What do you think of ShowMeDo

[Astley Le Jasper]

Hi,

I've just stumbled over this (http://showmedo.com/) and being the very
visual person I am, it seems like it could be a good way to learn
about python. However, before I smack down $60, I wondered if anyone
had any opinions on it. My gut feel is that it could be pretty good.

ALJ

 

[tuxagb]

Hi,

I've just stumbled over this (http://showmedo.com/) and being the very
visual person I am, it seems like it could be a good way to learn
about python. However, before I smack down $60, I wondered if anyone
had any opinions on it. My gut feel is that it could be pretty good.

ALJ

It can be useful, but there are many free howtos and tutorial ... and
the programming
can't be learned with video, but with books!

Hi.

 

[Mike Driscoll]

It can be useful, but there are many free howtos and tutorial ... and
the programming
can't be learned with video, but with books!

Hi.

Actually, I think working through examples or finding a small project
is more helpful than books or videos. The videos are nice though.
Check out the online book, Dive Into Python, if you haven't already.
Then try to make something, like a program to keep track of your CDs
or books or something. I think the learning process of creating some
application was probably the most valuable tool I ever had.

Mike

 

[Terry Reedy]

I've just stumbled over this (http://showmedo.com/) and being the very
visual person I am, it seems like it could be a good way to learn
about python. However, before I smack down $60, I wondered if anyone
had any opinions on it. My gut feel is that it could be pretty good.

Having looked at a few videos, I would consider signing up if I were
still learning Python, or if my daughter wanted to really learn it and
liked the videos. Her class textbooks usually cost more.

 

[kyran]

Hiya,
I stumbled across this thread while typing a speculative 'showmedo' in
google, as you do while taking a break on a (very) late Tuesday
evening. To declare my interest, as things stand I am Showmedo CEO,
CTO, boywhomakesthetea etc.. I'm not going to plug anything specific
and normally let these things go but it's comp.lang.python and a
misconception is a misconception. Besides which, every now and then an
attitude really grates.

99% of the videos on showmedo are available free-and-gratis. They're
made by members of the open-source community who receive nothing more
than a bit of kudos and an all too rare thank-you. We pay for the
hosting and provide the set-up. I think as a site we've really added
something of value to the Python community, so, as I wrote, this last
post really grates.

We cover the use of Flash in the faq (http://showmedo/faq) and put our
hands up to it. Pragmatism wins out over purity on this one - it's
hard enough being a newbie without having to go through the
disheartening rigmarole of obscure codec installations and the
inevitable breakdowns. I keep my eyes open but time is very, very
finite and there are, I feel, more pressing issues. Fact is, Flash is
the standard for 'convenient' web-video, nothing else comes close. And
ultimately the idea is for the videos to be seen.

As for the author immediately above, I think he fails his own test of
prudence. There are rather blindingly obvious download links below
each video. We require users to login for this extra service, mainly
because this encourages non-anonymous comments, which authors tell us
counts for a lot. Open-ID wasn't really an option when everything was
being built a few years ago but may be a good call now. Time
constraints are the reason behind much that is lacking.

All that being said, I do feel the need to make that point that we
have generated 350 odd completely free video-tutorials for the Python
community, including some truly inspirational demonstrations, if the
feedback is anything to go by. The site has been refined over time and
is at least striving constantly to improve. But some people will
always focus only on the negatives. They are few and far between but
occasionally, during those long, dark teatimes of the soul, it does
make one wonder why one bothers. You provide them with free videos,
make no claim upon them and all they do is moan that the format is
wrong or their time too precious to waste on a non-mandatory signing-
up, though not so precious they can't take time out of their day to
whinge about it in a group posting. I think it's the kind of attitude
that kills the spirit of FOSS stone-dead.

anyway, apologies for my counter-winge and good luck to the parent
poster for the Python adventures ahead. I think you can get a lot from
Showmedo without spending a dime. I'll restrict myself to one
inspirational video set, a personal favourite. Maybe not quite
beginner material but it shows the power of Python to a tee:

The creation of Eric Thompson's 3D molecule viewer:
http://showmedo.com/videotutorials/series?name=vXJsRwlBX

enjoy,
kyran (co-founder Showmedo)

 

[Banibrata Dutta]

Personally, I faced some despair with a large number of the free
ShowMeDo tutorials, example the one on WxPython, where for the first 4
free tutorials, the tutor hardly progresses to any bit of programming,
and what is demonstrated was too basic, too slow - to hold my
attention.

