Sub jec t : Prog ramming : Where to s ta r t ?

So , I want to ac tua l l y " l ea rn" a programming l anguage , ra the r than con t inue
hack ing th ings toge the r f rom ex i s t i ng code . Prob lem i s , I can ' t dec ide which
one , or how to go about i t . I t r i ed l ea rn ing to code back be fo re Mac OS X by
buy ing a book on l ea rn ing to prog ram i n C f o r the Mac . I d idn ' t get th rough
the book then , but I 'm wi l l i ng to g ive it anothe r sho t now.
Some of the l anguages I ' ve cons ide red are :
Ob jec t i ve - C
C++
PHP
Py thon
I rea l i ze some o f these l anguages are pre t ty d i f f e ren t . I ' l l s ta r t wi th why I
cons ide red the above l anguages .
Ob jec t i ve - C, C++
My p la t fo rms o f cho i ce are Mac OS X and L inux . I need someth ing tha t i s
eas i l y t rans fe rab le f rom one p la t fo rm to the othe r . I 'd l i ke the ab i l i t y
mak ing graph i ca l app l i ca t i ons f o r both . Cod ing f o r Windows i s not a pr i o r i t y
for me, but be ing ab le to do more is never bad , of course .

I 'm l ook ing at Ob jec t i ve - C because i t ' s App le ' s pre fe r red l anguage f o r Mac
OS X and XCode seems des igned f o r i t , though I unders tand i t a l so works
we l l wi th some othe r l anguages . The n i ce ly i n teg ra ted , f ree ly ava i l ab le ,
Ob jec t i ve - C ready App le too l s are a n i ce p lus f o r the l anguage , howeve r .

But , I 'm not su re how por tab le or t rans fe rab le th i s wou ld be to L inux . That ' s
why I ' ve a l so cons ide red C++. Of course , the d i f f e rences between the two
l anguages I unders tand are minor , as they both sha re the bas i c C l anguage
se t . I 'm not su re about the d i f f i cu l ty here . Some peop le seem to f i nd the
l anguage d i f f i cu l t .

PHP
PHP seems a s imp le r l anguage to l ea rn , and I f i nd i t ' s se rve r /web emphas i s
very use fu l . I ' ve o f ten hacked PHP sc r ip t s qu i te e f fo r t l e ss l y to do what
need , even though I do not "know" PHP. To me, th i s h igh l i gh ts the power o f
s imp l i c i t y tha t PHP o f fe r s . I wou ld de f in i te l y l i ke to be ab le to wr i te so
s imp le web apps us ing PHP.
But aga in , I am a l so very i n te res ted i n wr i t i ng desk top apps f o r Mac OS X
and L inux . I n f ac t , I wou ld l ove to be ab le to make c l i en t / se rve r apps , one o
a se rve r ( f o r examp le a photo ga l l e ry sc r i p t ) and one on the desk top to
i n te rac t wi th the f o rmer (pos t ing a photo ga l l e ry to a web s i te us ing the
desk top app c l i en t ) .

The th ing is, I 'm not su re of the prac t i ca l l im i t s to PHP f o r desk to

app l i ca t i ons . Wou ld i t be a d i f f i cu l t or over l y comp lex task to c rea te
graph i ca l app f o r Mac OS X or L inux us ing PHP , or wou ld th i s be as s imp le or
s imp le r than do ing i t i n C or some othe r "ma ins t ream" desk top l anguage? A l l
I ' ve heard o f i n rega rds to desk top GUI apps and PHP i s PHP- GTK , but tha t
appears to be a re l a t i ve l y new endeavo r .

Py thon
I unders tand th i s l anguage a l so has l e ss comp lex syn tax f o r a beg inner to
p i ck up , and tha t i t i s used on the desk top , but I don ' t know a who le l o t
about it.

Other Languages
I know a l l the rage i s about Ruby on Ra i l s now as f a r as web programming ,
but I f i nd tha t the l anguage i s too new, and I pre fe r someth ing more
es tab l i shed , wi th more too l s and suppor t ava i l ab le . There might be othe r
good cand ida te l anguages I ' ve missed , though .

