Questions from a beginner

[Alex Martelli]

"Alison Myers" <squirmy at freeuk.com> wrote in message
news:1103_983792888 at breakdown...
> Hi. I'm a beginning programmer at a fairly late age and have been looking
for a language to learn.
> I have decided against starting with C or C++ because I think they will be
too complicated and they seem to be only really needed for writing device
drivers and operating systems, which is not what I wat to do.

Very good strategic decision.  The other application areas where C and C++
shine, and justify their complications, is software that must run at the
highest speed, yet remain portable enough that assembly-language is not
warranted.

> Is python a good language to learn first? Will my knowledge help me with
other languages later?

It's a VERY good language to learn first.  It will SPOIL you for other
languages, it's so good -- but, apart from that, the concepts you gain
in Python are indeed applicable to many other languages.

> I will be writing for win98 and Linux and I know Python is available on
both of these, but would the code be transportable, especially if I write
things using tcl (this is probably a long way off yet, but I'd like to
know).

Yes, TK Python applications can easily enough be kept portable between
Win98 and Linux (I assume you mean Tk/Tkinter -- TCL is another scripting
language, albeit the one for which Tk was originally developed).  The
platform-specific functionality is not all that much, and, with a few
exceptions (time.strptime being the outstanding one!), generally well
delineated/isolated into platform-specific modules.

> I have links to online tutorials, but where would I find good source code?

The Python sources of the Python standard libraries are quite good, and
well worth studying: they will teach you all sorts of nifty tricks, good
Python style, AND the wealth of functionality already available for your
reuse in the libraries.

> Do I need to buy any books to help me and if so which do you recommend?

Whether you learn better from books, online material, or experimentation,
is something only you can say.  Have a look at
    http://www.crosswinds.net/~agauld/
and/or, you can get substantially the same material in book form, from
Addison-Wesley; you might be pretty happy with it in either form (if it
were me, I'd go for the mashed-dead-tree version, but that is just MY
fetish -- I'm a confirmed book-lover; your mileage may vary!-).

> Is there a list of programming projects anywhere or would I get these from
a textbook?

I think the latter holds.

> I probably need to brush up on my maths, so what specific topics should I
look at?

Depends on your interests -- WHAT kind of maths do you want to handle
with Python?  If Statistics, for example, Stokburger's online "Introductory
Statistics" at http://www.psychstat.smsu.edu/sbk00.htm may be a good idea --
it's oriented to Psych majors, so, it goes light on unneeded maths and
includes a brief summary of those maths that are absolutely can't-live-
without (basically, a tiny subset of algebra).


Alex