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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

#41

Post by desigooner »

anthonyb wrote: post #33
inovica wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? :)

Web Scraping .

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

#42

Post by inovica »

anthonyb wrote: post #33
inovica wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? :)

Thanks. Thats enough for most people (including myself) to have confidence in the author and to make a purchase decision.

In terms of suggestion I too think web scraping, however it might be worth taking the most simple one so that its easy to run on from the intro.

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

#43

Post by joag »

rguzman wrote: 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

Sadly to say I don't leave in the US, so I have to learn by my self and with tips and ideas from others. I think programming is a mindset you born with and I think I have it, but discovered it late.

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

#44

Post by pavel_lishin »

joag wrote: post #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 a…

I tried installing lamson, fwiw. After two days of googling and having some friends who know what they're doing, python-wise (jdunck's former coworker, actually) we FINALLY got it up and running. Barely.

So yeah. My experience says, stay away from lamson as a learning tool.

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

#45

Post by joag »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #44
joag wrote: post #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 a…

I tried installing lamson, fwiw. After two days of googling and having some friends who know what they're doing, python-wise (jdunck's former coworker, actually) we FINALLY got it up and running. Barely. So yeah. My experience says, stay away from lamson as a learning tool.

Not bad at all, indeed I want to learn and help the project, the issue installing is just that you need lockfile-0.8 and right not the egg lockfile is 0.9.

Zed gave a hand here thought in the error you get while trying to start the server it says it has to be with that file.

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

#46

Post by pavel_lishin »

joag wrote: post #45
pavel_lishin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried installing lamson, fwiw. After two days of googling and having some friends who know what they're doing, python-wise (jdunck's former coworker, actually) we FINALLY got it up and running. Barely. So yeah. My experience says, stay away from lamson as a learning tool.

Not bad at all, indeed I want to learn and help the project, the issue installing is just that you need lockfile-0.8 and right not the egg lockfile is 0.9. Zed gave a hand here thought in the error you get while trying to start the server it says it has to be with that file.

Really? I didn't get a helpful error about that. It literally came down to trying various versions of lockfile, in the middle of heavy drinking and cursing the creator of lockfile, who released a minor version upgrade that broke all previous functionality.

If I'm dumb, tell me, but without basically expert help, it would have taken me like a week to figure it out, instead of two days.

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

#47

Post by joag »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #46
joag wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not bad at all, indeed I want to learn and help the project, the issue installing is just that you need lockfile-0.8 and right not the egg lockfile is 0.9. Zed gave a hand here thought in the error you get while trying to start the server it says it has to be with that file.

Really? I didn't get a helpful error about that. It literally came down to trying various versions of lockfile, in the middle of heavy drinking and cursing the creator of lockfile, who released a minor version upgrade that broke all previous functionality. If I'm dumb, tell me, but without basically expert help, it would have taken me like a week to figure it out, instead of two days.

I don't think you are dumb, indeed I wouldn't be able to find the right file either, as I said Zed help me on this.

Anyway try with 0.9 and start the server you'll see that lockfile was the issue, but I wouldn't know what version to install.

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

#48

Post by pavel_lishin »

joag wrote: post #47
pavel_lishin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I didn't get a helpful error about that. It literally came down to trying various versions of lockfile, in the middle of heavy drinking and cursing the creator of lockfile, who released a minor version upgrade that broke all previous functionality. If I'm dumb, tell me, but without basically expert help, it would have taken me like a week to figure it out, instead of two days.

I don't think you are dumb, indeed I wouldn't be able to find the right file either, as I said Zed help me on this. Anyway try with 0.9 and start the server you'll see that lockfile was the issue, but I wouldn't know what version to install.

Oh, I see. Yeah, I realized that was the issue, but I didn't know which version I needed, either, or if it was something I was doing wrong.

I assume Zed doesn't maintain this actively anymore? The fact that it doesn't work out-of-the-box suggests so, at least.

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

#49

Post by mkramlich »

anthonyb wrote: post #17

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 was almost the co-author of that book. :)

Hi Anthony, awesome to see it coming out! Great job! I'll check it out.

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