Uses
I 'd l i ke to be ab le to wr i te a desk top to web photo ga l l e ry , as per my
prev ious examp le , f o r i n s tance . I ' d a l so l i ke to be ab le to wr i te someth ing
ak in to a word processo r , or a f i le browse r .

I ' d a l so l i ke to be ab le to make s imp le game-l i ke env i ronments wi th game-

l i ke e lements , though I 'm not rea l l y a iming to make games pe r - se , but
ra the r to i n teg ra te game-l i ke graph i ca l e lements for othe r uses ( fo r
examp le , game-l i ke 2 - D or 3 - D cha rac te r s f o r an engag ing cha t c l i en t ) . I 'm
not su re o f the d i f f i cu l ty requ i red here , though . I suppose a l anguage tha t
cou ld do 90% o f what I want i dea l l y , but wou ld be much l e ss comp lex than
the l anguage tha t cou ld do 100%, wou ld be my pre fe r red cho i ce .

Conc lus ion

So the re you have i t . I need someth ing I can use on Mac OS X, L inux and
ac ross the I n te rne t to make graph i ca l ( and occas iona l l y command l i ne , but I
f i gu re i f it can do the f o rmer , i t can do the l a t te r , ) apps . , i s hope fu l l y
i n c red ib l y d i f f i cu l t to l ea rn , and has f ree , qua l i t y deve lopment
env i ronments / comp i l e r s I can use . I can ' t exac t l y spend $300 on one j u s t to
t ry out a l anguage . A good i n t ro book to gu ide me wi th the l anguage wou ld
be grea t a l so . P lease en l i gh ten me wi th your f eedback !
Power Mac 6100 , Power Mac 8600 , PowerBook 1400 , eMac , i Book dua l USB,
Mac min i Core Duo , MacBook 2 .2Ghz ( x2 )
Th i s pos t was ed i ted 2 t imes , l as t on 2007 - 10 - 15 , 13
Gamoe.
:23 by
Edit reason: typo
madra (Administrator) 2007-10-08, 22:32 #2
User title: chairman of the bored
since Feb 2006 · 2318 posts · Location: the intarweb
Group memberships: benevolent dictator, co-owner, hardcore appletalker,
scrapbook monkey
Show profile · Link to this post
you seem to be in the position i was in a couple of years back. although
primarily an artist and therefore into the graphical and design side of things,
i'm also a lifelong inveterate tinkerer - someone who way back to my
childhood would always be taking things apart to see how they worked. so
i've always wanted to know what was going on behind the scenes with
websites, games and the like.

by no stretch of the imagination would i describe myself as a professional

programmer but, through a lot of pulling things apart and reading the odd
tutorial here or hint there i've managed to elevate myself to the stage where
i'd class myself as a semi-competent hobbyist and actually now earn a fair
whack of my freelance income from programming these days [mostly for
flash].

with the above as a disclaimer - here's a few random thoughts:

even be fo re you s ta r t . . .
if you ' re go ing to do prog ramming , you need to have an unders tand ing o f
maths . i d innae mean you need to be ab le to so lve quadra t i c equat i ons i n
your head [ o r even know what they are]! but you need to have bas i c
h igh - schoo l numeracy ; precedence , square roo ts , squar ing , negat i ve
numbers and yer bas i cs l i ke mul t i p l i ca t i on and d iv i s ilon
oadsetco. f
s i tua t i ons wi l l come up where you 've got a prob lem to so lve which i s easy to
exp ress i n eng l i sh [ eg today
" is a sunday?" ] but you ' l l need to be ab le to
suss out how exac t l yyou wou ld work th i s out - which usua l l y i nvo lves some
k ind o f mathemat i ca l shenan igans .
i n tandem wi th the above - you need to have a l og i ca you
l mind
need
. to be
ab le to take a prob lem and break i t down i n to the sma l l es t poss ib le l og i ca l
s teps and then prob lem so lve each o f those i nd i v idua ltos teps
re fe.r back
to the above theo re t i ca l ques t i on " i s today a sunday" you might come up
wi th someth ing l i ke :
--- f i nd the f i rst day of the year tha t is a sunday
- - - wr i te a l oop which adds every seventh day a f te r tha t to a l i s t o f sundays
--- f i nd out what day of the year [ ie . 1 - 365] today is
- - - which i nvo lves . . .
------ f i nd al l the months be fo re the cu r ren t month
------ add al l the i r days toge the r
------ add cu r ren t date
- - - l oop th rough l i s t o f sundays c rea ted ear l i e r and compare each one wi th
the number for our cu r ren t date
- - - i f the re ' s a match , today ' s a sunday - i f not , i t ' s not

