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Zed Shaw is Writing A Book Teaching Beginner Python

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Re: Zed Shaw is Writing A Book Teaching Beginner Python

#31

Post by kmak »

nhebb wrote: post #11
[deleted] wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

So far, the exercises do look like their targeted to the total beginner, but my money is that most programmers learn Python as their nth language, where n > 2. I say "so far" in hopes that he eventually gets enough exercises in the book that the material included now is just a small part of the finished work. Doh! VB index alert: The exercises are 0-based and the steps are 1-based. ;-)

A few weeks ago, I finally gave in and tried to learn Python. It is surprisingly easier to learn. From a guy with mostly C and Perl experience, it takes good parts from both. I was writing code in only a few days. It's also easier with StackOverflow and Google, of course!

Re: Zed Shaw is Writing A Book Teaching Beginner Python

#32

Post by iamdave »

This is the way absolutely every book that aims to teach people a language should be written. When Ruby on Rails hit it big, I picked up two books and couldn't get past the first two chapters.

Why?

The first two chapters were filler chapters. The history of ruby, the history of taking application languages and putting them on the web. An entire quarter of the book in pages was full of back-story, it was chapter 4 before I even saw any code, and chapter 6 before the actual instruction even began.

I will certainly buy this book, and if Zed produces any more about other programming languages in this format, I'm buying them too.

Re: Zed Shaw is Writing A Book Teaching Beginner Python

#33

Post by nlawalker »

dirkstoop wrote: post #21
ern wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I decided to learn Python recently, and I ran into "Dive Into Python" as a recommended resource (I think I Googled "Python book"), and it almost did put me off the language. It's not really the author's fault, it is the fault of those who recommend it.

I remember trying to read it way back when. It came recommended as 'the book' to read about Python. Besides the ODBC stuff etc. that Zed comments on (never dived into the book that deeply) its biggest problem is that the writing style is extremely, annoyingly, time-wastingly redundant. I remember it explaining the same stuff over and over, worded slightly differently, easily spanning a dozen pages for every simple th…

I'm in the same boat. I really tried to make use of it to learn Python, but it just spends a lot of time going into detail that an interested reader should be able to infer by doing exercises.

I'm actually a big fan of that kind of writing, and I tend to write in that way myself, but it doesn't work for "intro" or "tutorial" books. Jon Skeet's "C# In Depth" is a good example of a book that spends time making sure you really understand a concept six ways from Sunday, but that's the advertised point of the book. When it comes to learning something like a new language, I think Mr. Shaw's on to something, but to be honest I'd rather see sets of exercises like this become a wikified, edited-for-quality community project. The examples in the sample PDF are geared at beginners, but there's no reason that a larger set of simple examples and drills couldn't be created by topic (here's how to do stuff with databases; here's how to ping a server; here's how to talk to a web service) for more experienced users that grok the language and are more interested in learning the libraries.

Anyways, the thing I like about this idea the most is that it puts you in front of a machine with programming tools and has you make progress by doing things, not by reading prose.

Re: Zed Shaw is Writing A Book Teaching Beginner Python

#34

Post by cdr »

paulitex wrote: post #12
nhebb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far, the exercises do look like their targeted to the total beginner, but my money is that most programmers learn Python as their nth language, where n > 2. I say "so far" in hopes that he eventually gets enough exercises in the book that the material included now is just a small part of the finished work. Doh! VB index alert: The exercises are 0-based and the steps are 1-based. ;-)

"but my money is that most programmers learn Python as their nth language, where n > 2." Off the top of my head, I know at least 3 Universities (near me in Canada: UBC, SFU, UofC) that have recently switched to Python as the first language taught/used in their CS programs. There is a real demand for intro Python books. And IMHO Python is a pretty good first language.

Python really does seem to be a strong contender for the post-Java university language. IIRC they were looking into it at my alma mater.

Re: Zed Shaw is Writing A Book Teaching Beginner Python

#35

Post by cdr »

d0m wrote: post #29

From my experience, the coolest thing to do when beginning is to work with a GUI because you really have the feeling to do something great (contrary to print hello in a terminal which is more than useless (from a novice point of view, of course)). So, my suggestion is to put a small bundle library with a main.py to modify and learn. For instance, that library could only show a simple dialog which you can draw and fun…

Python For Software Design (nee Think Python) does exactly that with its "TurtleWorld" library, and I think it's a pretty great book.

Re: Zed Shaw is Writing A Book Teaching Beginner Python

#36

Post by nfnaaron »

nhebb wrote: post #11
[deleted] wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

So far, the exercises do look like their targeted to the total beginner, but my money is that most programmers learn Python as their nth language, where n > 2. I say "so far" in hopes that he eventually gets enough exercises in the book that the material included now is just a small part of the finished work. Doh! VB index alert: The exercises are 0-based and the steps are 1-based. ;-)

Anecdote of one, my 12 yo son is learning Python as his first programming language. I just helped him through one of his math homework questions in Python; found a homework error. :)

Re: Zed Shaw is Writing A Book Teaching Beginner Python

#37

Post by simonista »

It would be really interesting to sit someone down who is fairly comfortable surfing the web, answering emails, using iphoto or microsoft word, but who has never had any experience programming before, and see where they trip up and where they are bored in working through this.

I know a few people I might be able to talk into it. If I do, I'll report back.

Re: Zed Shaw is Writing A Book Teaching Beginner Python

#38

Post by what »

d0m wrote: post #29

From my experience, the coolest thing to do when beginning is to work with a GUI because you really have the feeling to do something great (contrary to print hello in a terminal which is more than useless (from a novice point of view, of course)). So, my suggestion is to put a small bundle library with a main.py to modify and learn. For instance, that library could only show a simple dialog which you can draw and fun…

re: doing something less "useless"

Interesting idea. Each lesson you could learn something and apply it to incrementally build an "interesting" program. In the end you have learned the language and have actually created something.

Re: Zed Shaw is Writing A Book Teaching Beginner Python

#40

Post by DannoHung »

iamdave wrote: post #32

This is the way absolutely every book that aims to teach people a language should be written. When Ruby on Rails hit it big, I picked up two books and couldn't get past the first two chapters. Why? The first two chapters were filler chapters. The history of ruby, the history of taking application languages and putting them on the web. An entire quarter of the book in pages was full of back-story, it was chapter 4 bef…

Okay, but why were you trying to learn Ruby from a book about a web programming framework for Ruby?

Did you try reading the PickAxe or Why's Poignant Guide?

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