ANN: Updated beginner's tutorial

[Alan Gauld]

Its taken much longer than expected but my all-new, all-singin'
all-dancin' web tutor for beginners is officially launched!

Thanks to all those who submitted comments on the drafts.

A quick summary of the new features:

- Uses Python 2.3 as the main language
    Not all features but where there have been changes 
    in preferred approach these are adopted, for example 
    string methods etc.
- Uses VBScript and JavaScript as comparison languages
    Whereas Tcl and QBASIC were only used for comparisons 
    and only given about 25% of the coverage of Python, 
    VBScript and JavaScript now get around 75% of 
    Python's coverage. I believe you could actually learn
    these languages from the tutor now.
- Has new chapters on text processing and regular expressions
    The text processing was very thin, there is much more 
    on using string methods and a whole intro to 
    regular expressions, basically reproducing the regex 
    chapter from my book.
- has many more examples
    This was one comon criticism, hopefully the increased 
    code count will keep folks happy. There will inevitably 
    be bugs so if you find any please let me know so I can 
    fix 'em!
- has much more detailed explanations 
    overall its about 30-50% bigger

My priorities for the immediate future are getting two new
translations loaded onto the site - an update of the Czech one
based on the new material, and a brand new Polish edition also
based on the new material.

After that I'll be starting a series of new topics focused on
practical applications: using os, path, CGI, sockets, xml etc...

Enjoy, and as ever send that feedback to me.

Alan G.
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld/

Author of the Learn to Program website
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld/tutor2