[Tutor] Choice of Python
Hi Guys, I am pretty new to python as this is just my 5th day reading through God knows how many books. I am really not new to programming, I come from a Cakephp, zend framework angle cutting through ASP.net,VB and C# at an intermediate level. However, for some reason, I am thinking python but reading through lots of the input on forums like quora , keeps me confuse as to whether to continue, Unlearn my php ways (as that must certainly happen J) and learn python and web development woth python, Jquery etal ? I just need a quick opinion, I know geeks would always favour technologies they are used to in forums but then what do you guys advise ? Is python really worth the pain or should I just skip it ? Thank you so much. Abdulhakim Haliru ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Choice of Python
Python, to me, is much more self consistent. It is a language that was designed with a plan. PHP to me feels like its more cobbled together. Python is easier to read, you get much more done in less code. The build in data structures are intrinsically connected to coding patterns. This may seem silly, but its not to me. Barrier to entry in PHP is fairly low. You need to be interested in math, cs, agorithms to enjoy and exploit python. This to me is a more interesting group of developers. I've been writing software since the late 70s. the dawn of the pc era. Back then, there were very few people who did it. Some CS majors, some EE types (me) some physicists, some poets even. Since then, because of demand, and hype there are all sorts of people with widely varying interests in programming, and I find the people I meet who use python are more similar to those I knew earlier my career. On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 7:38 AM, Abdulhakim Haliru abdulhakim.hal...@leproghrammeen.com wrote: Hi Guys, I am pretty new to python as this is just my 5th day reading through God knows how many books. I am really not new to programming, I come from a Cakephp, zend framework angle cutting through ASP.net,VB and C# at an intermediate level. However, for some reason, I am thinking python but reading through lots of the input on forums like quora , keeps me confuse as to whether to continue, Unlearn my php ways (as that must certainly happen J) and learn python and web development woth python, Jquery etal ? I just need a quick opinion, I know geeks would always favour technologies they are used to in forums but then what do you guys advise ? Is python really worth the pain or should I just skip it ? Thank you so much. *Abdulhakim Haliru* * * ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor -- Joel Goldstick ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Choice of Python
Abdulhakim Haliru, 28.12.2010 13:38: I come from a Cakephp, zend framework angle cutting through ASP.net,VB and C# at an intermediate level. [...] Is python really worth the pain or should I just skip it ? Given that you already invested your time into learning all of the above (which basically cover about 1 1/2 of several main corners of programming), I think you should really take some time off to unlearn some of the bad habits that these particular languages tend to teach you. Python is a truly good way to do that. My advice: don't spend too much time reading books. Pick a task that sounds like fun to implement and give it a try with Python. Some would propose exercises from project Euler for this or maybe pygame, but you'll likely have your own idea about what's fun and what isn't. Stefan ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Choice of Python
From: Abdulhakim Haliru abdulhakim.hal...@leproghrammeen.com Hi Guys, I am pretty new to python as this is just my 5th day reading through God knows how many books. I am really not new to programming, I come from a Cakephp, zend framework angle cutting through ASP.net,VB and C# at an intermediate level. However, for some reason, I am thinking python but reading through lots of the input on forums like quora , keeps me confuse as to whether to continue, Unlearn my php ways (as that must certainly happen J) and learn python and web development woth python, Jquery etal ? I just need a quick opinion, I know geeks would always favour technologies they are used to in forums but then what do you guys advise ? Is python really worth the pain or should I just skip it ? Thank you so much. Abdulhakim Haliru It depends on what you want to do. If you want to create just simple low level apps that use mainly the functions/methods provided by the language distribution without installing other libraries, PHP is the best. But you said something about CakePHP so you might be interested in more complex apps that use a framework, maybe an ORM and other things... In this case, Python is much better than PHP. Its syntax is much different than the syntax of other languages because it is based on indentation like in the old days of Cobol, but the language is much more sane than PHP. Python is a more general language than PHP and it is not specialized for the web so you can do much more things with it than just create web apps. For creating web apps Perl and Ruby are better than Python, but Python offers a much better support for Windows apps and for desktop apps in general than Perl and Ruby. Of course, the comparison is not made only among the features provided by the core language, but it takes into account all the modules, libraries, frameworks, ORMS, form processors, templating systems that can be used. The advantages also depend on your preferences. If you like to have a framework that forces you to use just a single ORM or a single templating system, you might prefer something, and if you like that framework to allow you to use any templating system, any ORM, any form processor you can choose... you may like another framework. For example, I have tested more PHP frameworks and I didn't like their very limited URL dispatching possibilities. Some of them even require to define a separate file with URL maps which is ugly and hard to maintain, there is no a very powerful ORM for PHP yet, some of them use their own templating system which is very limited and other things like these. So yes, if you need to use higher level code, there are better possibilities than those offered by PHP, even they are harder to learn. Octavian ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Choice of Python
