Re: [Tutor] Hello, and a newbie question
eryksun wrote: On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 7:57 PM, Virgilio Rodriguez Jr virgiliorodrigue...@gmail.com wrote: Can someone please do me the favor and remove me from this god forsaken email list I am sorry I signed up all it has done is taken over my phone and rings all night long with emails I am not interested in any more because it is just too many darn emails. I keep trying to log in and nothing it will not let me unsubscribe and it is BS already. You can get a password reminder here: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/tutor If you're sure that you have the correct password and still can't unsubscribe, then email the administrator, tutor-ow...@python.org. Alan Gauld is active in this thread, BTW, in case you happen to have read the admin page where it says Tutor list run by wescpy at gmail.com, alan.gauld at btinternet.com. Or switch to digest mode which will email once a day with all the messages in it. Be glad you are not subscribed to the main Python mailing list as it is far more active than the tutor list. ;) ~Ramit This email is confidential and subject to important disclaimers and conditions including on offers for the purchase or sale of securities, accuracy and completeness of information, viruses, confidentiality, legal privilege, and legal entity disclaimers, available at http://www.jpmorgan.com/pages/disclosures/email. ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Hello, and a newbie question
On 16/04/13 16:58, Andy McKenzie wrote: 1) Python 2.7 or 3.x? I know I'm going to want to do some work with NLTK (which appears to only have an alpha version out for Python 3), but I've just gone through the hassle of dealing with an upgrade from PHP 4 to 5.3, and I'd rather not start learning something that's already obsolete. Any words of advice? Upgrading from P2 to P3 is not too onerous but there will be some changes to make at some po9nt. However P2 is the one to go for if you want to do anything industrial just now because not all the 3rd party libraries (like NLTK) are fully ported to v3 yet, including some pretty significant ones. OTOH If you are only experimenting/learning then going with P3 will avoid any relearning in the future. 2) Best practices. I have the WROX Press Beginning Python book, Sorry, I've never even seen that one so can't comment... http://docs.python.org? I would assume that that would start putting me in the right habits from the beginning... is that accurate, Yes, for existing programmers new to Python the official tutor is nearly always the best place to start. You can fill in the gaps elsewhere later. And the tutor is pretty short and fast paced, you can just about get through it all in an afternoon - certainly in a day. -- Alan G Author of the Learn to Program web site http://www.alan-g.me.uk/ ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Hello, and a newbie question
On 04/16/2013 11:58 AM, Andy McKenzie wrote: Hey folks. I'm just starting to pick up Python, and I'd like to avoid some of the mistakes I made in the past. To elaborate on that, my primary programming/scripting experience is PHP, with a little bit of Perl thrown in. Like so many people who write in PHP, I was entirely self-taught, and would be the first to admit that a lot of what I've written is, well... wrong. It works, but it's sloppy and inefficient, because there were standard constructions and solutions I just didn't know about. I'd like to avoid that with Python. Welcome to the mailing list. I expect you'll find Python a much cleaner language than the other two, though php has some definite convenience for its particular niche. So: my first two questions to the list. 1) Python 2.7 or 3.x? I know I'm going to want to do some work with NLTK (which appears to only have an alpha version out for Python 3), but I've just gone through the hassle of dealing with an upgrade from PHP 4 to 5.3, and I'd rather not start learning something that's already obsolete. Any words of advice? If you have to use a library that's not available yet for 3.x, then you need to use 2.x on the other hand, if you're learning now, maybe that library will be available by the time you actually need it. For most people, I'd advise against trying to use a tutorial that targets a different version than you're running. If you get frustrated quickly, you can get bogged down by the differences when you're just copying an exact program out of some book. Python 3 in particular has spent some substantial effort cleaning up the warts, the biggest one being Unicode. For beginning programmers using only ASCII, probably the main thing that'll bog you down is that print() is now a function, rather than a statement, so you need parentheses. But once you get used to seeing syntax error, you quickly get the hang of it. And once you do, the function is much nicer. 2) Best practices. I have the WROX Press Beginning Python book, which targets Python 2. Clearly that's of only limited value if I'm going to go with Python 3, but it looks like it's at least going to be a good overview. But some of the stuff they do seems to be fairly personalized, rather than trying to follow standards. Should I just start out with the tutorial from docs.python.org? I would assume that that would start putting me in the right habits from the beginning... is that accurate, or is there a better way to go? Thanks in advance, Andy McKenzie I'd start with the python.org tutorial for the version you're trying to learn. Get serious about trying everything, and don't try to absorb it all in one sitting, even though it can be done. And use a text editor that helps you indent, or even that colorizes your code. And when you just want to try things, use the interpreter directly. It's amazing what you can learn directly from it. You can ask the interpreter lots of questions about an object: help(obj) dir(obj) print( type(obj) ) print( repr(obj) ) And don't forget to post here when you seem to be stuck. Sometimes a well placed comment beats days of struggling. When you do get an exception you don't understand, paste the whole thing, as well as the code you were trying. Best of luck. -- DaveA ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Hello, and a newbie question
On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 4:18 PM, Dave Angel da...@davea.name wrote:
On 04/16/2013 11:58 AM, Andy McKenzie wrote:
Hey folks.