As a concept, I like it, and given the names and topics covered, I am
hopeful the paid content is better. Last when I visited the site, they
had a trial period running with reduced pricing, and some reasonable
refund policy. If the refund policy is still in place, you might like
to check out the premium content for it's quality and relevance. Would
appreciate if you could share back your feedback.

BTW, there is some good content from Google developer community, over
at YouTube... i.e. video + ppt interleaved, quite professionally done.
You might like to check them out.

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

I stumbled across this thread while typing a speculative 'showmedo' in
google, as you do while taking a break on a (very) late Tuesday evening.
To declare my interest, as things stand I am Showmedo CEO, CTO,
boywhomakesthetea etc.. I'm not going to plug anything specific and
normally let these things go but it's comp.lang.python and a
misconception is a misconception. Besides which, every now and then an
attitude really grates.

Yeah, it really sucks when you spend time and effort to build something,
and then discover that it isn't what people want.

Or at least some people.


[...]

As for the author immediately above, I think he fails his own test of
prudence. There are rather blindingly obvious download links below each
video.

Perhaps you should forget your preconceptions and take a long, hard look
at the site with the eyes of a first time visitor.


As a first time visitor, this is what I see:

* A bunch of "stuff" all over the front page. My eye is drawn to a bunch
of thumbnails on the right hand side, which look somewhat vaguely what
I'd see on YouTube. So I click on a thumbnail, expecting to see a video,
but instead I get taken to a page with no video or download link. I think
this is what you call a "series", but at first the page just looks broken
to me -- where's the video?


* Since I'm unusually interested in your site, and have nothing better to
do, I click on the series heading, and go to another page. This one does
have a download link, and a broken "click here to play" icon. Oh well,
I'm used to video sites being broken on everything but IE, or requiring
Javascript, or both. So I click on the download link, and learn that you
require a login. Do I care enough about your content to create Yet
Another Damn Login Identity? No.

(And yet I care enough to spend 20 minutes explaining you how you could
improve your site. Fancy that. That's because if you improve your site,
it could be useful to me, but if I create a login account, I've got the
burden of dealing with yet another login account.)


* Since I'm feeling especially enthusiastic, I go back to the home page,
and click a link under the "Popular Paths" heading in the "Blog roll".
(You seem to be using the term blog roll to mean something completely
different to the way it is used in virtually every blogging site I've
ever seen.) This takes me to an even more complicated page showing a
"Path", filled with things that look like clickable buttons but aren't,
and thumbnails that at first glance look identical. If I spend a couple
of minutes inspecting them closely and mousing over them, I see that the
*left* hand side of the thumbnail is the author and the *right* hand side
is something else.

(No doubt some clever PHP programmer thought he was being clever to come
up with that UI abomination.)


* I see *one* thumbnail that has a "Click to play" icon next to it. None
of the others appear to be videos. There is no download link. I give up,
and decide that your website's UI is too large a barrier for me to bother
with it any further.

All that being said, I do feel the need to make that point that we have
generated 350 odd completely free video-tutorials for the Python
community, including some truly inspirational demonstrations, if the
feedback is anything to go by. The site has been refined over time and
is at least striving constantly to improve. But some people will always
focus only on the negatives. They are few and far between but
occasionally, during those long, dark teatimes of the soul, it does make
one wonder why one bothers. You provide them with free videos, make no
claim upon them and all they do is moan that the format is wrong or
their time too precious to waste on a non-mandatory signing- up, though
not so precious they can't take time out of their day to whinge about it
in a group posting. I think it's the kind of attitude that kills the
spirit of FOSS stone-dead.

You think that FOSS is under threat because people are willing to give
you feedback that your use of non-FOSS software (Flash) is inconvenient
to them? Oh dear.

For every person who takes the time to write about it, probably one
hundred people equally dislike your site but just walk away and never
come back. You should be dancing for joy that Ben gave you valuable
feedback about his user experience, instead of just walking away. Some
companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to hire UI consultants to make
sure their website is usable by first-time visitors, and that's excluding
development costs. I've just given you twenty minutes of my time writing
up my experiences for free. Is that enough in the spirit of FOSS for you?

