A little disappointed so far

[Grzegorz Adam Hankiewicz]

On 2003-05-19, Graham Nicholls <graham at rockcons.co.uk> wrote:
> 1.  Documentation - there are no good, up to date books - "Learning
> Python" is poor, IMO. A little better is "Programming Python",
> and better still is "Core Python", but this is out of date -
> just covering 2.0 in an appendix.

Ignore the books. You say you have many years of experience,
so open the Python tutorial, read it (takes around one hour) and
start coding. I did that and never regretted it. I read my first
Python books one year later, and yes, they dissappointed me too,
because most of them are either for begginners or practically printed
references of the HTML help. At least I use them as an excuse to
impress friends: "see this 500 page book? Took me a few hours..."

> I can print the pdf version of the tutorial - Windoze just says
> "document can't be printed" and prints 3 pages.  I use Linux 99%
> of the time, but windoze is easy to duplex print from - I just
> can;t be bothered to set it up from CUPS.

That's an interesting point of view: blaming a language due to being
unable to print a pdf file, from Windows or Linux. It rocks! Maybe
you should take a few years off (you seem to be comfortable using
this scale to measure your spent time) to learn about printers
(hint: http://www.linuxprinting.org/). I'm not even old enough to
have the many years of your programming experience, but it took me
one afternoon to configure my ink printer and use it under linux
or through samba without previous experience. Give it a chance, ok?

<subliminal_rant>If you can't be bothered to set up your hardware,
should we bother to help you? The tao is down.</subliminal_rant>

> 2. Its all just so long winded, especially as a shelltool.

That's fine, I like opening yogurts with my chainsaw too.

On 2003-05-19, Graham Nicholls <graham at rockcons.co.uk> wrote:
> > What things seem very hard?  
> Running external programs.

Just yesterday I had to do this, so I'll drop the one liner:

   os.spawnvp(os.P_WAIT, "./prog", ["prog"])

> No case statement - or is it simply that my documentation is
> out of date? I _know_ I can do if elif else constructs, but in a
> language which prides itself in its readability, this is laughable.

Especially for the duffman (spelling?) device. case statements to be
readable usually need an extra level of identation from the parent
`switch'. Isn't that ugly in itself?

> I really don't wan't to attack python, but your attitude strikes
> me as somewhat less than helpful, and I posted for some help,
> perhaps in looking further to see that I was mistaken, rather
> than for a flame war.

Come on, everybody knows that the best way to get help is to attack
something and wait for its followers to defend it.

> >> With 25 years programming experience, I have a good idea by
> >> now about my apprroach to programming, but thanks for the
> >> patronising comment, anyway.
> > 
> > If you like patronizing comments, here's a better one: If you
> > have 25 years of programming experience, you shouldn't be having
> > these problems.
> 
> Of course, I should leap straight in to knowing python intimately,
> and intuitively produce perfect code.  Especially bearing in mind
> how different from other scripting languages (like perl/shell/awk,
> etc) Python is.

But of course, take this as another patronizing advice:

   http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=3882

Do you still feel confident after having said that bit about your
experience with scripting languages? To me it reads like 25 years
of one-liners. You might want to express that in another way.

PD1: Sorry, I love flamewars.

PD2: I'm smiley-less, and with a charming personality.

-- 
 Please don't send me private copies of your public answers. Thanks.