[Pythonmac-SIG] Mac User Python Newbies

[eichin at metacarta.com]

> software to do useful stuff, and every second they're having to sit
> and learn some tedious crap before they can do that is a second
> they're being kept from achieving that goal.

On the other hand, I recently did a quick in-office tutorial of "order
some pizza, throw one of our legacy perl scripts up on the video
projector[1], port it to python over lunch" - and while it had the usual
python-related positive impact (look at these long-hidden bugs we've
exposed and fixed, look at how easy to read the new code is even for
the people who've only been doing python for a month) what startled me
was the number of people who concluded "wow, I *need* to learn emacs"
who previously thought of it as "just another editor" just from
watching me do the kind of stuff I take for granted.

So maybe it gets in the way - or maybe, if you actually expect to do
this for more than a week or a month, it's a useful productivity
tool/life skill - even if you don't stick with python...

> Me, I'm off to hack up a Script Editor clone now, so you can guess which

Good luck!


[1] the projector hooked to a powerbook, if that brings it at least
vaguely back on topic, but I'm mostly a mac-as-unix type, not a
mac-as-platform type.