Dipped My Foot Into the Pool
The other day while I looking to find what programming language would be fun to learn, I stumbled across this post that outlined what languages are good to learn for 2016 and why. I’ve seen other articles, and even watched some YouTube videos to see what was out there and what is and isn’t as popular in terms of:
- Easy to learn as a first language
- Popularity
- History
- Growth
- Support and Application
I started seeing a pattern where Python would constantly be on the lists I was looking at. It’s a very common language they teach at universities such as MIT; apparently is easy to learn, fast to program, has a clear syntax, solid documentation, and is cross-platform. I’m sure there are many other reasons to learn it, but for me personally, I really like the fact that it’s cross-platform and is reported to have a 99% success rate. I guess only time and effort will tell, right?
No matter what language it is, there will always be a use, big or small and each with their own respective communities to draw knowledge from and share with. Mainly for me, I’m tired of pointing and clicking in many things I do, and have had this need in the back of my mind to be able to create things out of nothing or supplement existing tools, or improve on other things. There’s no better feeling than that of accomplishment especially when you can combine logic, and creativity, thus seeing results.
If you’re a veteran or even novice Python programmer, I’d love to hear about your experience and tips!
I would suggest the following to get moving…
Download and install Atom from http://atom.io (dev environment Win/Lin/OSX)
Learn how to use Git, visit http://GitHub.com (source control/repository)
Check out PythonAnywhere, free online Bash, Python, DB, Web, edit environment @ http://PythonAnywhere.com
The biggest struggles I had is figuring how to get Python v3.5 working on my iMac and understanding the differences with v2.x. If you want to use 2.x because it is a requirement for something you’re importing, you can get v3.x features by using:
import future
The other direction works… you can import past to use 2.6 only features in 3.5.