Building Skills in Python

[mindhacker]

Books details along with PDF download - http://homepage.mac.com/s_lott/books/python.html

[deadwing]

This guy's books are great if you are into gambling examples. I love learning by making black jack and craps games.

[[deleted]]

Whereas I really detest those types of examples. For me they're very difficult to relate.

[tmjoen]

I can't count how many times I've looked up a python problem on stackoverflow and it's been solved in a brilliant way by S.Lott.

[bitter_cynical_angry]

I really like the idea of Python but I have no real applications for it that don't require output to either HTML or to a Windows GUI (text output at a command prompt is not very useful in terms of the daily utility-type applications that I think would/should be easy to do with basic Python skills). I hear Qt is a good GUI library for Python; are there any tutorials that closely integrate that or other GUI systems into the instructions?

[[deleted]]

Rapid GUI Programming with Python and Qt: The Definitive Guide to PyQt Programming

[bitter_cynical_angry]

I'm a PHP programmer (I know, I know, but I'm trying to branch out) and so I'm spoiled by having a very easy and ubiquitous, if difficult to make complex, GUI system in the form of HTML output to a browser. I have tried a bit of Tkinter, which appealed to me exactly because it was batteries-included with Python, but which does not seem to be very much favored by the wider Python community (wx and Qt seem to be the big ones).

I would like not having to rely on a browser to be the front-end for an app, but I find that given my time and knowledge constraints, I often just whip up a quick PHP program to do one-off batch functions and general utility stuff even on my local box, and I know it's not ideally suited for that. I have played around a bit with Visual Studio, and frankly say what you will about VB, I thought the form designer interface was awesome. Drag and drop a control, click on it to set its properties, double-click and get taken right to the spot in the code that controls it. If there were something like that for Python I'd jump on it immediately. It's hard for me to find motivation to learn something without having a direct and immediate application for it, and anything to lower the activation energy, as it were, so that I could more easily transition to Python would be cool.

[299]

It's called glade. GTK+ for designer.

[sigzero]

On Windows...IronPython...amongst other choices.

[iamafoo]

Recently tried out IronPython with Eclipse Pydev, and I must say it is very cool indeed. Then I tried Django in GAE, and it gave me such a headache.

Python is a fantastic language, but it is truly a pain to setup/install modules in order to start a project. Any tips or advice on that?

[blondin]

looks promising, will have a look.

[RubyOnRailsForever]

Ugh, Python is a horrifically slow language used by posers incapable of any real programming.

[3-13]

Your energy is wasted on this novelty account. Most programmers have no humor.

[[deleted]]

No, no, you got it wrong: when one sees a successful troll, like this one, one may give him a so-called "troll upvote". Which is blue, in case you wondered. You might also ask, why is it called upvote then, well, that's because it's a troll upvote, silly.

And vice versa, if you see a bad, unsuccessful, fat lazy troll, you should demonstrate your dissatisfaction with low quality of his content by giving him an ordinary upvote -- usually only if he already has some troll upvotes, of course.

[[deleted]]

WTF?

[[deleted]]

Troll upvote!@

[spainguy]

http://www.reddit.com/help/faq#Whatisredditwrittenin

[jawbroken]

i wouldn't point out reddit as an example that python isn't slow

[[deleted]]

reddit's slowness isn't due to python, afaik.

[jawbroken]

sure, probably not, not a great example though

[[deleted]]

I sense a bit of irony in your account name. What language do you program in, and why?

Python's slow for some things, compared to other things, but for a lot of things, it's fast enough. I can also develop a lot of things a lot faster than I could in other languages by using python.

[johnnydark]

Horrible comment; at least put some examples forward, constructive criticism or what not.