[Tutor] Total Programming Newbie

[Michael P. Reilly]

Rob Andrews wrote
> You seem to have the right idea. Keep looking over the material in any books
> and tutorials you can find, play with the code of others, and make use of
> the Python Tutor email list by looking at the archives and asking questions
> on the list here.
> 
> It's not necessary to wait until after you feel like you've mastered any
> given book before spending some time coding. Try and write any scripts you
> can now, and as you piece them together, you can use the books/tutorials for
> ideas and to help figure out how to do whatever it is you're trying at the
> moment.
> 
> Rob

Good advice, Rob.

To this I'll add since I (and probably we) see it with most people new to
computers.  Don't be afraid of breaking something (software-wise, although
I've broken my keyboard with my skull at times...).  New programmers
are often too afraid of "doing it wrong" that they fail to learn why
things are wrong.  More often than not you'll learn far more by your
own failures than by other's examples and teachings.

Way back when (... 1200 baud was fast and TTYs had paper), I learned far
more trying to write an "add user" program by wiping the entire password
database than I would have if I had written it correctly the first time.

Don't worry if you have to reboot your machine because you created an
"endless loop" or something.  Just remember to "save early, save often",
to have fun, and to always have a boot disk(-ette) handy. *1/2-wink*

  -Arcege

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| Michael P. Reilly                | arcege@speakeasy.net              |