 

[Berkin Malkoc]

I do not get why the level of criticism is rising so high in some of
the messages.

I have nothing to say about more "philosophical" aspects of the issue
but would like to comment from a more pragmatic point of view:

I am completely happy with the *structure* of site (*visually* it may
get better, I agree): You choose your topic, go to the relevant page,
select among the video series and start watching at anyone video (ie
any level) you want. I think those of you criticising may be in some
kind of rush hence not being able to get this "structure". Or maybe
visual hints are more important than I think.

And you can do nothing about the content being too "simple". But me
personally I learned something more than None (see eg blender
tutorials). You should read the exlanations put below the videos more
carefully anyway!

I did not get any broken link (and I visited quite a few videos), or
login requirement. Am I talking about another site?

A last, more subjective, comment: I think we must be more constructive
in our criticisms.

Regards.

 

[showmedo]

I stumbled across this thread while typing a speculative 'showmedo' in
google, as you do while taking a break on a (very) late Tuesday evening.
To declare my interest, as things stand I amShowmedoCEO, CTO,
boywhomakesthetea etc.. I'm not going to plug anything specific and
normally let these things go but it's comp.lang.python and a
misconception is a misconception. Besides which, every now and then an
attitude really grates.

Yeah, it really sucks when you spend time and effort to build something,
and then discover that it isn't what people want.

Or at least some people.

[...]

As for the author immediately above, I think he fails his own test of
prudence. There are rather blindingly obvious download links below each
video.

Perhaps you should forget your preconceptions and take a long, hard look
at the site with the eyes of a first time visitor.

As a first time visitor, this is what I see:

* A bunch of "stuff" all over the front page. My eye is drawn to a bunch
of thumbnails on the right hand side, which look somewhat vaguely what
I'd see on YouTube. So I click on a thumbnail, expecting to see a video,
but instead I get taken to a page with no video or download link. I think
this is what you call a "series", but at first the page just looks broken
to me -- where's the video?

* Since I'm unusually interested in your site, and have nothing better to
do, I click on the series heading, and go to another page. This one does
have a download link, and a broken "click here to play" icon. Oh well,
I'm used to video sites being broken on everything but IE, or requiring
Javascript, or both. So I click on the download link, and learn that you
require a login. Do I care enough about your content to create Yet
Another Damn Login Identity? No.

(And yet I care enough to spend 20 minutes explaining you how you could
improve your site. Fancy that. That's because if you improve your site,
it could be useful to me, but if I create a login account, I've got the
burden of dealing with yet another login account.)

* Since I'm feeling especially enthusiastic, I go back to the home page,
and click a link under the "Popular Paths" heading in the "Blog roll".
(You seem to be using the term blog roll to mean something completely
different to the way it is used in virtually every blogging site I've
ever seen.) This takes me to an even more complicated page showing a
"Path", filled with things that look like clickable buttons but aren't,
and thumbnails that at first glance look identical. If I spend a couple
of minutes inspecting them closely and mousing over them, I see that the
*left* hand side of the thumbnail is the author and the *right* hand side
is something else.

(No doubt some clever PHP programmer thought he was being clever to come
up with that UI abomination.)

* I see *one* thumbnail that has a "Click to play" icon next to it. None
of the others appear to be videos. There is no download link. I give up,
and decide that your website's UI is too large a barrier for me to bother
with it any further.

All that being said, I do feel the need to make that point that we have
generated 350 odd completely free video-tutorials for the Python
community, including some truly inspirational demonstrations, if the
feedback is anything to go by. The site has been refined over time and
is at least striving constantly to improve. But some people will always
focus only on the negatives. They are few and far between but
occasionally, during those long, dark teatimes of the soul, it does make
one wonder why one bothers. You provide them with free videos, make no
claim upon them and all they do is moan that the format is wrong or
their time too precious to waste on a non-mandatory signing- up, though
not so precious they can't take time out of their day to whinge about it
in a group posting. I think it's the kind of attitude that kills the
spirit of FOSS stone-dead.

You think that FOSS is under threat because people are willing to give
you feedback that your use of non-FOSS software (Flash) is inconvenient
to them? Oh dear.