On 12/28/2010 4:38 AM Abdulhakim Haliru said... Is python really worth the pain or should I just skip it ? I think exactly the same thing about PHP each time I run into a PHP app that I need to tweak. Mostly I just skip it... For me, there wasn't any pain in learning python. Of course, I started 12 or so years ago after a very painful two weeks with Java. I had the python version running two days later. Regards, Emile ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Choice of Python
On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 7:38 AM, Abdulhakim Haliru abdulhakim.hal...@leproghrammeen.com wrote: Unlearn my php ways (as that must certainly happen J) and learn python and web development woth python, Jquery etal ? ... Is python really worth the pain or should I just skip it ? If you accept that you'll continue to learn new syntaxes throughout your career, then the pain of python isn't notably different than any other language (though I have to constantly reteach myself not to use semicolons :) ). You aren't unlearning so much as meta-learning That covers the pain half of your equation. As for the Python half --- Python is pretty widely used in a variety of ways. It's probably the most common plugin language for outside utilities (not that anything is particularly standard in that landscape). I've noticed that new language development often compares against Python. Scientific fields work more and more with Python. Python won't be your last stop, but it's a valuable one. As to HOW valuable, that depends on a bunch of life details we don't know. If you want one language to focus on and use exclusively for several years, Python may or may not be the best choice depending on your field. If you want a useful tool that will improve your understanding of other tools in addition to being useful in its own right, Python is absolutely a good choice. All that said, I doubt you'll find many Python Nay-sayers on the Python Tutors mailing list :) -- Brett Ritter / SwiftOne swift...@swiftone.org ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Choice of Python
On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 10:05 AM, Brett Ritter swift...@swiftone.orgwrote:
snip (though I have to constantly reteach myself not to
use semicolons :) ). snip
Technically speaking, you *can* use semicolons in Python:
if 3 == int('3'):
print('Cool');
works the same sans semicolon.
-Wayne
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Re: [Tutor] Choice of Python
On 28-Dec-2010, at 10:14 PM, Wayne Werner wrote:
On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 10:05 AM, Brett Ritter swift...@swiftone.org wrote:
snip (though I have to constantly reteach myself not to
use semicolons :) ). snip
Technically speaking, you *can* use semicolons in Python:
if 3 == int('3'):
print('Cool');
works the same sans semicolon.
And so does following...
if 3 == int('3'):
... print 'hello';print 'world'
...
hello
world
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Re: [Tutor] Choice of Python
Am 28.12.2010 14:41, schrieb Stefan Behnel: Abdulhakim Haliru, 28.12.2010 13:38: I come from a Cakephp, zend framework angle cutting through ASP.net,VB and C# at an intermediate level. [...] Is python really worth the pain or should I just skip it ? Given that you already invested your time into learning all of the above (which basically cover about 1 1/2 of several main corners of programming), I think you should really take some time off to unlearn some of the bad habits that these particular languages tend to teach you. Python is a truly good way to do that. My advice: don't spend too much time reading books. Pick a task that sounds like fun to implement and give it a try with Python. Some would propose exercises from project Euler for this or maybe pygame, but you'll likely have your own idea about what's fun and what isn't. +1 for jumping into coding. You seem to have enough experience in programming generally. With Python the fun comes with the experienced productivity. At least, that was the case with me. Learning the syntax is not the deal, but how to design your app. You can use the best of OO, functional and procedural programming. Also, Python is to me the best general purpose language. You can create little helper scripts, web apps and rich client apps with PyQt or WxPython. Stefan ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Choice of Python
I love, love, love me some Python - it fits the way I think better than any other language I've used - but there is one consideration that occurs to me: Python is nearly ubiquitous on Linux/Mac, and easy to download and install on Windows - but most bargain-basement Web hosts don't support it (I'm looking at YOU, GoDaddy.) If you're using a premium hosting company (premium doesn't necessarily mean extremely expensive, but you do need to compare hosting plans), or if you plan on hosting your site yourself, then I would absolutely recommend Python (with or without Django or what-have-you) for Web development... but if you plan on using GoDaddy, stick with PHP. ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Choice of Python
On 12/28/2010 9:46 AM Marc Tompkins said... I love, love, love me some Python - it fits the way I think better than any other language I've used - but there is one consideration that occurs to me: Python is nearly ubiquitous on Linux/Mac, and easy to download and install on Windows - but most bargain-basement Web hosts don't support it (I'm looking at YOU, GoDaddy.) If you're using a premium hosting company (premium doesn't necessarily mean extremely expensive, but you do need to compare hosting plans), or if you plan on hosting your site yourself, then I would absolutely recommend Python (with or without Django or what-have-you) for Web development... but if you plan on using GoDaddy, stick with PHP. http://help.godaddy.com/article/809 would seem to indicate differently... Emile ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Choice of Python