I'm just starting to pick up Python, and I'd like to avoid some of the
mistakes I made in the past. To elaborate on that, my primary
programming/scripting experience is PHP, with a little bit of Perl thrown
in. Like so many people who write in PHP, I was entirely self-taught, and
would be the first to admit that a lot of what I've written is, well...
wrong. It works, but it's sloppy and inefficient, because there were
standard constructions and solutions I just didn't know about. I'd like
to
avoid that with Python.
Welcome to the mailing list. I expect you'll find Python a much cleaner
language than the other two, though php has some definite convenience for
its particular niche.
So: my first two questions to the list.
1) Python 2.7 or 3.x? I know I'm going to want to do some work with NLTK
(which appears to only have an alpha version out for Python 3), but I've
just gone through the hassle of dealing with an upgrade from PHP 4 to 5.3,
and I'd rather not start learning something that's already obsolete. Any
words of advice?
If you have to use a library that's not available yet for 3.x, then you
need to use 2.x on the other hand, if you're learning now, maybe that
library will be available by the time you actually need it.
For most people, I'd advise against trying to use a tutorial that targets
a different version than you're running. If you get frustrated quickly,
you can get bogged down by the differences when you're just copying an
exact program out of some book.
Python 3 in particular has spent some substantial effort cleaning up the
warts, the biggest one being Unicode. For beginning programmers using only
ASCII, probably the main thing that'll bog you down is that print() is now
a function, rather than a statement, so you need parentheses. But once you
get used to seeing syntax error, you quickly get the hang of it. And once
you do, the function is much nicer.
2) Best practices. I have the WROX Press Beginning Python book, which
targets Python 2. Clearly that's of only limited value if I'm going to go
with Python 3, but it looks like it's at least going to be a good
overview.
But some of the stuff they do seems to be fairly personalized, rather
than
trying to follow standards. Should I just start out with the tutorial
from
docs.python.org? I would assume that that would start putting me in the
right habits from the beginning... is that accurate, or is there a better
way to go?
Thanks in advance,
Andy McKenzie
I'd start with the python.org tutorial for the version you're trying to
learn. Get serious about trying everything, and don't try to absorb it all
in one sitting, even though it can be done.
And use a text editor that helps you indent, or even that colorizes your
code. And when you just want to try things, use the interpreter directly.
It's amazing what you can learn directly from it. You can ask the
interpreter lots of questions about an object:
help(obj)
dir(obj)
print( type(obj) )
print( repr(obj) )
And don't forget to post here when you seem to be stuck. Sometimes a well
placed comment beats days of struggling. When you do get an exception you
don't understand, paste the whole thing, as well as the code you were
trying.
Best of luck.
Thanks for the advice, folks. Given that it looks like the biggest changes
are unicode handling (which I'm not going to need any time soon) and the
way the print function works, I decided to stick with 2.7. I'm an IT guy,
though unemployed at the moment, and it occurred to me that I'm familiar
with Python, but not the version your entire established codebase is in
wasn't a great thing to have on a resume.
Since it looks like the new formatting for print -- that is, print(Print
this stuff!) -- works fine in 2.7, I'm just getting myself used to doing
that from the beginning.
I went through the first four or five sections of the tutorial this
afternoon, with a few side trips into things that got me interested, and I
figure I'll do at least one more section after dinner. I did find it
interesting that one of the first things I wanted to know turned out to be
an extremely common question: What's the Python equivalent to print_r()
from PHP? If any of you are familiar with PHP (I know at least a couple
of you seemed to be), you'll know that pprint() (which seems to be the most
common answer) isn't actually very close. Its output isn't nearly as
readable.
