[Tutor] learner

[kirk Bailey]

> >  i would like to know how to write a program.
> >  i am relatively new to computers and have no prior programming experience. 

Wow, havy question.

0. Make sure you have a good idea of how your computer is built,
organized, and
   how the operating system works.

1. Devlop a good idea of what you want to do. Define a definate goal.

2. devlop a eries of steps it must do to accomplish your chosen goal.

3. Rough this out in a series of steps. Drawing pictures may help
here.

4. Go back and begin defining the details of each step. whenever you
need to
   keep track of some piece of information, give that thing a name, so
you can
   referr to it later. Use a name that helps you to keep track of just
WHAT
   that piece of information is.

5. Install IDLE so you can try out snippets of code to make sure they
do what
   you want.

6. Add them to the program under construction.

7. When it looks like it is done, run it from the command line and see
if it
   blows up- it probably will. READ THE ERROR MESSAGES CAREFULLY. They
are profound
   in meaning and will lead to endless amusement asd you hurl the CRT
out the window
   screaming incredible in inscruitable evil disparaging remarks. It's
as popular as
   politics for raising your blood pressure.

8. fix them. Try [7] again. Loop 7=8-7-8 until no more errors show up.

9. See if it actually does what you wanted. You may care to go back
and redefine
   the program, discovering it is doing something else very nicely,
but NOT what
   was wanted! If not, drop back as menay steps as it takes to get the
desired
   results. 

BE ADVISED this is THE place to show off how fallible and error prone
you are- like
me. Show us your goals, successes, failures, error reports, raw code.
POST the current script of the hour to the web so we can look at it!
SSI can be very helpful on this item. 

> Thats the target for my web tutor (url below) 

> >    i would like to know if python is a good place to begin and why? 
surely it is. Beats the whistling ASS off of C, perl, Assembler,
SNOBOL, FORTRAN...

> I answer that.

     
> >    what type of applications can the python language be used for? 
Except for run time critical apps and for Kernel hacking, image
procesing and
compression processing, or things into HEAVY bare metal bit whapping,
anyth8ng you like.
     

>And a bit of that
True, true, but let's not get technical with a newbie...   ;-) 

>Alan g.
>Author of the 'Learning to Program' web site
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld 



-- 
 

 -Respectfully,
              -Kirk D Bailey 
               Consulting Loose Cannon

end



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