OK - tha t ' s a s i l l y i ne f f i c i en t examp le , but i t re f l ec t s the k ind o f mindse t

have to be ab le to get i n to when work ing on a programming pro jec t .

so assuming you pass those two tes t s , we come onto your ques t i on o f wh ich
l anguage to go f o raga
. in th i s i s j u s t my persona l tuppence wor th based on
be ing in the same boat as yourse l f a f ew years back :

C - the grandaddy o f them a l l and the one a l l the exper t s te l l you to l ea rn

f i r s t be fo re you l ea rn anyth ing i e lase
lways
. got a b i t p i ssed o f f wi th
i t tha t .
was l i ke ask ing someone "what ' s the bes t way to go about l ea rn ing
span i sh?" and them say ing"we l l , you shou ld l ea rn l a t i n f i r s t ! " . i ' ve had a
f ew dabb les wi th C over the years and not f ound the go ing too
the hard .
syn tax seems f a i r l y c lean to me, but qu i te f rank ly spend ing a l oad o f t ime i n
the te rm ina l cod ing s tu f f which on ly outpu ts othe r s tu f f to the te rm ina l as
we l l is a bit of a yawn .

PHP - l i ke yourse l f , th i s i s how i s ta r ted ; pu l l i ng othe r peop le ' s PHP sc r i

apar t and t ry ing ten ta t i ve ly to see i f i cou ld bu i ld my own s tu f f . persona l l y
f ound PHP qu i te easy to p ick the
up . way the l anguage f l ows seems f a i r l y
l og i ca l [ you can see the s im i l a r i t i e s back
to C]
i n. the day when i was
hack ing away at PHP you had to bu i ld most th ings by nowadays
hand .
[p robab ly as a resu l t o f d i rec t compet i t i on f rom ruby on ra i l s ] the re are
coup le o f PHP f rameworks ava i l ab le , which wi l l bu i l d the ske le ton o f a web
app f o r you and l e t you concen t ra te on tweak ing and cus tomis ing , ra the r
than t r y ing to get the f ecke r to work i n the f i ri s' ve
t pnot
lace l. ooked too
deep ly at any o f these f rameworks but you might want to check
cake out

as regards creating desktop apps using PHP - again i've no experience in

this, but you might want to check out platypus, which claims to be able to
produce desktop app GUIs wrapped around scripts in a variety of
programming languages [perl, python, PHP, ruby, expect, TCL, appleccript]

javascript - starting to come into its own now, with the advent of ajax.
javascript also has a similar syntax to C and PHP, although i've always found
it a bit less forgiving of errors and harder to debug than PHP. its use outside
the web environment is a bit limited, although i've come across the odd bit
of javascript in other things like flash movies and some desktop apps which
do web stuff.

actionscript - you may not have thought of this one, or not see it as relevant
but dinnae dismiss it out of hand. over the years flash has gone way
beyond being a means to add boring annoying banner ads and pointless
animation to websites and can be used to build some traditional app-like
creations. actionscript has also changed beyond recognition and the syntax
is now pretty similar to PHP and javascript [and by extension C]. again, with
ac t i onsc r ip t you can [ th rough f l a sh ] bu i ld someth ing qu ick l y and then work
on add ing sc r ip t i ng to i t and tweak ing i t , ra the r than spend ing a l l your t im
get t i ng someth ing to run i n the f i r s t probab
p lace . ly a good p lace to s ta r t i f
you ' re th ink ing about t ry ing your hand at bu i l d ing a game o f some so r t .