For instance: output of running print_r on a very short dictionary from
PHP:
Array
(
[key3] = thing3
[key2] = thing2
[key1] = thing1
)
And running pprint on the same dict in Python:
{'key1': 'thing1', 'key2': 'thing2', 'key3': 'thing3'}
I finally decided that a good project would be building a quick function
that recreates the print_r
Re: [Tutor] Hello, and a newbie question
On 04/16/2013 05:20 PM, Andy McKenzie wrote: SNIP Thanks for the advice, folks. Given that it looks like the biggest changes are unicode handling (which I'm not going to need any time soon) and the way the print function works, I decided to stick with 2.7. I'm an IT guy, though unemployed at the moment, and it occurred to me that I'm familiar with Python, but not the version your entire established codebase is in wasn't a great thing to have on a resume. Since it looks like the new formatting for print -- that is, print(Print this stuff!) -- works fine in 2.7, I'm just getting myself used to doing that from the beginning. The degenerate print, where you're printing exactly one thing, works the same. But if you have two things to print, putting parens around them in Python 2.x will cause a tuple to be printed, rather than printing the two with a space between. print(3,5) -- version 2.x (3, 5) print(3,5) -- version 3.x 3 5 To get 3.x functionality, you'd want to use from __future__ import print_function and I do not think that works in 2.6 or older versions. It also can be awkward even in 2.7 if you're mixing existing code with new print functions. -- DaveA ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Hello, and a newbie question
On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 5:31 PM, Dave Angel da...@davea.name wrote: On 04/16/2013 05:20 PM, Andy McKenzie wrote: SNIP Thanks for the advice, folks. Given that it looks like the biggest changes are unicode handling (which I'm not going to need any time soon) and the way the print function works, I decided to stick with 2.7. I'm an IT guy, though unemployed at the moment, and it occurred to me that I'm familiar with Python, but not the version your entire established codebase is in wasn't a great thing to have on a resume. Since it looks like the new formatting for print -- that is, print(Print this stuff!) -- works fine in 2.7, I'm just getting myself used to doing that from the beginning. The degenerate print, where you're printing exactly one thing, works the same. But if you have two things to print, putting parens around them in Python 2.x will cause a tuple to be printed, rather than printing the two with a space between. print(3,5) -- version 2.x (3, 5) print(3,5) -- version 3.x 3 5 To get 3.x functionality, you'd want to use from __future__ import print_function and I do not think that works in 2.6 or older versions. It also can be awkward even in 2.7 if you're mixing existing code with new print functions. That's good to know, since I hadn't run into it yet. So am I correct in understanding that I can just put the from __future__ import print_function in each new 2.7 script, and get identical functionality to what happens in 3.x? Or do I need to do that system-wide somehow? -Andy ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Hello, and a newbie question
On 04/16/2013 05:47 PM, Andy McKenzie wrote: On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 5:31 PM, Dave Angel da...@davea.name wrote: SNIP To get 3.x functionality, you'd want to use from __future__ import print_function and I do not think that works in 2.6 or older versions. It also can be awkward even in 2.7 if you're mixing existing code with new print functions. That's good to know, since I hadn't run into it yet. So am I correct in understanding that I can just put the from __future__ import print_function in each new 2.7 script, and get identical functionality to what happens in 3.x? Or do I need to do that system-wide somehow? Someone else may know if identical has some exceptions. But as for where to put it, you'd need it for any module (including your own script) which is going to use the newer print() function. And the nice thing is that the from-future directive is ignored in 3.x, so you don't have to remove it when you do progress. -- DaveA ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Hello, and a newbie question
On 16/04/13 22:20, Andy McKenzie wrote:
For instance: output of running print_r on a very short dictionary from
PHP:
Array
(
[key3] = thing3
[key2] = thing2
[key1] = thing1
)
And running pprint on the same dict in Python:
{'key1': 'thing1', 'key2': 'thing2', 'key3': 'thing3'}
I finally decided that a good project would be building a quick function
that recreates the print_r function, and I got that working. New
function output, in Python:
(
[key3] = thing3
[key2] = thing2
[key1] = thing1
)
You should probably use {} instead of () as the delimiter to indicate
that the thing is a dictionary and not a tuple. but otherwise that's a
good starter project.
--
Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/
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Re: [Tutor] Hello, and a newbie question
On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 6:17 PM, Dave Angel da...@davea.name wrote:
Someone else may know if identical has some exceptions. But as for where
to put it, you'd need it for any module (including your own script) which is
going to use the newer print() function.
I think any differences will result from the I/O system redesign in
3.x. In 2.x sys.stdout is still the old file type, which is
basically a wrapper around CRT FILE streams, while in 3.x it's a
TextIOWrapper wrapping a BufferedWriter wrapping a FileIO object.
Off the top of my head I don't have a clear example where it matters.
I vaguely recall having an issue with the default buffer flushing not
being the same. I think I was simulating scrolling text by printing a
carriage return ('\r') to overwrite a line. IRRC, in the end I opted
to directly use sys.stdout.write() and sys.stdout.flush().
