[python-advocacy] what made you take py seriously?

[Carl Karsten]

hi List,

Forgive me if the ideas I think are shiny and new has been covered before.  and 
also if I push the limits of advocacy - much of my thoughts are based on "how 
can we draw more people to PyCon08"

my resume: My computer programming dates back to 1980 - basic, assembly, pascal. 
  got my first programming job around 90.  did some C, pascal, and dBase/VFP. 
(VFP is very similar to Py)  been doing mostly VFP since 95.

April 2004 I got my first taste of Python when I wrote these little apps that 
are called from procmail: SpamIAm.py and  AmISpam.py

The first is run on a spam trap account and stores subjects to a MySql table, 
the 2nd is run on my normal account and flags messages who's subjects match 
(basically.)

I was recommended Python for this by some old friends, and they spoon fed me 
parts of it.  I remember these lines:

     message = email.message_from_string(stdin)
     fromHeader = message["From"]

and thinking, "that's pretty cool"  but somehow the magnitude of coolness eluded 
me. I did a few other things here and there, but never really bothering to 
"learn python" in any sort of fashion.

It wasn't until August 06 I tried to work with some python code that was based 
on twisted and used generators that I decided I needed to learn the basics.  So 
I started reading O'Reilly Learning Python and http://diveintopython.org.  It 
took me about 3 months to get though the book and 1/2 the site.  But within the 
first few weeks, I was starting to see the beauty that is Python.  When I got a 
grip on the scope of the modules available, both standard and just out there, I 
was sold.

So the sad thing is, it took me running into something 'too hard' for me to 
learn what I needed to then actually respect Python.  And then it wasn't the 
'hard stuff' that turned me on, it was how 'nice and easy' things really are. 
(the problems twisted and generators solve are hard; I am not suggesting the 
solutions could have been done any better.)

I wonder how many others have a similar story, and if there isn't something that 
can be done about this.

Or even if the story is different, it might shed light on reaching the part of 
people that needs to be reached.

Carl Karsten