as rega rds c rea t ing desk top apps , f l a sh has bu i l t i n secur i t y which preven ts
i t f rom wr i t i ng f i l e s to your compute r , but you can ove rcome these i n var i ous
ways , so i n theory i t wou ld be poss ib le to produce a proper desk top app i n
f l a sh /ac t i onsc r ip t .

l i ngo - f l a sh ' s s tab lemate d i rec to r has none o f the l im i ta t i ons o f f l a sh an

can be used ' ou t o f the box ' to c rea te desk top however
apps . i f i nd i t s
prog ramming l anguage l i ngo rea l l y con fus ing to workf owi
r th
some
. reason
i seem to get a long bet te r wi th programming l anguages wh ich f o l l ow the C
t ype convent i on of us ing bracke ts and cu r l y braces to group th ings
toge the r . a l l the l anguages which c la im to use an ' eng l i sh - l i ke ' syn tax and
are thus supposed to be eas ie r to l ea rn seem more t roub lesome f o r me.
but , as wi th al l these th ings YMMV.

app lesc r ip t - anothe r o f the cho i ces un ive rsa l l y recommended f o r beg inners
and [ as wi th l i ngo above ] tou ted f o r i t s ' eng l i sh - l i ke ' syn tax . as wi th l i ng
jus t cannae get my head round i t at i a ldon
l . 't know what i t is about
app lesc r ip t , but any t ime i ' ve t r i ed to use i t , i t ' s l i ke sw imming i n t rea
t ry ing to get the f eck in ' oh - so - s imp le ' syn tax to ac tua l l y comp i le wi thou t
er ro r s . on the p lus s ide , wi th app lesc r ip t s tud io , you can make f u l l y
f unc t i ona l OSX desk top apps us ing app lesc r ip t , so i f tha t k ind o f syn tax su i t s
you , i t might be wor th a l ook . o f course the amin drawback wi th app lesc r ip t
l i e s i n i t s comp le te l ack o f use fu lness outs ide o f OSX, so i f c ross - p la t fo
compat ib i l i t y is h igh on your l ist of pr io r i t i e s , i t 's a non - s ta r

ruby on ra i l s - you 've a l ready k inda ru led th i s onej uout

s t thought
but i i 'd
ment ion i t anyway , i f on ly to vent a bi i'm
t cu r ren t l y wres t l i ng wi th
l ea rn ing RoR and am f i nd ing i t tough goruby
ing . i s anothe r of those
l anguages wh ich i am cons tan t l y read ing i s ' eng l i sh - l i ke ' and easy to l ea rn
but wh ich , aga in i f i nd to be a comp le te n igh tmare to get
add rto
i ghtha
t. t
the f ac t tha t the documenta t i on f o r RoR i s abysma l [ l ook up a prob lem
you ' re hav ing wi th RoR and you ' l l f i nd a dozen con f l i c t i ng and o f ten
i n comprehens ib le so lu t i ons ! ] and i d innae b lame you f o r g iv ing i t a wide
ber th . i 'm go ing to keep s lugg ing on wi th i t , as i ' ve i nves ted a f a i r b i t
cash i n a coup le o f he f ty tex tbooks and i want to see i f the re ' s anyth ing
beh ind a l l the hype , but qu i te f rank ly , if i knew i t was go ing to be th
d i f f i cu l t and f rus t ra t i ng back when i f i r s t heard o f RoR , i ' d not have bothe re

ob jec t i veC - th i s i s anothe r one i ' ve f a i l ed mise rab ly to get to

i gr ips wi th
dunno i f the s i tua t i on ' s changed now but , back i n the ear l y days o f OSX i
made an abor t i ve at tempt to l ea rn ob jec t i veC and f ound [ as wi th ra i l s ] tha t
the documenta t i on i n ex i s tence was no he lp at
peop
a l le
l . e i the r seemed to
want me to copy down verba t im b locks o f code they prov ided as examp les ,
wi thou t exp la in ing what each par t o f the code d id , or how the syn tax worked
- or e l se assumed tha t i was some k ind o f advanced prog rammer who was
sw i t ch ing to ob jec t i veC f rom anothe r l anguage and wou ld p i ck i t up i n a
week or two .