For every person who takes the time to write about it, probably one
hundred people equally dislike your site but just walk away and never
come back. You should be dancing for joy that Ben gave you valuable
feedback about his user experience, instead of just walking away. Some
companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to hire UI consultants to make
sure their website is usable by first-time visitors, and that's excluding
development costs. I've just given you twenty minutes of my time writing
up my experiences for free. Is that enough in the spirit of FOSS for you?

Well since you ask, no. Your post is sarcastic, patronizing and full
of such useful, temperate terms as 'UI abomination'. How could it do
anything but generate defensiveness and opposition. You are right
about the value of feedback, but I think the spirit in which yours is
delivered compromises the effort.

To be clear, I joined this thread to address a couple of
misconceptions because I think naive readers might otherwise get the
wrong impression of the site. I do get a lot of feedback so would
rather ask for it thanks. When I start a thread asking for opinions
about Showmedo's UI, look'n'feel etc. feel free to respond. But I do
think the manner in which advice is delivered is important here, so
would request a degree of gentleness. Or you will tend to be ignored.

We do deliver tens of thousands of videos a week and most people find
their way to them quite happily. I'm sorry that you didn't but I think
your inability to navigate to the content is exceptional.

Anyway I will once again apologize for any intemperateness of my own.
But sometimes a kind word can work wonders and really spur ones
flagging energies. We use Python to build Showmedo (no PHP I can
assure you, though I think you meant CSS), are grateful to the
language and the community and rather proud to represent and help it
in some small way.

kyran

 

[kyran]

@Ben - no hard feelings. I do think your post was unfair and would
give people a wrong impression of the site. Plus the lateness of the
day etc.. had soured my mood somewhat. But the point stands, there
were misconceptions I felt the need to address.

@Banibrata - the wxpython set is my responsibility. It is very much
for newbies and there is no such thing as correct pacing for all. The
feedback has been generally very positive. You would also be amazed to
know that some complain that at least as many complain that it is too
fast, as complain that it is too slow.

@Stephen

[ ... ]

You think that FOSS is under threat because people are willing to give
you feedback that your use of non-FOSS software (Flash) is inconvenient
to them? Oh dear.

For every person who takes the time to write about it, probably one
hundred people equally dislike your site but just walk away and never
come back. You should be dancing for joy that Ben gave you valuable
feedback about his user experience, instead of just walking away. Some
companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to hire UI consultants to make
sure their website is usable by first-time visitors, and that's excluding
development costs. I've just given you twenty minutes of my time writing
up my experiences for free. Is that enough in the spirit of FOSS for you?

Well since you ask, no. The post was sarcastic, patronizing and full
of such useful, temperate terms as 'UI abomination'. How could it do
other than cause defensiveness and opposition. I do get a lot of
feedback, so would prefer to ask for it explicitly thanks. When I do
start that thread your input will be welcome. You are right about the
value of such advice, but the manner in which it is delivered is also
crucially important. In that sense your efforts have been wasted.

To reiterate, I responded to this thread because I think Ben's posting
gave an unfair impression of the site and i felt the need to address
some misconceptions. I am sorry you failed to find the videos, but
many tens of thousands are found every week and I really haven't heard
of anyone failing to find their way to the content. In this sense I
think you are exceptional.

Anyway, is best to draw this thread to a close I think. The heat/light
ratio is rising to no good purpose, for which I take of some
responsibility. In conclusion, Showmedo is built with Python (no PHP,
though I think you meant CSS), and remains profoundly grateful to the
language and community. I do feel we have added something of value
ourselves but its inadequacies are very much conceded. I am more
concerned that the Python authors who have contributed some fantastic
stuff to the site get a fair crack of the whip.

Kyran

 

[David Robinow]

To reiterate, I responded to this thread because I think Ben's posting
gave an unfair impression of the site and i felt the need to address
some misconceptions. I am sorry you failed to find the videos, but
many tens of thousands are found every week and I really haven't heard
of anyone failing to find their way to the content. In this sense I
think you are exceptional.

Count me as one who couldn't find his way. I'm not usually very
sympathetic to whining about Gui's that aren't perfect, but this one
is beyond my ability to traverse.
I'd really like to view some of the content. I have no concern about
the licensing; I have no intent to redistribute. Why do you make it so
difficult?
How about an ftp site with a directory of videos? That I could understand.
,,,

 

[AK]

I commend you on your prudence.

