Is this a good time to start learning python?

[Colin J. Williams]

Terry Reedy wrote:
> "Rui Maciel" <rui.maciel at gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:47f1140e$0$735$a729d347 at news.telepac.pt...
> | Recently I woke up inclined to take up the task of learning another
> | programming language. I've already dipped my toes in Perl (I've read 
> online
> | tutorials and wrote a couple of irrelevant pet projects) but, as the
> | computers at my workplace only sport the python interpreter, it probably
> | means that learning python will end up serving me better, at least in the
> | short run. Plus, you know how Perl goes.
> 
> If you intend to use Python on the computer at your workplace, then learn 
> the version installed there.
> 
> | So far the decision seems to be a no brainer. Yet, Python 3000 will 
> arrive
> | in a few months. As it isn't backwards compatible with today's Python,
> | there is the risk that no matter what I learn until then, I will end up
> | having to re-learn at least a considerable part of the language.
> 
> Most of the changes are deletions and additions, rather than changes.
> 
> 3.0a4 will be out in a few days.  If you had no reason to use anything 
> else, I would consider starting with that.  (But the IDLE IDE on Windows 
> may still not work right.)

Replace IDLE by PyScripter and then you 
have a good development environment for 
Python 3000.

Colin W.
> 
> |  To put it in other words, I fear that I will be wasting my time.
> 
> If you learn and use 2.x, then avoid things that are going away.  In 
> particular:
> 
> Unless you need to learn about old-style classes, I would not bother with 
> them  and the differences from new, soon to be the only style, classes. 
> Derive all your classes from object or a subclass thereof.
> 
> Use // for integer floor division (ie, when you want 1/2 == 0.
> Use 'from __future__ import division' if you use '/' in a file where both 
> operands
> might be ints and you would want 1/2==.5.
> 
> | At least that is what a clueless newbie believes. As this group is
> | frequented by people who have more insight into all things pythonesque,
> | what are your thoughts on this?
> 
> Diverse, I am sure ;-)
> 
> Terry Jan Reedy
> 
> 
>