[Tutor] Bad time to get into Python?

[Dotan Cohen]

On 03/02/2008, Alan Gauld <alan.gauld at btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> "Dotan Cohen" <dotancohen at gmail.com> wrote
>
> > coming of Python3 and the new syntax, is this a bad time to start
> > learning Python? I don't want to learn 2.x if 3.x will replace it,
>
> 3.x won't be the end of changes in Python, amy more than
> other languages change. While the changes for 3.x will be
> bigger than for previous languages my understanding is
> that they ae not huge and certainly not as big as the
> jump from VB6 to VB.NET for example.
>
> A coming version change is never a good reason not
> to learn a language IMHO. More important is to ask
> why learn that language in the first place? What will
> it offer that your current skills don;t already provide?
> If you can answer that question positively then the
> version change will likely make no significant change
> to the cost/benefit equation.

I currently use php on the webserver, and bash on desktop. I'm good at
neither, and I've been leaning towards using php more and more on the
desktop for scripting (the php -q flag supresses http header output
for console usage). Python seems like a real language that can replace
both. It is also flexible enough to let me do a GUI app in Qt if need
be, or even a windows app should I ever need. I'm already convinced
that I need to learn Python. But I don't want to learn it twice, and
I'm in no rush.

> > That asked, I've heard that 2.6 can be configured
> > to warn when using code that will not run in 3.x.
> > Is this correct? How is this done?
>
> I beliebe you re right but don;t know the mechanism.
> But I should think it equally likely that there will be
> tools available either with the release or very soon
> after thart will, at the very least, identify the areas
> needing change - if not actually making most of
> the changes for you. This nearly always happens
> with significant language upgrades.
>
> > version of python on this machine. I want my own apps to throw
> > errors,
> > but not other python apps on this system. Is there some error-level
> > code that I can run?
>
> I'm not clear what you mean by that bit.

In php error reporting can be changed on the fly, in the script file
itself. So I can have one script that logs errors to a text file, and
another that prints errors to the browser/CLI. I was hoping for
something similar in Python.

Dotan Cohen

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