Since __future__ imports are compiler directive, you have to include
them at the top of every module. print_function works in 2.6+. If
you just want the function under a different name, you can grab it
from the __builtin__ module:
import __builtin__
printf = getattr(__builtin__, 'print')
printf('spam')
spam
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Re: [Tutor] Hello, and a newbie question
On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 7:39 PM, Alan Gauld alan.ga...@btinternet.comwrote:
On 16/04/13 22:20, Andy McKenzie wrote:
For instance: output of running print_r on a very short dictionary from
PHP:
Array
(
[key3] = thing3
[key2] = thing2
[key1] = thing1
)
And running pprint on the same dict in Python:
{'key1': 'thing1', 'key2': 'thing2', 'key3': 'thing3'}
I finally decided that a good project would be building a quick function
that recreates the print_r function, and I got that working. New
function output, in Python:
(
[key3] = thing3
[key2] = thing2
[key1] = thing1
)
You should probably use {} instead of () as the delimiter to indicate that
the thing is a dictionary and not a tuple. but otherwise that's a good
starter project.
Good idea. I went with () because I was just trying to duplicate the
output in PHP. Now that I've got that, I can start thinking about
improvements. Varying the punctuation to match the type would probably be
a good idea.
Thanks,
Andy
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Re: [Tutor] Hello, and a newbie question
On 17/04/13 01:58, Andy McKenzie wrote: 1) Python 2.7 or 3.x? I know I'm going to want to do some work with NLTK (which appears to only have an alpha version out for Python 3), but I've just gone through the hassle of dealing with an upgrade from PHP 4 to 5.3, and I'd rather not start learning something that's already obsolete. Any words of advice? Python 3.3 is awesome and much cleaner and better than 2.7, and 2.7 is pretty damn good! So if you have a choice, pick 3.3. It's the future of Python, 2.7 is the past. But, 2.7 is still good, and if you need NLTK *right now* you might not have a choice. (Unless you like being a guinea pig working with an alpha version.) Also, the *incompatibilities* between 2.7 and 3.3 are fairly small. The biggest difference from a beginner's perspective is that print is no longer a statement, it is a function, so instead of writing this: print Hello world! you have to write this: print(Hello world!) That doesn't seem too onerous, does it? If you can cope with a few differences of that complexity, why not learn both? 2) Best practices. I have the WROX Press Beginning Python book, which targets Python 2. Clearly that's of only limited value if I'm going to go with Python 3, but it looks like it's at least going to be a good overview. But some of the stuff they do seems to be fairly personalized, rather than trying to follow standards. Should I just start out with the tutorial from docs.python.org? I would assume that that would start putting me in the right habits from the beginning... is that accurate, or is there a better way to go? If there's a Python 3 version of Learning Python, from O'Reilly Books (sorry I forget the authors), give it a go. The first edition, at least, is an awesome book although you will want a more recent version since the first edition deals with Python 1.5, which truly is ancient history! I haven't done the official Python tutorial, but from what I've seen of it, it's pretty good. -- Steven ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Hello, and a newbie question
On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 7:57 PM, Virgilio Rodriguez Jr virgiliorodrigue...@gmail.com wrote: Can someone please do me the favor and remove me from this god forsaken email list I am sorry I signed up all it has done is taken over my phone and rings all night long with emails I am not interested in any more because it is just too many darn emails. I keep trying to log in and nothing it will not let me unsubscribe and it is BS already. You can get a password reminder here: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/tutor If you're sure that you have the correct password and still can't unsubscribe, then email the administrator, tutor-ow...@python.org. Alan Gauld is active in this thread, BTW, in case you happen to have read the admin page where it says Tutor list run by wescpy at gmail.com, alan.gauld at btinternet.com. ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Hello, and a newbie question
On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 8:15 PM, eryksun eryk...@gmail.com wrote: Can someone please do me the favor and remove me from this god forsaken email list I am sorry I signed up all it has done is taken over my phone and rings all night long with emails I am not interested in any more because it is just too many darn emails. I keep trying to log in and nothing it will not let me unsubscribe and it is BS already. You can get a password reminder here: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/tutor If you're sure that you have the correct password and still can't unsubscribe, then email the administrator, tutor-ow...@python.org. Alan Gauld is active in this thread, BTW, in case you happen to have read the admin page where it says Tutor list run by wescpy at gmail.com, alan.gauld at btinternet.com. I just went through the steps. You don't even need your password. Enter your email address in the bottom field of the list info page: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor Click the button that says Unsubscribe or edit options. Then simply click the Unsubscribe button in the middle of the options page. You'll get a confirmation email with instructions to complete the process. ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Hello, and a newbie question
On 04/17/2013 02:34 AM, eryksun wrote: I just went through the steps. You don't even need your password. Enter your email address in the bottom field of the list info page: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor Click the button that says Unsubscribe or edit options. Then simply click the Unsubscribe button in the middle of the options page. You'll get a confirmation email with instructions to complete the process. Or send an e-mail to tutor-requ...@python.org with unsubscribe in the subject. ~sander ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
