[Tutor] WRITING XLS FROM OS.WALK()

[Alan Gauld]

"David Hutto" <smokefloat at gmail.com> wrote

> > I'm sorry to tell you that you've just reinvented the wheel. This 
> > was
> > already solved, a long, long time ago. It is called the glob 
> > module:
>
> Hey,  buddy pal. Isn't it true that newbs should take of advantage 
> of
> the fact that you have to solve the problem pythonically

Thats a matter of great dispute. There is an old school that says you
should learn to program in assembler (or even microcode) then move
to C and then to Python(or similar) and finally to 4G languages.
Then there is a new school that says life is too short, learn to
program like a professional - use the highest level language you
can and leverage the libraries.

Personally I would say for the hobbyist, new-school is best. The real
skill to learn is finding the best library and figuring out how to use 
it.
[For a pro doing a 4 year computing course then there is still a lot
to be said in starting from  scratch and building up - they may
have to do it that way someday on new hardware or creating a new OS,
but an amateur is never likely to be building from scratch...]

> > You should use that. It works, it is tested and thoroughly 
> > debugged, and
> >  it is powerful.
>
> Certainly so, but not as powerful as the individual's ingenuity in
> solving the problem at hand without foreknowledge of the 'known'
> solution.

That depends on how good the student is. It is very unlikely
that the student will come up with anything close to globs
power and flexibility on their first attempt. So if they want a 
learning
exercise it might be an interesting task, but if they want to actually
achieve a result they should use glob.

Software reuse is a big issue in the industry just now and a lot
of effort is being spent in getting software engineers out of the
"not invented here" mentality and into the reuse mentality. So
encouraging beginners to get into the habit of "scavenge and
adapt" is actually in line with current industry thinking.

Just as an alternative view... :-)

-- 
Alan Gauld
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/