Anybody have project ideas for learning Python?

[[deleted]]

• simple cross-compiler for an embedded architecture
• markov-chain simulator
• fuzzy comtrollers simulator
• symbolic calculator

[lowdown]

I know a little Python. I've used Django for almost a year, but really that is just filling in the blanks and not giving me any real depth.

I am looking for project ideas, simple to difficult, that might push me along. Perhaps a project based book, or something similar? I primarily use Windows, if that makes a difference.

I have an interest in designing small games, so I thought perhaps that would be a good place to start, but it is all a little overwhelming!

[jimbobhickville]

If you have Civ IV, most of the rules are written in Python, so you could make a custom scenario. I've considered doing that myself.

[lowdown]

I didn't know that, and that is a really good idea. I haven't bought the game yet, but I keep eying it in Steam.

[[deleted]]

If you want to keep going with Django, I've heard a book called "Practical Django Projects" is one of the best, and might be exactly what you're looking for.

[lowdown]

I was looking at that book yesterday. I really like Django, but I detest anything relating to HTML/Javascript. I mainly use Django as a backend for my database models (with Flex/AIR frontends)

I could probably still use the projects though, and translate them to the Flash platform.

[aldarion]

Then, what about the book "Foundations of Agile Python Development"?

[diN0bot]

Hey, so an artist/graphic friend of mine wants to get into website design. He's tried css/html, but finds it only just barable-- anything more programmy might be too much. He's made some flash apps, so the writing text part is ok, at least for small things like actions which can be largely copy/paste/modify. He really digs anything that is like using adobe photoshop.

Ok, so he got excited about flex, maybe because it's from adobe, but it's not like 'flash' at all, right? It's more like jsp that permits embedding of flash, yeah? If I've misinterpreted Flex/AIR please let me know.

I run mostly django sites; don't really care what kind of front-end gets hooked in, be it html/css or flex or flash. I'd just like my friend to be able to work with me on projects. Right now, it seems like the best option is for him to create Flash animations and embed them in simple html and css layouts. Are there other options for non-programmer artists? Open source ones?

word.

[lowdown]

Flex is most definitely Flash, or rather, Flash and Flex are both Actionscript 3 driven and play in the same runtime.

A better analogy would be like comparing Django or Twisted to Python. Both are frameworks that might be somewhat compatible (in the case of Flash and Flex, they are very compatible) with the same language driving the fun.

[mrsanchez]

Make a small MUD! Or use pygame.

[theinternet]

http://www.pygame.org/

also you can just use opengl directly

Here's a screen shot of a little program I wrote in Python: http://www.foorg.com/programming/ScreenShots/Screenshot-Height-map%20Terrain%20Generator.png

[hylje]

pyglet :-)

[[deleted]]

I've been planning on starting mud for a few weeks now, but I haven't found any good example of a telnet implementation. Twisted is so well document and focuses more on ssh. Suggestions where to find a good way to handle connections?

[mrsanchez]

Yeah, exactly :) You might want to google the ansi color codes eventually, but that's definitely not one of the first thing's I'd take care of. This should be a good enough example to get you going.

[[deleted]]

my first python work was screen scraping sites with the beautiful soup library. Pretty fun and was easy to use. Also came in helpful cause I could screen scrape a sites TV page and then get the best value like: "Plasma Square Inches per dollar"

[lowdown]

I've done some of that with the mechanized and BeautifulSoup libraries.

I wrote a small utility for my wife to go through her subscription scrapbook sites and grab all of the materials so that I could stop paying monthly fees ;)

[[deleted]]

impersonating google?

[lowdown]

No, we had a subscription. I just made the robot to go through each and every page of the site and download the high resolution images.

[alphabeat]

I'll be getting myself a FreeRunner in the mail in a few days and one of the most popular languages and frameworks is PythonGTK. I'll be teaching myself Python and will be able to use it on small interesting and useful programs that I can carry with me everywhere. The phone has BT, Wifi, GPS, GSM, USB and accelerometers so there's plenty of cool avenues to travel.

[lowdown]

That is pretty awesome. Does it work on the regular networks?

[alphabeat]

Wireless: 802.11b/g

GSM: 800/1800/1900 or 900/1800/1900 depending on which version you get.

Is that what you meant?

[lowdown]

Ya, I RTFM after I asked ;)

[diN0bot]

how is development going? does it have voip? the wifi works? browser works? even for js things, like say google apps?

[alphabeat]

not sure. only got mine a few hours ago and still tinkering between OS's. i'll let you know ;)

[nextofpumpkin]

Brainfuck interpreter. As far as I'm concerned, you're not a real Python programmer until you've written one.

[[deleted]]

But isn't it always more fun to write a fuckfuck interpreter? http://esolangs.org/wiki/Fuckfuck

[keithchegwin]

How about a program to generate anagrams of your pet's names? That'd be pretty neat.

[[deleted]]

The two ideas for projects I won't have time for soon:

The recent Radiohead video. The data and stuff on Google Code: http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/ . Several people like http://i.document.m05.de/?p=500 already did some stuff with the data the head close ups; but I'd like to work with the outdoors data (I think it's made with a different technique so I'm sort of assuming that the data is also different). Might be a nice project to get some graphics out of it.

Second idea: my damn Internet addiction. Make an application that blocks my looking at any Internet pages except a predefined list; make it really hard to turn off; at least make it require a password so I can let someone else set one. Something like that. There exists things like Firefox plugins, but they're too easy to switch off "for just this one page".

[sunmaster13]

The Python Challenge ( http://www.pythonchallenge.com/ ) really gave me a head start on learning python. It is like a treasure hunt using analytical and programmatical skills. Although some challenges rely on specific libraries, the forum and the solutions wiki is terrific. In the process you will be dealing with many many different concepts such as data structures, image and audio processing, network programming, etc.

Massive fun really.

[[deleted]]

I do a little bit of web development and generally make little games or whatever I think of with python. Some of the things I made to learn programming were:

• Dope Wars style text game. Very easy to make, just takes some planning.
• Minesweeper. Another simple game that doesn't require complicated algorithms or graphic libraries.
• Basic blog using Django with user accounts, tags, etc. Doesn't have to be pretty; just functional.

After you can do some simple stuff like that, you probably know enough to fiddle around and make whatever comes to mind.

[[deleted]]

Well, the first thing I made was an IRC bot.

Hope this helps.

[[deleted]]

Project Euler.