The site makes a big deal about helping people with free software. But
their videos are in non-free formats, with Flash being the only option I
could see.

The content appears only to play *in* a browser (I couldn't find any
download links to watch the video offline), making it a pain for anyone
without extremely fast internet.

They require Yet Another Bloody Site-specific Authentication, instead of
allowing login with an existing OpenID as provided by any of the
hundreds of millions of accounts people already have.

Those barriers are enough that I haven't yet *seen* any of their content
to know if it's worth paying for.

I'd like to defend showmedo a bit here.

First, re: UI. If I go to the front page and see something in the
'incoming tutorials' section on the right that interests me, and
click on it, (let's say, python beginners - file i/o), I get to
the page that indeed does not start showing a video right away,
but that makes sense because most topics contain a number of collections
of videos, since you don't know which of these a visitor wants to see,
you have to show him the choices. On this page I immediately see a
'video tutorials' section on the left, where you can either click on
title or the image thumbnail. On the next page I see a thumbnail that
has a 'play' arrow overlayed on it and 'click to play' in bold font.
It's the most noticeable item on the page. If you click on that, it
brings up a video screen that - here I have to agree this is one click
too many - you have to again click to start the video, however, in my
experience, this is very common on sites that embed video players, I'd
say about 60-70% of them will ask you to make that extra click to start
playing. That video player screen has a play arrow overlayed over it and
also common video controls on the bottom, so it's really a no-brainer to
click on the play arrow in the center or on the play arrow on one of the
controls.

All of this took me no more than 4-5 seconds to get to the video. I did
visit the site before but when I was on my first visit, it did not take
any longer than that, either.

So, if using these videos saves me more than 4-5 seconds of learning
time, I'm already ahead.

Secondly, in regard to use of flash videos: if you have a slow
connection you can pause the video and wait for it to buffer fully. I
haven't worked with free alternatives to flash so I can't comment on
that, it's a matter of how mature are the free/open tools to do the same
thing as flash authoring software and how easy it is to install them on
firefox and IE. If they're hard to install on IE, it seems reasonable
to me to use flash, because otherwise you'll seem too elite and
exclusive and push away too many well-meaning people.

Re: site specific auth. You don't need that to watch videos. You need it
for some other things like downloading them--as I mentioned above, you
can prebuffer video if you have a slower connection, so downloading them
is not really crucial. Even if you do want to set up an account, it
should not take longer than a couple of minutes. The way I think about
this is I try to look at the benefit provided by the site and the cost
of using the site: some of these videos are very good and I'm sure that
they saved me many hours of slower book learning, therefore spending 2
minutes on registration would be well worth it (although I did not
register because I had no need for that). They could set up the OpenID
thing but with limited time I think it's more useful to create new
content rather than work on such non-essential niceties (although I
really don't know how much effort it is to add OpenID support...)

All in all, nothing in this world is 100% perfect and this site provides
great content for free (well, most of it), and it's obvious that
creators spent hundreds of hours of their time to make this available to
community and paid content will only probably recoup the hosting fees if
that. So, how about a little kudos where it's due? A bit less nitpicking
and a bit more appreciation?

Just my humble opinion, that's all. (I'm not connected to the site in
any way, I did watch a few dozen videos some time ago).

-ak (rainy)

 

[Terry Reedy]

2009/4/29 David Robinow <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 9:29 AM, <[email protected]

Count me as one who couldn't find his way. I'm not usually very
sympathetic to whining about Gui's that aren't perfect, but this one
is beyond my ability to traverse.
I'd really like to view some of the content. I have no concern about
the licensing; I have no intent to redistribute. Why do you make it so
difficult?
How about an ftp site with a directory of videos? That I could
understand.


Not sure why navigation has been a problem, I was able to follow it. A
bit too many choices to get to the same place in round about ways, but I
was able to navigate it. This thread has piqued my interest, so having
done no real GUI programming in Python, I am going to try out Kyran's
wxPython tutorial.

I recently watched a Crunchy video by following a direct link from the
Crunchy site. Because of this thread, I decided to try starting at the
top == www.showmedo.com . I felt disoriented at first because I kept
clicking on what turned out to be series boxes (on the right) and never
got to a video.