ac tua l l y th i s seems to be an a l l - too - common prob lem i ' ve f ound when t ry ing
to l ea rn any o f the prog ramming l anguages i ' ve t r i ed over the
theyears
re .
seems to be a mounta in o f documenta t i on and tu to r i a l s at the " th i s i s a
number and th i s i s a mul t ip l i ca t i on s ign . . . " l eve l and a s im i l a r heap at th
advanced l eve l , but very l i t t l e good use fu l i n fo f o r someone who ' s k ind o f OK
wi th hack ing about , but wants to l ea rn how to do it proper l y.

and l as t but not l eas t [ and one you d idnae ment ion ] . . .

j ava - i ' ve never ac tua l l y t r i ed l ea rn ing j ava [ ye t ! - i 'm su re i t ' s on ly a m

o f t ime ] but i f you ' re rea l l y keen on hav ing a c ross p la t fo rm se t o f sk i l l
and be ing ab le to bu i l d c ross - p la t fo rm apps , then th i s might be a good bet .
you can o f course a l so bu i ld nat i ve OSX apps us ing j ava ione
n xcode
th ing
.
tha t ' s put me o f f l ea rn ing j ava t i l now i s tha t a lmos t wi thou t excep t i on
every j ava app i ' ve t r i ed on OSX has been ug ly as f eck and runthe
l i ke sh i t .
s i tua t i on *shou ld* be chang ing as OSX matu res and compute rs get f as te r ,
but somehow you can a lways s t i l l spo t a j ava app a mithe
le re
o f' sf . j u s t
a lways someth ing ' no t qu i te r i gh t ' about them.
tha t sa id , one o f my
f avour i te appsj b- i dwatcheris coded in java [its usefulness kind of excuses
its java-ness ] and going back to your original idea of doing some kind of
web gallery app, there are a couple of those already, which are written in
java [probably the best known of which is jalbum].

one other point in favour of java - there seem to be a lot of jobs about for
java programmers.
well, there's my 'brain dump' - decisions... decisions... eh?
madra at work | madra at play
This post was edited on 2007-10-08, 22:40 by madra.

i5m 2007-10-12, 07:28 #3

since Feb 2006 · 726 posts · Location: Super Up North, UK
Group memberships: co-owner, hardcore appletalker, scrapbook monkey
Show profile · Link to this post
I don't think it matters what you start to learn with. Learning any language
helps. Just pick and start and move on.

I think I started with BASIC. Then PASCAL. A bit of Fortran. Some Visual
Basic. Applescript. All much the same in a way.

I personally like Ruby because it's cooler than Python, but there are really
rather similar. Some interesting reading on the ruby vs python thing. With
ruby you can almost guess the commands.

Whatever you learn from one language will be useful for another language.
And you'll always have to program in different languages anyway depending
on what you are working with / aiming to do. There is no right answer
Sometimes up, sometimes down -->

Gamoe 2007-10-15, 18:40 #4

User title: Mac user since 1994
since Feb 2006 · 1337 posts · Location: Mars Colony I
Group memberships: co-owner, hardcore appletalker, scrapbook monkey
Show profile · Link to this post
In reply to post #2
I 'm go ing wi th Py thon .
Quote by madra :
you seem to be i n the pos i t i on i was i n a coup le o f years
a l though
back .
pr imar i l y an ar t i s t and the re fo re i n to the graph i ca l and des ign s ide o f th ing
i 'm a l so a l i f e l ong i nve te ra te t i nke re r - someone who way back to my
ch i l dhood wou ld a lways be tak ing th ings apar t to see how they worked . so
i ' ve a lways wanted to know what was go ing on beh ind the scenes wi th
webs i tes , games and the l i ke .

by no s t re tch o f the imag ina t i on wou ld i desc r ibe myse l f as a pro fess iona l
prog rammer but , th rough a l o t o f pu l l i ng th ings apar t and read ing the odd
tu to r i a l here or h in t the re i ' ve managed to e leva te myse l f to the s tage where
i ' d c lass myse l f as a semi - competen t hobby i s t and ac tua l l y now earn a f a i r
whack o f my f ree lance i n come f rom prog ramming these days [mos t l y f o r
f l a sh ] .

