Hobbyist - Python vs. other languages

[Mensanator]

On Jul 31, 1:32 pm, fprintf <stuart.a.h... at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have been playing with computers since I first learned to program
> moving shapes on an Atari 800XL in BASIC. After many years of dabbling
> in programming languages as a hobbyist (I am not a computer scientist
> or other IT professional), I have never found a way to stick with a
> language far enough to do anything useful.  I learn all about loops
> and data structures and functions/methods etc. but never get to create
> a program that will do anything of value that I can't more easily do
> via freeware. Well, except the slot car timing system I wrote in C++
> for Linux many moons ago.
>
> Honestly Python seems like a breath of fresh air and possibly a way to
> get back to my BASIC roots, you know, programming just for the fun of
> it.
>
> Since I don't have a specific problem to solve, besides
> Pythonchallenge (which I found very cryptic), and Project Euler (which
> I found beyond my mathematics skills), is there a place to go for
> increasingly difficult problems to solve? I have followed a number of
> the recommended online tutorials that contain a logical progression of
> problems and yet they all end at the point where a person has enough
> knowledge of the syntax, but not really enough to do anything.

Don't overlook comp.lang.python as a source.

Can you answer every problem posted? If not, you've much
to learn. And solving them, even if you never reply, is a
great learning experience.

I try to reply when I think I have an answer, often to be
disappointed by someone else's much better answer. But I see
such as much for my benefit as for that of the OP.