Extremely Newbie wants to program and pleads to be pointed in the right direction

[Anders Schneiderman]

Fernando Rodr?uez <frr at ThouShallNotSpam.EasyJob.NET> wrote in message news:<a0up7usn1v48q14i1eopb5n8mfdthfpqkm at 4ax.com>...

> If you want to learn how to program, then I wouldn't recommend using Python.
> Python _is_ a great language for beginners, but there many _great_ (and I mean
> great) books for beginners that use it.

I'd agree that there aren't any fabulous books for learning Python as
a beginner--nothing as fun as, say, "Oh Pascal!"--but there is plenty
of intro material, some of it written for and used by high school
kids, so I don't think you'd have a hard time picking it up.  Python
is very easy to learn, and you can do a lot of neat stuff w/o knowing
the language inside-out.

If in addition to getting books/materials on Python you also want some
general books on becoming a better programmer, you should definitely
ask folks on the list.  My vote would be for _Code Complete_ right now
and _The Pragmatic Programmer_ in six months.  If anyone has a
recommendation for a good book on object-oriented programming, that'd
be good to read too; I've never found one that was deep and was aimed
at beginners.

> I recommend you buy a copy of this book: "The Schemer's Guide" at
> www.schemers.com. It's an excellent, short and gentle (let me stress the word
> _gentle_) intro to programming and computer science. It uses Scheme, a
> language designed for teaching, that is quite similar to Python. IMHO, this is
> the most painless way to quickly become a viable programmer.

Scheme is "quite similar to Python"???  Scheme is a dialect of Lisp,
no?  Perhaps at a deeper level, but for a beginner, they sure look
different to me.  For example, Lisp uses parantheses hell vs. Python's
elegant approach of using white space/indentation.

Also, I've heard Lisp described many ways--powerful, etc.--but
painless ain't one of them.  I went from Basic & Pascal to Lisp, and
it was _not_ a pleasant experience.

I'd choose Python over Java; it's easier to learn, and it's a much
less wordy language.  Every once in a while I'll see something new in
the Java world I want to check out, and every time I do, I'm reminded
of how much I like Python.  Java might be a good second language.

One more thing.  One of the reason it's easy to learn Python is that
when you run into a really tricky problem you can't solve, if you post
it to the newsgroup, someone will give you an answer.  I just posted
something an hour ago, and already a really nice guy sent me the
answer!

Just my two cents.

Thanks,
Anders Schneiderman