need help just begining

[Ivan Van Laningham]

Hi All--

Greg Ewing wrote:
> 
> R E Heath wrote:
> 
> > SheaMon wrote:
> > >
> > > can
> > > I just leave the numbers and stuff like that and just edit
> > > the rest? I get so lost in the number part of the
> > > programming.
> 
[snip]

> I don't think that's necessarily good advice. If
> numbers turn you off, traditional BASIC is going to
> turn you off even more. You can do quite a lot of
> useful things in Python without ever going near a
> number -- something that can't be said about
> traditional BASIC!
> 
[snip]

> There are introductory books to Python around. I
> haven't had personal experience of any of them, but
> many people seem to think that "Learning Python"
> is reasonably good. Whether it's any less biased
> towards number-intensive examples I don't know.
> I'm sure others will offer advice on the matter.
> 

I'm holding in my hands the very first copy of _Teach Yourself Python in
24 Hours_.  I would like to recommend it to you, SheaMon, and I will,
with the caveat that there is a bit of number stuff in there.  However,
what's included isn't that hard, and I give pointers to websites where
you can do a little catchup.  The hardest "number stuff" in the book is
the Mandelbrot set, and Python makes the math *easy*.

I encourage you to take a look at it; there's plenty of info in there
for the compleat newbie to programming,  so don't dismiss it out of
hand.

Check the PSA Bookstore, or your local B&N or Borders if you want to see
it before you buy it.

<only-a-little-BSP>-ly y'rs,
Ivan
----------------------------------------------
Ivan Van Laningham
Callware Technologies, Inc.
http://www.pauahtun.org and
http://www.foretec.com/python/workshops/1998-11/proceedings.html
Army Signal Corps:  Cu Chi, Class of '70
Author:  Teach Yourself Python in 24 Hours