Newbie advice

[Bryan]

On Oct 28, 9:53 pm, CSharpner <csharp... at gmail.com> wrote:
> Alright, I'm not new to programming, but I'm diving in head first into
> Python for the first time.  I'm running on Windows 7, just installed
> "Eclipse Java EE IDE for Web Developers" and installed PyDev in it and
> installed Python 2.6.  I've written my first "Hello World" program,
> which simply displays "Hello World!" in the console output.
>
> Here's what I /want/ to do, but don't know where to begin:
>
> - Write web services in Python (I've done plenty of this in .NET,
> BTW).
> - Write plain DLLs (is that even an option in Python (I told you I was
> a newb to Python, didn't I? :))
> - Write a web app (HTML front end, Python web services called from
> JavaScript).
> - Write a plain old web app with Python (no web services or Ajax, just
> plain HTML & Python).
> - Is it possible to create a Windows client desktop GUI app with
> Python?  How?  How 'bout a Linux GUI app?
>
> I don't know how to create and write a Python project with Eclipse to
> tell it to "be" a web service or a web app, or if what I need to do in
> the code to make as such, no "run" it from Eclipse to launch the app
> in a web server and launch a browser automatically.  Can I debug after
> doing this?  In other words, can I put break points in my web services
> or web apps and go back into the IDE to step through the code for web
> services and web apps?
>
> Also, I'm not tied to Eclipse.  I'm totally open to other IDEs as
> well.  SharpDevelop with the Python plugin looks interesting too.
>
> And finally, I'm not completely committed to using Windows to host my
> development either.  I'm willing to use Linux too (but would prefer
> Windows... at least to get started, until I'm comfortable enough with
> Python).
>
> TIA

I first started coding using Visual Studio + VB.net in college (not a
CS major).  I have now sworn off all that jazz for python+vim+*nix.
Your thinking reminds me very much of how I used to think about
solving problems with software.  I thought in terms of the tools I
had, which was basically which VS templates were available, which GUI
widget library I could buy, which MS application framework I could use
etc.

At some point I decided to start all over.  I started reading *basic*
computer programming books, teaching myself C, and doing all coding in
a simple text editor.  It was a tough period but I'm glad I went
through it because I think about programming completely differently
now.  Now a programming language is mostly an implementation detail.
I design the solution without even thinking about programming
languages or tools.  I choose to implement most solutions in python
because its syntax describes what I want to do the cleanest, its not
tied to a corporate strategy, it has tons of useful libraries bla bla
bla.

This post describes the IDS vs language divide that I crossed over:
http://osteele.com/archives/2004/11/ides

Python can do everything you ask in your post, and their are many
resources to help you do those things.  I just wanted to give you some
advice for the bigger picture.

Bryan