wi th the above as a d i sc l a imer - here ' s a f ew random thoughts :

even be fo re you s ta r t . . .
if you ' re go ing to do prog ramming , you need to have an unders tand ing o f
maths . i d innae mean you need to be ab le to so lve quadra t i c equat i ons i n
your head [ o r even know what they are]! but you need to have bas i c
h igh - schoo l numeracy ; precedence , square roo ts , squar ing , negat i ve
numbers and yer bas i cs l i ke mul t i p l i ca t i on and d iv i s ilon
oadsetco. f
s i tua t i ons wi l l come up where you 've got a prob lem to so lve which i s easy to
exp ress i n eng l i sh [ eg today
" is a sunday?" ] but you ' l l need to be ab le to
suss out how exac t l yyou wou ld work th i s out - which usua l l y i nvo lves some
k ind o f mathemat i ca l shenan igans .
i n tandem wi th the above - you need to have a l og i ca you
l mind
need
. to be
ab le to take a prob lem and break i t down i n to the sma l l es t poss ib le l og i ca l
s teps and then prob lem so lve each o f those i nd i v idua ltos teps
re fe.r back
to the above theo re t i ca l ques t i on " i s today a sunday" you might come up
wi th someth ing l i ke :
I am not par t i cu la r l y mathemat i ca l l y i nc l i ned , and i n f ac t , I l oa the Math
c lass . But I ' ve f ound tha t the c lass room s i tua t i on i s qu i te d i f f e ren t f ro
s i t t i ng i n f ron t o f your compute r . I usua l l y have some i dea o f how to so lve a
prob lem mathemat i ca l l y , so I can usua l l y j u s t l ook up the i n fo or f o rmu la I
need . I n f ac t , I have grea t respec t f o r mathemat i cs , and I ' ve f ound some
mathemat i ca l top i cs i n te res t i ng . I t ' s j u s t the prac t i ce and repe t i t i on needed
to re ta in the necessa ry deta i l s to use i t tha t I rea l l y d i s l i ke . I don ' t
l og i ca l th ink ing is an i s sue for me.

So , I don ' t th ink I shou ld l e t th i s preven t me f rom go ing i n to programming .

I t ' s a lmos t as i f I know too much about prog ramming not to know how to
proper l y prog ram. I ' d say my main i n te res t i s probab ly use r i n te r face des ign ,
so I 'm hop ing to be ab le to make i t at l eas t ' t i l l the GUI s tu f f gets i n
p i c tu re ( read a loud tha t l as t par t cou ld be bad ly mis in te rp re ted , huh? ) .

BTW madra , thanks f o r the deta i l ed pos t .

Quote by madra :
--- f i nd the f i rst day of the year tha t is a sunday
- - - wr i te a l oop which adds every seventh day a f te r tha t to a l i s t o f sundays
--- f i nd out what day of the year [ ie . 1 - 365] today is
- - - which i nvo lves . . .
------ f i nd al l the months be fo re the cu r ren t month
------ add al l the i r days toge the r
------ add cu r ren t date
- - - l oop th rough l i s t o f sundays c rea ted ear l i e r and compare each one wi th
the number for our cu r ren t date
- - - i f the re ' s a match , today ' s a sunday - i f not , i t ' s not

Or I cou ld j u s t pu l l i t f rom the date s t r i ng i n the sys tem c lock .

Quote by madra :
one th ing tha t ' s put me o f f l ea rn ing j ava t i l now i s tha t a lmos t wi thou t
excep t i on , every j ava app i ' ve t r i ed on OSX has been ug ly as f eck and run
l i ke sh i tthe
. s i tua t i on *shou ld* be chang ing as OSX matu res and compute rs
get f as te r , but somehow you can a lways s t i l l spo t a j ava app a mi le o f f .
the re ' s j u s t a lways someth ing ' no t qu i te r i gh t ' about them.

