[Tutor] Recommendation For A Complete Noob

[Bob Williams]

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On 09/02/14 22:37, Altrius wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I’m completely new to programming in general and everything I have
> read so far has pointed me to Python. I’ll put this another way:
> All I know is that a programming language is a medium for a human
> to tell a computer what to do. After that I’m kinda lost. I was
> just hoping to get some input as to where I might start. I’m not
> completely computer illiterate but you can reply to me as if I am.
> What should I work on learning first. I’m good at doing my own
> research and teaching myself but I need to know what I’m
> researching and where to start. Any advice would be VERY much
> appreciated.
> 
> Thanks, Altrius
> 

Hi Altrius,

I'm also a noob. In addition to all the excellent recommendations
already posted, I would suggest setting yourself a task to solve in
python. It's far more interesting than working through the examples in
most books - the challenge is solving each problem as you come across
them. Google is excellent.

The task I set myself is to write a script that interrogates the
rsyncd.log file every day, to tell me if any new music has been added
to my collection by my son. My linux machine is on 24/7.

I have had to work out how to open the file, how to tell if it's been
altered in the last 24 hours, if so how to extract the lines of
interest, and how to slice those lines to get the artist and album
names into a list.

So far, so good but my output contains duplicates, so my final task is
to work out how to get rid of them.

You may find me popping up here again in a few days ;-)

Good luck.

Bob
- -- 
Bob Williams
System:  Linux 3.11.10-7-desktop
Distro:  openSUSE 13.1 (x86_64) with KDE Development Platform: 4.12.2
Uptime:  18:00pm up 1 day 22:01, 5 users, load average: 0.17, 0.17, 0.21
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