learn python

OK, I’ve spent enough time hacking around in Python to check off this task. To re-iterate my previous comment, Dive Into Python is a great resource for learning the language.

• There’s a hell of a lot of stuff which other languages consider add-ons baked right into Python. Even better they tend to do The Right Thing in the way you’d expect.
• The language is spendidly non-verbose. The indenting-based structure makes for nice clean code.

• Spending so much time in strongly-typed compiled languages over the years makes it hard to shift into a mode of not knowing whether things will work until you hit that line of code and everything crumbles.
• I haven’t found a really good IDE yet.

I started using the web version of Mark Pilgrim’s Dive Into Python, and was so impressed with it that I plunked down the hard-earned on a dead-tree copy.

It’s a good tome, thus far. It takes a “Show you example code, then go through it chunk by chunk and explain how it works.” approach, which appeals to me greatly.

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while.

Everyone I know that codes in Python raves about it.

Now I have a new job where my manager and predecessor did that Python thang, and I’m gonna ramp meself up.