Suggestion: When I entered 'Python' in the search box, I got a page with
rectangular boxes representing paths, series, and videos. But each was
clearly labeled as such and in different colors. Extending the same to
regular pages and not just search would be helpful I think.

Terry Jan Reedy

 

[Astley Le Jasper]

Gosh ... it's all gone quite busy about logging in, gui etc.
Certainly, I would try to make it clearer what is free and what isn't.
But flash ... using that doesn't bother me. Loggin in ... fine ... I
don't care as long as it's quick and there is something I might want.

i just wanted to know if the content was of a suitable quality that's
worth paying $60 for.

You'll never get anywhere without also having a good collection of
books or online references, but there is something really appealing
about watching someone else walk you through. It get you started. It's
another perspective on the same topic.

I do have a suggestion though. Consider micro-payments. If there is
only one video that I might be interested in, then I think I'd be
happy to pay $1 (or whatever) for. Lower risk. Lower barrier to entry.
I think that the site might be loosing out on a lot of users that may
only want one or a few tutorials. And then once you've used it once,
you're more likely to use it again.

Micropayments could also be the basis of rating the videos. It'll
perhaps give an indication of demand, which could guide further
development and publication of videos.

ALJ

 

[Paul Hemans]

I also am new to Python and found the site. The main barrier to me was the
price. Pay as you use with credits might be less of a problem in an
community environment where so much is available. The interface did not lead
me to understand where I could find the free stuff, I also did not realize
how much of it was available. With so much information on the web you tend
to spend a very short amount of time trying to understand what a site is
about. If it is available, I would have a look at your crawl stats and see
how long people are staying on a particular page before leaving the site. I
think Google has introduced some analytics that will allow you to compare
different site layouts and the pattern of traffic.

In regards to the negative comments, I think you are right to defend against
them as they have been recorded in the anals of the web, however I certainly
wouldn't let it discourage you. It is obviously a great resource. So my few
suggestions are (at a penny a pop):
1. Simplify the home page so that newcomers know what they are going to get
for free and what isn't
2. The learning maps are a great idea, unfortunately the first one I looked
at http://showmedo.com/static/images/LPs/networks/10.png I couldn't read.
3. Let people buy credits. Start at roughly 10 - 20 cents per commercial
video, step the rating so that the more you use the service the less you pay
per view.

Don't worry about the Open ID thing too much, most people use the same U/N
and P/W for all their different logins anyway. Might be nice later on
though, when some bright spark decides that people's personal learning plans
should be hosted in the cloud and you want to hook into that. All in all
great site (do I get any credits for saying that?).

 

[Peter Pearson]

Count me as one who couldn't find his way.

[snip]

Me too. Of course, showmedo was just one of several promising
leads, so rather than lingering to figure it out, I just moved
on to the next promising lead.

Many web pages would be greatly improved if their owners simply
watched over the shoulder of a new visitor. Find someone who
resembles your target audience and who is completely unfamiliar
with your site. State a specific goal to be reached by navigating
your site. Watch silently over the subject's shoulder.

 

[Paul Hemans]

I also am new to Python and found the site. The main barrier to me was the
price. Pay as you use with credits might be less of a problem in an
community environment where so much is available. The interface did not lead
me to understand where I could find the free stuff, I also did not realize
how much of it was available. With so much information on the web you tend
to spend a very short amount of time trying to understand what a site is
about. If it is available, I would have a look at your crawl stats and see
how long people are staying on a particular page before leaving the site. I
think Google has introduced some analytics that will allow you to compare
different site layouts and the pattern of traffic.

In regards to the negative comments, I think you are right to defend against
them as they have been recorded in the anals of the web, however I certainly
wouldn't let it discourage you. It is obviously a great resource. So my few
suggestions are (at a penny a pop):
1. Simplify the home page so that newcomers know what they are going to get
for free and what isn't
2. The learning maps are a great idea, unfortunately the first one I looked
at http://showmedo.com/static/images/LPs/networks/10.png I couldn't read.
3. Let people buy credits. Start at roughly 10 - 20 cents per commercial
video, step the rating so that the more you use the service the less you pay
per view.