On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 9:56 AM, Emile van Sebille em...@fenx.com wrote: On 12/28/2010 9:46 AM Marc Tompkins said... I love, love, love me some Python - it fits the way I think better than any other language I've used - but there is one consideration that occurs to me: Python is nearly ubiquitous on Linux/Mac, and easy to download and install on Windows - but most bargain-basement Web hosts don't support it (I'm looking at YOU, GoDaddy.) If you're using a premium hosting company (premium doesn't necessarily mean extremely expensive, but you do need to compare hosting plans), or if you plan on hosting your site yourself, then I would absolutely recommend Python (with or without Django or what-have-you) for Web development... but if you plan on using GoDaddy, stick with PHP. http://help.godaddy.com/article/809 would seem to indicate differently... Emile H! That's new since I last looked into it. Color me intrigued... Has anybody tried GoDaddy's Python support? -- www.fsrtechnologies.com ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Choice of Python
Marc/Emile, If you're looking for a good hosting service that supports Python, I strongly recommend webfaction.com. I've worked with a lot of hosting companies and webfaction gets my highest endorsement: Great support, helpful user community, very flexible support for hosting Python applications from vanilla CGI to WSGI to Python web frameworks with long running processes such as Django, CherryPy, web2py, etc, and the latest versions of Python. Most of the hosting companies I've investigated support older versions of Python and only support CGI access. Malcolm ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Choice of Python
On 12/28/2010 10:46 AM, Marc Tompkins wrote: I love, love, love me some Python - it fits the way I think better than any other language I've used - but there is one consideration that occurs to me: Python is nearly ubiquitous on Linux/Mac, and easy to download and install on Windows - but most bargain-basement Web hosts don't support it (I'm looking at YOU, GoDaddy.) If you're using a premium hosting company (premium doesn't necessarily mean extremely expensive, but you do need to compare hosting plans), or if you plan on hosting your site yourself, then I would absolutely recommend Python (with or without Django or what-have-you) for Web development... but if you plan on using GoDaddy, stick with PHP. I have been a software developer since the 70's. I have used most of the major languages. I used FoxPro for the last 20 years and have recently moved to Python. I absolutely love working with Python! Everything works, deployment is easy, and with all of the libraries available; there isn't much you can't do. I now develop on Ubuntu even though my customers (and deployment) are Windows. Check out Webfaction for a hosting company. They are probably the largest Django host, but using their control panel to do things is very easy! I have been using them for over two years. Jeff --- Jeff Johnson j...@dcsoftware.com ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Choice of Python
On 12/28/2010 12:48 PM, Marc Tompkins wrote: On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 10:32 AM, pyt...@bdurham.com mailto:pyt...@bdurham.com wrote: Most of the hosting companies I've investigated support older versions of Python and only support CGI access. Ah yes - that's what it was. To use Django (or most other frameworks) you need some processes to be running more or less constantly, as opposed to in a CGI context. Your typical shared Webhosting service is sharing a single machine or VM with lots of other customers; they can't allow long-running processes or the whole thing would grind to a halt. I have no idea how Webfaction manages it, especially with a starting price of $5.50/month - it's very tempting... For the time being I'm not looking to move any sites over - but if the need arises again, Webfaction will be the first place I check out. Actually, my own website is a few years overdue for a facelift - maybe I'll dump Joomla for Django. Perhaps then I'd actually be interested enough to maintain the damn thing. -- www.fsrtechnologies.com http://www.fsrtechnologies.com Webfaction supports long processes and that is why they are the largest Django hosting site. They support a ton of software, too. SVN, Trac are two I use. I've been with them at least 3 years and I find their cost amazing for what I get! Their documentation, support and forums are about the best I've seen. Jeff --- Jeff Johnson j...@dcsoftware.com ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Choice of Python
On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Jeff Johnson j...@dcsoftware.com wrote: Webfaction supports long processes and that is why they are the largest Django hosting site. They support a ton of software, too. SVN, Trac are two I use. I didn't see git hosting among their software. Is it available without hoop-jumping? -- Brett Ritter / SwiftOne swift...@swiftone.org ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Choice of Python
On 12/28/2010 01:35 PM, Brett Ritter wrote: On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Jeff Johnsonj...@dcsoftware.com wrote: Webfaction supports long processes and that is why they are the largest Django hosting site. They support a ton of software, too. SVN, Trac are two I use. I didn't see git hosting among their software. Is it available without hoop-jumping? I counted 20 what they call applications of which git is one. So, yes it is there. Jeff --- Jeff Johnson j...@dcsoftware.com ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
