What was the project that made you feel skilled in Python?

[Demian Brecht]

TBH, I think that the first thing that I did that made me feel that I
could hold my own was when I had my first (and only thus far) patch
accepted into the stdlib. To me, there's a /big/ difference between
throwing together a package that a few people may find useful and
putting a patch together that's accepted by a particular module expert
and committed to the stdlib.

To intermediate learners, I would strongly advocate getting their
hands dirty with some part of the stdlib. Really (imho), there's
really no better place to learn. Yes, in whole, it's a large project,
but there are quite a few small(er) modules that, once their
environment is set up, are self-contained and easy to follow along.
Even if they don't get anything committed, learning from Python
experts is far more useful than any other path that I've personally
taken.

Having said that, another great learning experience for me was when I
wrote my OAuth 2.0 client (https://github.com/demianbrecht/sanction)
and brought the initial implementation (460'ish LoC) to 66 LoC
(pre-2/3 support). In part, this was due to taking a different design
approach, but it was also in part due to taking advantage of Python
idioms rather than simply using approaches that I had used in other
languages.

On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 4:30 AM, Ned Batchelder <ned at nedbatchelder.com> wrote:
> Hi all, I'm trying to come up with more project ideas for intermediate
> learners, somewhat along the lines of
> http://bit.ly/intermediate-python-projects .
>
> So here's a question for people who remember coming up from beginner: as you
> moved from exercises like those in Learn Python the Hard Way, up to your own
> self-guided work on small projects, what project were you working on that
> made you feel independent and skilled?  What program first felt like your
> own work rather than an exercise the teacher had assigned?
>
> I don't want anything too large, but big enough that there's room for
> design, and multiple approaches, etc.
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> --Ned.
> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list



-- 
Demian Brecht
http://demianbrecht.github.com