A beginning beginner's question about input, output and . . .

[songbird]

DonK wrote:
>
> Hi, I'm thinking about learning Python but I'm 74 years old and will
> very likely not ever have a programming job again. I used to program
> in Visual Basic, C\C++, Delphi, etc. and some obscure "mainframe"
> languages. It's been about 18-19 years since my last programming job.
> I do understand programming concepts but I'm really not up on any of
> the more modern programming languages.

  hi Don,

  you sound like you have a similar perspective to my own
except i'm a bit younger.  :)


> I've installed Python 3.7, the PyCharm IDE and watched some Youtube
> tutorials but it's been stretched out over about 1.5 years so I'll
> probably need to go back to the beginning. My problem is that I don't
> understand how Python programs are used. (i.e user input and output)
> Is Python mainly used for backends?

  it can be used for pretty much anything except perhaps
high pressure real time things, but i bet someone else will
know that is being done too, i've just not heard of it.  :)


> I've seen some Python gui frameworks like Tkinter, PyQt, etc. but they
> look kinda like adding a family room onto a 1986 double wide mobile
> home, and they look even more complicated than creating a GUI from
> scratch in C++ with a message loop, raising events . . .

  i tried pyglet just because it was the first one that i
could figure out without it being too complicated.


> So, what do you folks use Python for?

  for me i used it to learn python and wrote a simple game
which adapted an already existing game written in C to python.
since i don't really understand python and have issues with
some concepts it hasn't gone much further lately and i'm
ok with that.


> Nowdays I mainly just use programming for rather small utilities for
> my personal use. Currently I'd like to write something to iterate
> through open windows and save them to different folders depending on
> if the titlebar contains certain strings. In the past I would probably
> have used Excel's VBA to do this but I no longer have Excel installed
> on my main computer. I'd like a bit of a challenge but I don't want to
> spin my wheels trying to learn something that will be a dead end for
> me.

  i am so familiar with Bash shell script language and C 
that either of those would normally be my first choice
because i already have tools done for enough things and
i know what i'm doing.

  for python i just spend too much time fumbling around
and i don't really know what is current and if i'm using
something that will be kept up for the future or if the
project is going away or in a direction that i won't like
(both KDE and Gnome desktops messed me up with what they
did after i spent a lot of time finding them, getting
them set up and then they changed and i switched only to
have the other do the same to me so i switched again to
Mate and that at least has been more stable to my style of
doing things).

  uh, so, i think i do understand your aims and perspective
and hope you can get further in your goals.  :)


> I know that this probably seems like a stupid post but your input will
> be useful.
>
> Thank you.
>
>    Don
>
> I know that Python is a very popular language so I'm sorry if it
> sounds like I'm being critical. I really don't know enough about it to
> be critical.

  heh, well, if you go back and read some of my previous posts
here you'd see a lot of dumb things i've said too.  don't worry.
i'm sure i'll make other dumb posts too, but at the moment i'm
mostly in a holding pattern for a while.  i have a few other
big projects i need to finish before i get back to python again.


  songbird