[Tutor] Tutor list introduction, goals, ideals...

[Rob Andrews]

Welcome to the ever-friendly Tutor list. You've already made a good 
start by coming here at all. There are a host of good tutorials around, 
and searching for "python tutorial" at google.com demonstrates.

If you're interested in working on free software, particularly in 
Python, but don't have specific ideas as to just what you want to write 
yet, that's fine. Just write some programs for fun, and/or go to 
uselesspython.com and hack on some of the other newbie/free programs 
there. (Some are great and provide much from which to learn, and some 
are awful, providing a great chance to learn the art of improving that 
which already exists and sending it back to the site and the original 
author.)

As you get stuck or have questions, feel free to post them to this list, 
and we will usually go a bit beyond the call of duty to help.

-Rob Andrews
Newbie For Life

> Which brings me to this question: If you were just starting out learning 
> your first programming language (or, perhaps, /when/ you first started 
> out, etc.), what might you do to get involved or, at least, self-educate 
> with a goal toward getting involved? That is, what might your initial 
> programming attempt be aimed at accomplishing? Should a person just pick 
> any old thing (e.g., a simple text editor) to work at, or is there 
> something better to start with?