Don't worry about the Open ID thing too much, most people use the same U/N
and P/W for all their different logins anyway. Might be nice later on
though, when some bright spark decides that people's personal learning plans
should be hosted in the cloud and you want to hook into that. All in all
great site (do I get any credits for saying that?).

 

[Gabriel Genellina]

En Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:33:38 -0300, Jim Carlock escribió:

I'm messing around with a program right at the moment. It
ends up as two applications, one runs as a server and one
as a client which presents a Window. It almost works, so I
need to work through it to work out it's bugs, and I'll be
rewriting it in a couple other languages.

Python looks fairly simple. It's a lot of "import" commands
and then "from" statements to do more importing. So I need
to figure out what the difference is between the two, as
the "from" seems to provide a way to identify what it wants
to import from the library/module.

Start by reading http://docs.python.org/tutorial
In particular, section 6: Modules

I find it odd that no one includes the FQFN and employs a
short name.

fully.qualified.module.name is long to type, error prone, and slow --
Python has to resolve each dotted name at runtime, every time it's used.

So writting this is common:
from fully.qualified.module import name
and then, just use `name` in the code. By looking at the `import` lines,
usually located at the top, you know where a certain name comes from.

....unless there are statements like this:
from somemodule import *
which are considered bad practice anyway.

Nothing seems to get SET in the Environment to
identify where the library gets configured. I have to run
off to find help on the differences between "import" and
"from".

No need for that, usually. There is a default library search path that is
built relative to the interpreter location. That is, if the Python
interpreter used is /usr/some/fancy/directory/python, then the standard
library is at /usr/some/fancy/directory/lib/python2.6, additional packages
are at /usr/some/fancy/directory/lib/python2.6/site-packages, etc.

You *can* alter the search path by setting some environment variables, but
I don't like that.

 

[Peter Pearson]

them as they have been recorded in the anals of the web, however I

..........................................^^^^^

That's the second time in this thread. The first might have been
deliberate gross wordplay, but now it's time for somebody to point
out that maybe this word doesn't mean what you think it means.

 

[norseman]

En Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:33:38 -0300, Jim Carlock escribió:


Start by reading http://docs.python.org/tutorial
In particular, section 6: Modules


fully.qualified.module.name is long to type, error prone, and slow --
Python has to resolve each dotted name at runtime, every time it's used.

So writting this is common:
from fully.qualified.module import name
and then, just use `name` in the code. By looking at the `import` lines,
usually located at the top, you know where a certain name comes from.

...unless there are statements like this:
from somemodule import *
which are considered bad practice anyway.


No need for that, usually. There is a default library search path that
is built relative to the interpreter location. That is, if the Python
interpreter used is /usr/some/fancy/directory/python, then the standard
library is at /usr/some/fancy/directory/lib/python2.6, additional
packages are at /usr/some/fancy/directory/lib/python2.6/site-packages, etc.

You *can* alter the search path by setting some environment variables,
but I don't like that.

------------------------------
I would like to make a small comment here on Python locations.
Windows seems to have to have a slight difference.

....\python\Lib #py libs go here
....\pythonVer\Lib\site-packages #addons usually go here same as Linux
....\pythonVer\libs #seems to hold MicroSoft specific py libs


Like Gabriel - my Linux is same as he describes.
except I don't have a /usr/...ory/python
in my case it's all in /usr/local/lib/python2.5
to keep it all in one place
/usr/local/bin has the soft links to run it
(reduces PATH size. /usr/local/bin already there)

Which shows how flexible Python is.


OH - something you mentioned that didn't seem to be addressed.
import - load a complete library
from - obtain specific 'function'(s) from a library

(from mylib import fopen, fclose or from mylib import f*
one or more gets fopen, fclose, etc

from mylib import fopen as myfopen can be useful myfopen(...)
won't be confused with the system
fopen(...)
which is great for not having to MyVeryLongNameLib.fopen()
)

The cautionary note here is, IF two libs have a function with the same
name and 'from' is used to get it from each, you wind up the last one
requested.
To alleviate the problem you can open(...) or mylib.open(...) and thus
access both (or even more) in the same program. Check the built-ins and
the libs for name problems and use the techniques noted to get what you
want.

Not sure what is in a given library?
import somelib
help(somelib)
(and read)

When it come to showing off, Python has its moments!

HTH

Steve