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Offer HN: I'll help you learn Python

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Re: Offer HN: I'll help you learn Python

#31
post #30

How about an HN Python Study Group? Join #HNpython on Freenode if you are interested. Link: irc://irc.freenode.net:6667/HNpython

Are there any existing python study groups that python users on HN can help with as well? There aren't really that many advantages to HNers having their own channels when the more users the merrier - better to chat with non-HNers as well.

Re: Offer HN: I'll help you learn Python

#32
I'm trying to learn python and I picked learn python the hard way by Zed Shaw, I don't have a programming background I'm more like a sys-admin combined with a degree in Electrical - Electronic Engineer and the book is really good.

I was able to follow the book very well until I got into chapter 23 "Read Some Code", I thought it was a good idea to learn the lansom code as he created it but as I'm learning python and at the same time learning to program the concepts of packages and API's all combined together just didn't help me, so I started reading code from http://inventwithpython.com/, chapter 9 specifically where the real code start to show up; the code in the book is just one file so you can leave packages and API's until you get more background.

I providing my personal experience because I'm sure that even HN is a site for programmers there is a fair amount of guys here like me just starting in the world of programming and this can help them a bit.

BTW, if some one drops the offer I'll willing to take his place because I really want to learn python + django.

Re: Offer HN: I'll help you learn Python

#33
post #28

Plug: I'm just in the final stages of finishing an introductory Python book, Hello! Python: http://manning.com/briggs/ . It's a bit different, in that I'm using real world projects (Hunt the Wumpus, Django, web scraping, writing games) to demonstrate how to program, rather than just having a laundry list of features and stepping through them one by one. Think of it as Land of Lisp , but in Python rather than CL.

I took a quick look. As its a paid-book I think it would be useful to have at least one of the exercises open for people to see. I appreciate the introduction is available to download, but the real-world projects aren't (and I understand why) but my suggestion would be to open one of them so that we can see what kind of exercises in real life

That's a pretty good suggestion - from what I can see most other similar books have at least one chapter that you can download. I'll see what I can arrange.

Any preferences as to which one? :)

Re: Offer HN: I'll help you learn Python

#34
awesome! I am barely dipping my feet in this area, specifically using Django - so I have a quick question for you. I'm setting up the dev environment on a Windows machine; should I go with BitName Django Stack ( http://bitnami.org/stack/djangostack ) - but it seems to have an older version of Django itself, or fo through all the manual steps ( http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/install/ ) ? Is there, by chance, an easy way for me to use the BitNami stack and then manually update the django version inside of it to get 'best of both worlds' ? Thank you in advance!

Re: Offer HN: I'll help you learn Python

#35

awesome! I am barely dipping my feet in this area, specifically using Django - so I have a quick question for you. I'm setting up the dev environment on a Windows machine; should I go with BitName Django Stack ( http://bitnami.org/stack/djangostack ) - but it seems to have an older version of Django itself, or fo through all the manual steps ( http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/install/ ) ? Is there, by chanc…

According to http://bitnami.org/files/stacks/djangostack/1.2.3-0/changelo... , BitNami includes Django 1.2.3 as of 2010-10-08. That's the latest release of Django.

But even if that version were a little old, it's probably more important to get up and running with something rather than spend lots of time tweaking the environment. I'm a linux user, so I haven't tried BitNami, but it seems like a great way to get started on Windows. Using a virtual machine image (BitNami seems to have these also) under the free VMWare player is also a nice approach, but working in your main windows installation might be a more familiar place to work.

Re: Offer HN: I'll help you learn Python

#36
post #35

awesome! I am barely dipping my feet in this area, specifically using Django - so I have a quick question for you. I'm setting up the dev environment on a Windows machine; should I go with BitName Django Stack ( http://bitnami.org/stack/djangostack ) - but it seems to have an older version of Django itself, or fo through all the manual steps ( http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/install/ ) ? Is there, by chanc…

According to http://bitnami.org/files/stacks/djangostack/1.2.3-0/changelo... , BitNami includes Django 1.2.3 as of 2010-10-08. That's the latest release of Django. But even if that version were a little old, it's probably more important to get up and running with something rather than spend lots of time tweaking the environment. I'm a linux user, so I haven't tried BitNami, but it seems like a great way to get starte…

Thank you! That's been the path I followed so far - good to hear I'm not straying from the reasonable approach!

Re: Offer HN: I'll help you learn Python

#37

Plug: I'm just in the final stages of finishing an introductory Python book, Hello! Python: http://manning.com/briggs/ . It's a bit different, in that I'm using real world projects (Hunt the Wumpus, Django, web scraping, writing games) to demonstrate how to program, rather than just having a laundry list of features and stepping through them one by one. Think of it as Land of Lisp , but in Python rather than CL.

Thanks for this, I've been annoyed that Python doesn't seem to have a book that's fun for beginners.

Re: Offer HN: I'll help you learn Python

#38
post #25

Shameless plug: If you are interested in learning python+django intensively for a week with a few people, I'm co-teaching a class with Dave Beazley in Chicago next month. There is still a few seats left. http://www.dabeaz.com/chicago/index.html

Cool -- if you're new to Python, you may not be familiar with Dave's work. He's awesome. Consistently one of the best presentations at each PyCon.

@rguzman - do you know who runs hnofficehours.com? I found some bugs. :-/

Re: Offer HN: I'll help you learn Python

#39
post #19

My question is: I don't know any Python and would like to start learning it. Should I bypass Python2 altogether and start with Python3 or stick with Python2?

You should definitely learn Python 2. Almost all libraries still are on 2, so if you tried to go straight to 3, you'd have to struggle your way around most newbie documentation on the internet - Especially if you're planning on doing Django work. Anyway, there isn't a whole lot of difference between python 2 and 3, really. The "proper" way of coding in python2 is very similar to python3.

I wish this weren't true. We all need to be pushing towards 3, and I think introducing people to 2 isn't helping the community in general -- but it is the right thing on an individual level.

Re: Offer HN: I'll help you learn Python

#40
post #3

OK, folks, I've had 10 responses to this now. I think that's more than I can effectively help at once, so no more for now, thanks.

For those who missed this offer, you may wish to see this: http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide

And in particular: http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/Help

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