics of OO, I strongly suggest you start with an example
of a banking application. It is in Alan Gauld's tutorial here:

http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld/

Check the bank account class in "Object oriented programming".
I think it is a very good real-life example of how to work with
objects, and it was a real eye opener to me when I was in your
situation.

By the way, the whole tutorial is very good.

I also recommend:
Josh Cogliati's Python Tutorial for Non-Programmers
A Byte of Python

Hope it helps...
Luis

[Remi Villatel]

Re: Python is fun (useless social thread) ;-)

John Salerno wrote:

[---CUT---][color=blue]
> So out of curiosity, I'm just wondering how everyone else came to learn
> it.[/color]
[---CUT---]

I just needed it. I needed it to recode text files from my old Atari
computer for my Linux box. I had already seen Python sources during some
googling sessions and found them mostly understandable. I also knew it
was already installed so I decided to give it a try.

One night was all I needed to write my "recoder" with nothing more to
help me than the (cryptic) included docs and the examples. Yes, 8 hours
and I had learned arguments passing, files operations, strings
manipulations and even module import with no prior knowledge. I fell in
love with Python.

I still have the source, it's very basic Python and I definitively could
have used a dictionary... but it worked.

From that moment, Python became my script language. Whenever I need to
write more than 2 lines in Bash, I use Python.

I learned the classes to play with some (rudimentary) artificial
intelligence. I even took part in a contest where I learned 'lambda' and
the generators. The only thing I haven't taken much care about is GUI in
Python. For that, I learned C++... ;-)

Any way, Python even helps me sometimes to write C++ since I use it to
test my algorithms when it comes to data manipulation. I can feed my
routines on the fly with whatever data I want to see how they react. So
I use Python as a debugger before to even start writing things in C++.
No need to compile or debug in Python. When something goes wrong:
CTRL+C, correct and restart.

Python is fun because it's easy to write, to understand and to use.

--
=============== ===
Remi Villatel
maxilys_@_tele2 .fr
=============== ===

[Dan Bishop]

Re: Python is fun (useless social thread) ;-)

John Salerno wrote:[color=blue]
> So out of curiosity, I'm just wondering how everyone else came to learn
> [Python][/color]

I first heard about Python in the footnotes for Bruce Eckels' book
"Thinking in Java", which I had bought for a Java course I took in
2000. Eventually, I decided to take a look at python.org, and went
through the tutorial.

[Laurent Pointal]

Re: Python is fun (useless social thread) ;-)

John Salerno a écrit :
....[color=blue]
> I do, however, think the docs are pretty good, although I sometimes find
> myself just wishing that a function definition was simply laid out in an
> easy to read format that included all of its parameters, so I would know
> exactly what to pass to it (I guess help() is good for this though).[/color]

<mode pub="on">

http://www.limsi.fr/Individu/pointal/python/pqrc/

</mode>

A+

Laurent.

[Ant]

Re: Python is fun (useless social thread) ;-)

> No, I learned it because Perl was too dirty and Java to complicated.[color=blue]
> Now it is part of my daily job.[/color]

Ditto. I was fed up of writing, compiling and running a java
application just in order to do a quick script. I'd used perl, but
quite frankly perl's a ridiculous language. Ruby looked promising, but
perl had already poisoned my mind against the syntax... Python was
clean, object oriented if you want it, and mature.
[color=blue][color=green]
> > Also, how did you go about learning it?[/color]
>
> Programming, reading this newsgroup, reading the python cookbook,
> reading python source files of the standard library.[/color]
[color=blue][color=green]
> > Are there still some things you feel you need to learn or improve?[/color][/color]

I feel like I've got a pretty good grasp of the core language now, but
there's always something that pops up in the group that I find I've not
dabbled in (such as the itertools, which I discovered on the group last
week(?) and have been using to great effect already!).

[André]

Re: Python is fun (useless social thread) ;-)

John Salerno wrote:[color=blue]
> So out of curiosity, I'm just wondering how everyone else came to learn
> it. If you feel like responding, I'll ask my questions for easy quoting:
>
> Did you have to learn it for a job?[/color]

No. My job is purely administrative; I have absolutely no need to do
any programming. I had done a *small* amount of programming (fortran,
C) while studying Physics and wrote a few simple Java applets while
teaching Physics.
[color=blue]
>
> Or did you just like what you saw and decided to learn it for fun?[/color]

More or less. In the summer of 2004 I felt I needed a hobby. I also
thought I should introduce my kids to something useful about computers.
I decided to combine both goals.
I started writing an html tutorial for my kids and, while surfing the
net for helpful resources, saw a few independent references to Python.
Curious, I downloaded it just to see what it was like and, after trying
a few things, I decided to forget about the html tutorial and proceeded
to write one on Python for my kids, following more or less a
traditional (boring) approach.
[color=blue]
> Also, how did you go about learning it? (i.e., like I described above, I
> started with the main stuff then moved on to the different available
> frameworks)[/color]

Having taught Physics for a number of years, I realised that the best
way to learn something is try to prepare to teach it to someone else.
This is what I was trying to do for my kids. But, after spending a
little over a month with Python, I stumbled upon Guido van Robot which
inspired me to change course again and I started working on RUR-PLE. I
had some ideas as to what RUR-PLE should look like, and just started
building from scratch, first implementing the logic (no GUI) and then
learning what I needed (like wxPython) as I went along. Being a
newbie sometimes made it difficult to make things work the way I
thought they should. I'm sure professional programmers/experts would
be horrified if they were to look at the details of the code I wrote.
My excuse: it works ... why break it? ;-)
[color=blue]
> Was there any necessity in the specifics you learned, or did you just
> dabble in something (e.g. wxPython) for fun?[/color]

