101–110 of 114 posts
The first example print statements in Zed's book have backticks (`foo`). I don't know Python, but I'm guessing those should be single ticks ('foo')?
But backticks are valid python syntax, but relatively unused, these days. The contents of backticks are evaluated, and the result is returned as a string representation.
>>> `1+1`
'2'Earlier quoted context omitted.
I second gedit, just installed it on my Mac, and it doesn't look like complete ass. (It does however use GTK for file open dialogs etc. so that might put other people off?)
Hasn't Apple somehow killed GTK on Snow Leopard? There was something that made gvim stop working, so I had to switch to mvim. Sorry can't remember the details, but gedit might be hurt, too? Or was that just a MacPorts problem?
Mr. Shaw, i am once again impressed. This is not the first time I've seen Zed Shaw rant about something he dislikes and then goes off and attempts to fix it.
"If a programmer tells you to use vim or emacs tell them no. These editors are for when you are a better programmer. All you need right now is an editor that lets you put text into a file." Ha! When I started to program, everyone told me the opposite. After weeks of head scratching and spending more time learning editors than coding, I secretly switched to Pico. But man could I use the hell out of Pico.
I'm actually looking for a simple editor that works on all platforms, doesn't look totally like ass, and is easy to use. I'll then change things up so people just install that. Basically a GUI cross platform pico would be perfect.
FWIW, the concept of getting people programming ASAP in order to learn has been sort of poo-pooed by findings in the ACM: http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/45725-how-we-teach-intro... I'm on the fence. I see the music-style logic to picking things up and working on the practical stuff right away, but, hey, studies are studies.
Funny, you read that as saying, "Zed's wrong." I read it as, I may be right. For example: > no one challenges KSC on the basic premise, that putting introductory students in the position of discovering information for themselves is a bad idea! The article doesn't say, "Don't get programmers studying code right away." It also doesn't say they shouldn't work on problems. It says that the constructivist approach to teac…
I stated: "the concept of getting people programming ASAP in order to learn has been sort of poo-pooed". This is based on the article stating that programming "is a bad way to start" and "expecting students to program as a way of learning programming is an ineffective way to teach."
Funny, you read that as saying, "Zed's wrong."
Why would I have? That would be a meaningless and uninformed judgement. The effectiveness of the techniques is the interesting part. My observation - accurate or not - that the article "poo-poos" a technique is not to say that the technique is "wrong" as linking to an article says little of my opinion, which I stated as being "on the fence."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm actually looking for a simple editor that works on all platforms, doesn't look totally like ass, and is easy to use. I'll then change things up so people just install that. Basically a GUI cross platform pico would be perfect.
There's TextMate on Mac, and e-texteditor for Windows (which is a port of TextMate)... but that leaves Linux high and dry until the developers finish porting it there too. It requires cygwin under Windows too :/. Other than that, there's SciTE, which is quite nice. Notepad++ on Windows is a derivative thereof.
Easy read, I'd use it if I were learning python. Now to the critics: - Change the book title. If I see it on a shelf I wouldn't pick it. "Easy Python", "Python: First Steps", "Become a Pythonista" or something more approachable to the unwashed. - PDF sucks for online reading. Big time. Make it one huge html file, no page breaks, no headers and footers on every page, it sucks. Epub may be a good choice but I rather us…
Make this one option. The other option should be one HTML file per chapter (or subchapter, or thereabouts) for the people who want to use the browser's bookmark functionality to pick up where they left off.
> no headers and footers on every page
Footnotes, OTOH, are fine if you make them links in both directions (to the note and back to the body text). Both HTML and PDF can do this, and it makes it so much less of a pain in the ass to actually read the things when you know you won't get lost.
Search online for all of the Python format characters. - page 16 Awesome! Not your usual textbook exercise.
Textbooks do seem to exist as if the Internet weren't usable, don't they? At most they seem to have a few URLs to the publisher's and author's websites. It's actually kind of sad, as if textbook authors didn't trust themselves to outdo what people can find online. Zed does not seem to have that problem.