Perhaps I am just dumb

[wooks]

Sheila King <usenet at thinkspot.net> wrote in message news:<a42c8e.3vvbc1l.1 at kserver.org>...
> 
> You might want to try the Tutor mailing list:
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
> 
> I highly recommend it.

I have just subscribed. Thanks for the tip.
>  
> > Bought Python for Win32 book and already been caught out (Part 1 was a
> > breeze part 2 and I shuddered to a grinding halt). For perspective I
> > am a tester who wants to learn Python because of it's excellent unit
> > test framework and it's scripting glue like abilities (not interested
> > in building applications). If vbunit was as easy to figure (or had as
> > good a tutorial) as PyUnit (thank you Mark Pilgrim) I probably never
> > would have come here.  As it is perhaps getting to grips with vbunit
> > might be the lesser evil.
> 
> Ah, well, that's Windows for you. You might want to dabble and get your
> feet wet in the language a bit before diving into the win32 module(s).
> They are more complicated to work with, but that's just because it's
> Windows you're dealing with. Python can't fix that interface.
> 
Never got far enough into the book to look at win32. I couldn't
understand why there were these 2 classes that were variants of a
dictionary class and neither subclassed userdict and then the book
says now I'm using magic methods go look up in the language reference
(I did  - couldn't understand the raison d'etre). I think I have now
sussed answers to both issues - the userdict class (I am guessing) is
a recent addition and the book was at Python 1.5.2. The answer to the
second issue (I think) is that this is how (or one of the ways)
polymorphism is implemented. If I am indeed right on that then a
reference to that concept in the language reference would have saved
me alot of time and pain. I could have gone off and got and got a
conceptual understanding from a non-Python resource. I expect my
progress to be slow from hereon in with like issues cropping up.

> Have you been to this page?
> http://www.python.org/doc/Newbies.html
> Some of the tutorials listed there might be more useful in the "language
> learning stage" than that win32 book. Or not. I'm not sure where you are
> with the whole thing.
> 

I have been referring to a number of tutorials. I am not a newbie
programmer but I think the tutorials aimed at experienced programmers
are really aimed at experienced OO programmers - ignore that at your
peril.

> You might also want to try the win32 mailing list:
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-win32
> 

OK thanks. I will try that.

> > The benefits of using of Python as a scripting glue like language are
> > widely touted but don't seem (I am probably wrong but it's a 1st
> > impression) to be well catered for. As I said I am not interested in
> > building applications. Is there a forum for the dumber less demanding
> > Python user?
> 
> See above.
> 
> Hope this helps,