Agree wi th you the re 100%. That ' s why I d idn ' t even ment ion J ava .
Quote by i 5m:
I don ' t th ink i t mat te rs what you s ta r t to l ea rn wi th . Lea rn ing any l anguage
he lps . J u s t p i ck and s ta r t and move on .

I can apprec ia te the i dea beh ind tha t ; I can be qu i te i ndec i s i ve somet imes . . .
th ink . But , se r i ous l y , I do cons ide r th i s an impor tan t dec i s i on !
Quote by i 5m:
I persona l l y l i ke Ruby becausecooler
i t ' s than Python, but there are really
rather similar. Some interesting reading on the ruby vs python thing. With
ruby you can almost guess the commands.

Ruby definitely seems like the up-and-coming language. But, Python is not
anywhere near dead, is faster and seems a bit more mature than Ruby at
this point. Besides that, and perhaps most importantly, I already know a
project I'd like to take a look at written in Python-- the Sugar GUI. Python
even has the original Benevolent Dictator.

BTW i5m, that book you linked me to.... I read through some of the
examples and explanations, and it looks like a good starting book, but the
author went way overboard with the jokes, cartoons and off-topic material
throughout. And I think he's a little nutty, too.
madra (Administrator) 2007-10-15, 19:30 #5 User title: chairman of the
bored
since Feb 2006 · 2318 posts · Location: the intarweb
Group memberships: benevolent dictator, co-owner, hardcore appletalker,
scrapbook monkey
Show profile · Link to this post
Quote by Gamoe:
...BTW i5m, that book you linked me to.... I read through some of the
examples and explanations, and it looks like a good starting book, but the
author went way overboard with the jokes, cartoons and off-topic material
throughout. And I think he's a little nutty, too...
i think i can safely assume without checking the link, that the book is the
legendary 'why's poignant guide...'

i quite enjoyed it myself. although he does have a tendency to waffle a bit,

it's certainly more entertaining a read than most programming manuals out
there.
 i 5m 2007 - 10 - 16 , 04 :32
#6 since Feb 2006 · 726 posts · Location: Super Up
North, UK
Group memberships: co-owner, hardcore appletalker, scrapbook monkey
Show profile · Link to this post
In reply to post #4
python is a good choice. What are you going to program first?
Sometimes up, sometimes down -->
Gamoe 2007-10-16, 12:41 #7 User title: Mac user since 1994
since Feb 2006 · 1337 posts · Location: Mars Colony I
Group memberships: co-owner, hardcore appletalker, scrapbook monkey
Show profile · Link to this post
Quote by i5m:
python is a good choice. What are you going to program first?

I have an idea for an educational numerical base converter for a small

project. But, for starters I'm going to try to follow some kind of tutorial.

I already downloaded and printed the Python Tutorial from the main site,
written by Python's creator. I might also check out the newest version of
Learning Python, just released this month (coincidence or part of the cosmic
plan??). I think I'm going to do most learning on my Linux box, seeing as
Ubuntu has the latest up-to-date Python version, where Apple is a little bit
behind. Still, Leopard should bring the latest version, and it looks like
switching between Linux and Mac OS X for Python programming should be a
breeze thanks to the UNIX-y underpinnings both share.

Also, a user on a another forum gave me this most interesting link, and it
looks like Apple is continuing to improve its support for Python and other
popular languages:
Quote by Apple:
Scripting Bridge.

Mac OS X is now the ideal platform for all kinds of script-based

development. Ruby 1.8.6 and Python 2.5 are both first-class languages for
Mac development, thanks to Cocoa bridges, Xcode and Interface Builder
support, DTrace monitoring, and Framework builds — plus AppleEvent
b ind ings v ia the new Scr ip t i ng Br idge . Leopard i s a l so the premie r p la t fo rm
f o r Ruby on Ra i l s deve lopment , thanks to Ra i l s , Mongre l , and Cap i s t rano
bund l i ng .

That shou ld be good news f o r those Ruby use rs out the re , too . . .
ht tp : / /www.app le ta l ke r . com/ fo rum/ index .php? req=th read& id=1018