What I've Learned So Far (Python in 30 Days) | Hacker News Reader

What I've Learned So Far (Python in 30 Days)

rodriguezcommaj.com

We're alike in many ways, J. I am a self-taught web-designer who, in his 10 years, learned HTML, CSS, Photoshop, Illustrator, and SOME Javascript on his own. I'm no pro by any means, but I've built some pretty neat looking things without being able to create dynamic experiences/sites.

8 months ago, I couldn't write a single snippet of Python. I had a simple site I wanted to build just for experimental purposes, and kept asking my friends for help, until I realized that it just wasn't going to happen.

I initially started with Ruby with the intent of learning Rails shortly after. However, I had read enough posts on HN to have me switch to Python with LPTHW by Zed A. Shaw. I got all the way up to the exercises for building your own game, and, frankly, I just quit. I felt I was ready to dive into Django. Boy was I wrong. There were a lot of things that I didn't understand and I had done the simple exercise on the Django Project site three times!

Anyway, I kept at it. I continued to Google topics I didn't understand. I went through two Django books and numerous YouTube and videos slowly gripping some of the ideas before I found my saving grace written by, none other than, one of the creators himself. After that, I was able to push out a nice looking site in two days with a lot of help from Twitter Bootstrap.

I just want to say that learning by doing is the way to go. It took me far more than 30 days to learn everything that I know, but this is because I had to learn these along the way, too: command line, working with Linux, using a more powerful editor (Vim - can't go back to notepad), version control with Git, and then deploying, which can be a beast of its own.

Keep at it!

"found my holy grail Django books"

Curious - what are these?

I'm curious what problems you ran into with Python on Windows. I develop with Python on both a Windows desktop and a Macbook. I found moving between the two platforms pretty easy with the exception of certain database python packages like psycopg2.

The command line and a file editor is all you really need. If you want to keep your file editor consistent, you can work off vim on both. Granted, I prefer Visual Studios if I'm on a Windows machine.

I am sure that a lot of it is specific to me and what I am used to, so many other people probably have a good experience working with Python on Windows. The main thing is that I am just not comfortable using Powershell and the directory structure on Windows. While I am still somewhat new to using the command line on a unix environment, I feel that a lot of commands are almost muscle memory, so I was quickly frustrated when things didn't work correctly using Powershell.

I know there are a ton of arguments for Visual Studio, and I actually use it at work on a daily basis (I am a front-end designer and am usually split 50/50 between VS and Photoshop/Illustrator), but I honestly just don't like it. It always feels too bloated and the stuff I do code, I usually do by hand anyways so I don't rely on intellisense or any code-completion. I do use Sublime Text cross-platform as well - but like I said in my article, I prefer using vim on a linux box via ssh from my iPad. It is familiar and portable, which is what I want at this point.

For me, I found it a pain to get easy_install and pip working, which made installing packages frustrating. After figuring that out, though, it's fine, with a command prompt and Notepad++.

I went through the LPTHW program a few months back and it was definitely the best system or book I found on the subject. To be honest, I need to go back through now and do it again, using your advice to do each lesson twice.

My first go through, I kind of rushed through parts because I had an idea I wanted to try out and just wanted to learn enough to get it done (which I did :D)but I think I cheated myself out on some essential Python knowledge.

Yeah, I am definitely glad that I am sticking to some sort of system when doing the exercises, but I admit to not doing every extra credit and glancing over some parts. I could see myself going back through a lot of exercises a year from now as a refresher.

I am hoping that going through it will lay a good foundation for programming, though. With any luck, I will find myself in a position of knowing a fair amount about programming and being able to build up that knowledge by tackling harder material and tutorials while building programs that I am interested in.

Thanks for reading and commenting, by the way. I appreciate any feedback and it's a great motivator when doing an experiment like this.

Sublime Text 2 + Cygwin on Windows works just fine.

Did you build that Wordpress theme on Starkers? I love it!

I did, and thank you. Just heard that Keir Whitaker and Elliot Jay Stocks released an updated version - http://viewportindustries.com/products/starkers/

Mine is pretty damned basic, very stripped down. I've had other incarnations of personal sites before under a variety of domain names, with some pretty complex themes, but in the end I wanted something very simple, relatively light weight, and dead easy to maintain. My goal is to be able to focus on writing and posting content over maintaining or styling a theme.

Plus, with a simple style like that, it allows the content to style the page when I post images, not have the page overwhelm any content.

Thanks again!

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