It was recommended to me that the following document provides the standard for style when coding in Python, so I list it here as a reference:
Python Style Guide for main text
Python Style Guide for Docstring Conventions
Resources
All posts tagged Resources
Ok I admit programming is fun!
I got to play with IDLE and creating and defining my own variables, expressions, functions, etc… in Python.
Some of the exercises got us to create some little scripts to convert temperature, calculate the area and perimeter of a triangle but I let my mind run wild and did up little scripts to compute age and distance. I was particularly proud of my mile to kilometre script as I’ve been doing a lot of distance based activities like running and walking, etc… helps in determining speed and calories burned.
Programming already yielding benefits!
I did run into a few terminology and concept issues:
1. Arguments vs Parameters
Which term to use when defining a function or performing a function call
2. Visualizing this memory address and the concept of objects
There is a great visualizer that seems to help with this conceptual issue: Python Visualizer
In preparation for my Python course, Wikibooks has some free resources to help learn the language:
Non-Programmer’s Tutorial for Python 3
I also got an e-mail from the Learn to Program: The Fundamentals course recommending a textbook
Practical Programming (2nd Edition): An Introduction to Computer Science Using Python 3
Now I know I said that I wouldn’t venture down the road of quick help guides like Learn Java in 7 days, but I thought this resource could be useful down the road and so that’s why I’m posting it here.
Seven Languages in Seven Weeks
It’s a free book in pdf format that covers the following languages: Clojure, Haskell, Io, Prolog, Scala, Erlang, and Ruby.
Now an initial glance at the languages really showed my lack of understanding in this area and the need to maybe approach the process in a more structured way.
What did like was the notion of learning a new programming language each year, an idea that seem to stem from a book called The Pragmatic Programmer.
So where does one begin in developing their programming skills.
A quick look at the list of programming languages on the Wikipedia is a daunting exercise for a beginner and unless you have some sense of what you want to do with this skill you are looking to develop and this journey you want to embark on, you are lost in the multitude.
So I did a little research and found some articles that I thought I would share:
7 Programming languages on the rise
10 Programming languages that could shake up IT
Teach yourself programming in ten years
The first two articles list all sorts of programming languages to consider – From languages I’ve never even heard of like Dart, Ceylon, Go, F#, Opa, Fantom, Zimbu, X10, haXe, Chapel; to more familiar and established languages like Python, Ruby, MATLAB, JavaScript, R, Erlang, Cobol, CUDA.
I also had to consider a lot of the job postings I’ve seen internally at the company I work for required skills in SAS, VBA, and SQL.
The last article linked above was more of a emphatic plea to take the time and learn a language and the underlying principals of computer programming. That quick solutions books like Teach Yourself Java in 7 Days or the endless variations on that theme weren’t the right approach.
Although I agreed with the article’s author for a person such as myself starting out on this voyage a little later on in life, one cannot dismiss resources in such a fashion.
There are a indeed a lot of options to consider.
Memecoder 