help on ultra newbie program please

[cybernut]

"Gerhard Häring" <gh at ghaering.de> wrote in message
news:mailman.1053536739.4538.python-list at python.org...
> cybernut wrote:
> > [Tried to solve a problem in a Python tutorial]
>
> Here's a solution using only "if" and "while" statements. I hope it's
> somewhat enlightening.
>
> #v+
> # The correct password. 'Constants' are usually named all-capital.
> CORRECT_PASSWORD = "unicorn"
>
> # Number of times the user tried entering a password. Zero at the start.
> tries = 0
>
> # Wether the password is entered correctly. Default to a logically false
> value.
> password_ok = 0
>
> # Execute the loop at most three times, and only as long as the correct
> # password hasn't been entered.
> while tries < 3 and not password_ok:
>      password = raw_input("Password:")
>      if password == CORRECT_PASSWORD:
>          password_ok = 1
>      tries += 1
>
> if password_ok:
>      print "Welcome!"
> else:
>      print "Go away!"
> #v-
>
> Don't worry if you can't solve some problems, yet. Learning to program
> is learning about patterns (think of building blocks). I'd call this one
> the "count and break at certain value" building block. You'll encounter
> it very often.
>
> These combiniations of control structures are kind of basic patterns.
> Soon you'll have learnt all control structures and from then on the
> major issue will be how to best organize your data :-)
>
> This is where OOP (object oriented programming) will eventually enter
> the game.
>
> -- Gerhard
>

Gerhard,

I appriciate you sharing your experience as well. Its great to see different
examples to accomplish the same task. Will really help me learn it I think.
Also your tip about learning to program was insightful. I hope its like
learning anything new. I just need to get my brain in the mode of seeing and
using patterns like you said. Memorizing the control structures (is that
what the while and if commands are called?) and what they do seems like the
easy part to me at least...

While I'm thinking about it, would there be enough good tutorials on the net
to lessen the need for a begginers book about python programming? Was
thinking of picking up a book, but these days it seems like theres a lot of
good resources on the net for this.

Thanks