some pointers for a newbie

[John Evans]

Hi, I have decided to play around with python, for the simple reason
there appears nothing better to do at 2am on a sunday morning

Anyway I am familiar with languages similar to PHP, javaa script, and
also languages which have similarities on the surface to python such as
Lingo (macromedia Director). so python is looking fairly straight
forward, but what i am noticing is a complete lack of basic starter
knowledge from myself - to be expected one would think

So what i ask is, for someone who wants to dip his toe in the pond and
runs a powerbook with os x what tools, resources should I look into as
being the most useful?

Also is it best to use an IDE like the one which comes from installing
macPython, or is it best to use a basic text editor, or perhaps even
xcode could be recommended (esp if I wanted to build some simple UI
using interface builder?)

Any and all responses greatly received.

cheers

john

 

[Roy Smith]

So what i ask is, for someone who wants to dip his toe in the pond and
runs a powerbook with os x what tools, resources should I look into as
being the most useful?

I'm also running OSX on a PowerBook, so I guess we're kindred spirits.
To a large extent, what tools you want to get depends on what you want
to do with your new reptilian friend.

Are you interested in databases? Then you might want to get mySQL
running on your machine, and explore Python's database API.

Are you interested in web applications? Then you might want to get
Apache installed, and play with mod_python.

If you're interested in GUI programming, there are several Python GUI
packages you can look at. I'm not really into that kind of stuff, so
I'll leave it to others to suggest which ones are the best.

Also is it best to use an IDE like the one which comes from installing
macPython, or is it best to use a basic text editor, or perhaps even
xcode could be recommended (esp if I wanted to build some simple UI
using interface builder?)

Personally, I'm a big fan of emacs for programming, and ignore all the
various IDE's. That's not to say that they're not good or useful or
powerful, just that they're not my cup of tea. If you decide to go the
emacs route, you definitely want to download the python mode support for
emacs (it's on www.python.org somewhere).

Once you get a bit more serious and start to work on large-scale
applications, I would certainly look at the junit module that now comes
standard with Python.

The one major deficiency with the Python that Apple ships with OSX is
that it doesn't come with readline support. Readline is the thing that
lets you interactive input editing and history processing (like bash and
several other shells support on the command line). I can't live without
it, so I rebuilt Python from source (after downloading the GNU readline
package and building that). Getting a Python built with readline
support will really improve your Pythonic experience. I have no clue
why Apple doesn't ship it that way.