[Tutor] van Laningham's book

[David Porter]

* Michael J. Boylan <mjboylan@sover.net>:
> I'm struggling through van Laningham's book, "Teach Yourself Python in 24
> Hours", and was doing quite well until chapter 6. Bogged down in tuples,
> with lists next. This is my first attempt at programming, and find this a
> bit much. How does one remember the syntax, functions, indentations, etc?
> Does it just take time and practice? I tried tutor for non-programmers, and
> could do the programs (not understanding some of them of course), and
> initally found van Laningham's book better, but am getting stuck here in
> chapter 6. 
> 
> Any recommendations on best way to learn Python?
>

Since I am only beginning, I can only say what I have found successful. I
don't know how far chapter six of this book gets you into Python, but maybe
you should take a break from the book for a bit and just play around with
the interpreter. 

I found that I could repeat what tutorials said to do, but not quite
understand *why* it worked. Using the interpreter and trying things out from
a few different angles to figure out exactly what's going on really helped
me. Actually applying all this information which may seem arbitrary at first
will help it make some sense.

After that, writing your own scripts you can learn even more. It's best
though if you can execute them immediately after making some changes, so you
can try lots of things. I do this in Emacs with python-mode (
http://www.python.org/emacs/python-mode/ ), though you can also do it with
IDLE ( http://www.python.org/idle/ ) if you don't have/want Emacs.

Then finally, you can even look at other peoples scripts. I benefitted from
toying with scripts such as those at Joe Strout's page (
http://www.strout.net/python/tidbits.html ).

Maybe when you come back it will make more sense. If it doesn't, ask the
list!


    David