Driven by the final goal in mind... The whole adventure has been for
fun!
[color=blue]
> Are there still some things you feel you need to learn or improve?[/color]

*Lots*. At the moment, it is webserver stuff for another project
(Crunchy Frog), again designed to make teaching/learning Python more
fun.
[color=blue]
> Additional comments/complains here: :)[/color]

Programming in Python is fantastic as a hobby... when I can find the
time. Since I started 2 years ago, I have gone for a few weeks (and
once for 4 months) at a time without doing any programming. However,
it is always easy to get back at it. I don't think I'd be able to say
that with other languages.

I have found members of the Python community to be generally extremely
helpful and generous of their time, in answering my silly questions.

I sometimes wish I had a different job, one which required me to do
programming using Python.

André

[Mirco Wahab]

Re: Python is fun (useless social thread) ;-)

Thus spoke John Salerno (on 2006-06-15 15:50):
[color=blue]
> Did you have to learn it for a job?[/color]

No, I was just interested in things
that are found interesting ;-)
[color=blue]
> Or did you just like what you saw and decided to learn it for fun?[/color]

I read some remarks, from "both sides", on
the feasibility of a programming language
with 'invisible braces', so I thought
'give it a try'.
[color=blue]
> Also, how did you go about learning it? (i.e., like I described above, I
> started with the main stuff then moved on to the different available
> frameworks)[/color]

Good question: I started with 'Myghty', this is,
as you probably know, a (imho excellent) framework
for developing web applications from components.

'Myghty' is a almost complete port of Perl's 'Mason'
(which is what Amazon and others run at), - what I
knew already smoehow.

I also tried Pylons (base component of MVC system
for web apps), but waved the flag after some time.
[color=blue]
> Was there any necessity in the specifics you learned,
> or did you just dabble in something (e.g. wxPython) for fun?[/color]

Another motivation was to find out something about the
(nowadays) huge amount on SciPy related (software
(http://www.scipy.org/Topical_Software).
[color=blue]
> Are there still some things you feel you need to learn or improve?[/color]

I came all the way up from Basic/Fortran/x86-Assembler/C/C++
to todays 'lightweight languages' (Dr.Dobbs says they are)
in the the Python/Perl/Ruby-Group.

For my personal taste(!), Python is in the end
'to unspectacular', means: I didn't manage to
learn to be really expressive in it - and to
enjoy that ;-)

But thats a matter of taste, these languages are like
weapons (tools), that you use to express yourself on
the battlefield of your tasks.

And you _have_ to love and praise your sword, otherwise
you won't be able to handle it appropriate - in your
dreadful encounters ...
[color=blue]
> Additional comments/complains here: :)[/color]

What I don't like in Python
- easy things are too easy (even beginners can handle that, PIL etc.),
- complicated things are too complicated (I had hard times to remember things),
- invisible braces ;-) (just personal taste)
- no integrated regex support (used to use re's very much, but milage my vary)

Regards

Mirco

[bruno at modulix]

Re: Python is fun (useless social thread) ;-)

BartlebyScriven er wrote:
(snip)
[color=blue]
> Also, it seems to be a minimalist
> language.[/color]

*seems* minimalist, but is really not - have a look at the object model
(metaclasses, descriptors etc), at closures and HOFs and decorators, at
list-comp and generators and (coming in 2.5) coroutines... Definitively
not minimalist in fact !-)


--
bruno desthuilliers
python -c "print '@'.join(['.'.join([w[::-1] for w in p.split('.')]) for
p in 'onurb@xiludom. gro'.split('@')])"

[bruno at modulix]

Re: Python is fun (useless social thread) ;-)

BartlebyScriven er wrote:[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>>I'd like something a bit like a module,
>>>but I'd like to make several of them,
>>>and not have them interfere with each other."[/color][/color]
>
>
> Thank you. I sense what you are saying, but at this point I'd be
> thinking, "Why not just make several modules?" :)[/color]

Because you want an unknown number of the *same* module ?-)

--
bruno desthuilliers
python -c "print '@'.join(['.'.join([w[::-1] for w in p.split('.')]) for
p in 'onurb@xiludom. gro'.split('@')])"

[bruno at modulix]

Re: Python is fun (useless social thread) ;-)

Scott David Daniels wrote:[color=blue]
> BartlebyScriven er wrote:
>[color=green]
>> .... I am not touching OO, classes, or GUIs until I understand
>> EVERYTHING else. Could take a few years. ;)[/color]
>
>
> You know how modules separate globals, right? That is, what you
> write in one module doesn't affect the names in another module.
> What classes (and hence OO) give you is a way of saying, "I'd
> like something a bit like a module, but I'd like to make several
> of them, and not have them interfere with each other." That is
> the big intuition about objects, the rest is just details.[/color]

Another way to put it:

You know what are dicts, right ? That is, containers with keyword-access
to values ? Then you probably have dicts with a known, defined
structure, and functions working on it. What classes (and hence 00)
gives you is a way to associate these functions with the dicts
themselves. That is the big intuition about objects, the rest is just
details.

!-)

--
bruno desthuilliers
python -c "print '@'.join(['.'.join([w[::-1] for w in p.split('.')]) for
p in 'onurb@xiludom. gro'.split('@')])"