Re: [Boston.pm] The second P
On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 08:12:45PM -0500, Federico Lucifredi wrote: I have a need to properly learn a certain other P language, and I do not mean PHP either. For Perl, my favorite concise summary is the first chapter of Damian's OO Perl book. What about the other, unnamed, language? Guido has written up a short language on the book, but what else has proven popular with people who already knew Perl to expand their range of dynamic languages - without reading hundred of pages? I started with perl by hacking on other peoples' code. If you already know another C-family language (and syntax-wise both perl and python are C-ish) then you should be able to do useful stuff on small projects straight away, and then move up over time to larger projects and then to writing your own stuff from scratch. -- David Cantrell | Reality Engineer, Ministry of Information More people are driven insane through religious hysteria than by drinking alcohol.-- W C Fields ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] The second P
On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 01:12, Federico Lucifredi flucifr...@acm.org wrote: Okay guys, I haven't gotten a definite answer on this when I asked a couple of years back, so I'l ask again - flog me as you may :) I have a need to properly learn a certain other P language, and I do not mean PHP either. For Perl, my favorite concise summary is the first chapter of Damian's OO Perl book. What about the other, unnamed, language? Guido has written up a short language on the book, but what else has proven popular with people who already knew Perl to expand their range of dynamic languages - without reading hundred of pages? I started with http://www.diveintopython.net/ which was a quick read and got me useful pretty quickly. The only other python book I've liked has been Dave Beazley's Essential Reference Python. The first part of the text is the bit that's interesting here; it's a tutorial style, high speed (but comprehensive) whiz through the language: http://www.amazon.com/Python-Essential-Reference-Developers-Library/dp/0672329786 For a complete beginner programmer http://learnpythonthehardway.org/ I've heard good things about (on the off-chance your liberal arts cousin's interested :)) Paul ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] The second P
Hi Frederico: When I was learning Python, I was still lucky enough to have an online technical bookstore a la Quantumbooks.com (in fact, later owned by Quantum) in the physical neighborhood, and was on good terms with the owners and warehouse folks. End result was, I often got their blemished books--a page turned down, slightly skritched bindings, etc., of stuff they got shipped to them and couldn't resell--most publishers would just say to give them away or use them for doorstops, since they weren't interested in paying return shipping for them. Give them away is where I came in. :) I got boxes of books--some on subject matter that I'd either never really care about or rather have the time or environment to (Delphi, anyone?) or things that I was motivated into actually learning about that I otherwise wouldn't (PL/SQL comes to mind). Now, the answer to your question. Through this distro, I ended up with *The Quick Python Book* by Vern Ceder back when it was first released. About 6 months after I got the book, I had to put together a software deployment and distribution platform that I decided to write in Python. As for the book, the first edition was a bit limited in its version compatibility (it was stuck at Py 2.3 iirc). I'm looking at the second edition in Safari, which actually covers Python 3, which you may not care about for immediate requirements (Py 3 is kind of like Perl 6 in being utterly next-gen, but is a much less integration-daunting than Perl 6, as in it may show up in intermediate usage in the mainstream in the foreseeable future :). Anyways, the QPB was quite good at working me forward at a quick enough pace to assume I had a brain (or a background in Perl, which is sometimes equivalent to having a brain). There are others which might be as good, but it's what I had, and it worked for me, so I don't think it will steer you wrong. In particular, however, don't assume that just because it's 1000 pp., that Mark Lutz's *Programming Python* (O'Reilly) is a good book for this sort of thing. I don't know what it's good for--it describes mostly a lot of very useful-to-essential modules and modular frameworks, but those are better and more practically documented elsewhere (usually in the context of application use cases where you're actually going to use the damned things), and PP is perenially out of date. Hope this helps! Regards, Wayne From: Federico Lucifredi flucifr...@acm.org To: L-boston-pm PM boston-pm@mail.pm.org, Date: 01/26/2012 08:16 PM Subject:[Boston.pm] The second P Sent by:boston-pm-bounces+wtackabury=us.ibm@mail.pm.org Okay guys, I haven't gotten a definite answer on this when I asked a couple of years back, so I'l ask again - flog me as you may :) I have a need to properly learn a certain other P language, and I do not mean PHP either. For Perl, my favorite concise summary is the first chapter of Damian's OO Perl book. What about the other, unnamed, language? Guido has written up a short language on the book, but what else has proven popular with people who already knew Perl to expand their range of dynamic languages - without reading hundred of pages? Thanks -Federico PS: I promise to flog myself if you guys actually come up with a good suggestion! _ -- 'Problem' is a bleak word for challenge - Richard Fish (Federico L. Lucifredi) - flucifredi at acm.org - GnuPG 0x4A73884C ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
[Boston.pm] The second P
Okay guys, I haven't gotten a definite answer on this when I asked a couple of years back, so I'l ask again - flog me as you may :) I have a need to properly learn a certain other P language, and I do not mean PHP either. For Perl, my favorite concise summary is the first chapter of Damian's OO Perl book. What about the other, unnamed, language? Guido has written up a short language on the book, but what else has proven popular with people who already knew Perl to expand their range of dynamic languages - without reading hundred of pages? Thanks -Federico PS: I promise to flog myself if you guys actually come up with a good suggestion! _ -- 'Problem' is a bleak word for challenge - Richard Fish (Federico L. Lucifredi) - flucifredi at acm.org - GnuPG 0x4A73884C ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] The second P
I have found the hard way (of going through the documentation) to be quite effective. First, I read the tutorial, then skimmed the language reference, then I jumped into the library reference with the occasional return to the language reference when I needed to convince myself that python's syntax did not allow for whatever construct I had my heart set on. It's a bit slow initially but the language is simple enough that the pace picks up pretty quickly. Regards -Gyepi On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 08:12:45PM -0500, Federico Lucifredi wrote: Okay guys, I haven't gotten a definite answer on this when I asked a couple of years back, so I'l ask again - flog me as you may :) I have a need to properly learn a certain other P language, and I do not mean PHP either. For Perl, my favorite concise summary is the first chapter of Damian's OO Perl book. What about the other, unnamed, language? Guido has written up a short language on the book, but what else has proven popular with people who already knew Perl to expand their range of dynamic languages - without reading hundred of pages? Thanks -Federico PS: I promise to flog myself if you guys actually come up with a good suggestion! _ -- 'Problem' is a bleak word for challenge - Richard Fish (Federico L. Lucifredi) - flucifredi at acm.org - GnuPG 0x4A73884C ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
