[BangPypers] how to learn programming

[Kenneth Gonsalves]

On Saturday 17 Jan 2009 5:04:07 pm Chetan Nichkawde wrote:
>   The only way to learn programming is to program.

I have been writing code since 1986, but never considered myself a programmer. 
My code does what is needed and doesn't crash, but most of it is cut and 
paste and repair without really knowing what I was doing. This year I decided 
to do something about it. I remember reading somewhere about setting oneself 
small problems and incrementally increasing the complexity. Rather like going 
to the driving range of a golf course now and then to shore up the 
fundamentals. At the same time I am too busy (and not the type) to take a 
book and work at it from beginning to end.

At the same time I have to keep to deadlines and produce working 
applications - so what I do now is: Every day open the Python cookbook at 
random and work on whatever recipe it opens at. Try to customise it. Often it 
is stuff that I know (or think I know). I do it anyway - one recipe. 
Thorough. The first one happened to be writing a class to convert 
temperatures from any scale to any other - that took me three days exploring 
all the highways and byways it opened up.

Coding against deadlines does not really help one improve one's skills - the 
deadline is there, so one repeats what one already knows and resorts to ugly 
hacks and compromises. Also workarounds since there is no time to learn 
something new.


-- 
regards
Kenneth Gonsalves
Associate
NRC-FOSS
http://nrcfosshelpline.in/web/