[Tutor] New person greets you all!

[Wayne Werner]

2011/3/11 Yaşar Arabacı <yasar11732 at gmail.com>

> Hi,
>
> First of all, I want to greet you all since this is the first time I will
> be using this mail groups.
>

Welcome!


> I consider myself being familiar with programming logic, structures in
> general. I do/did lots of PHP programming. I know python and PHP is pretty
> much different things, I am saying this just to show yourself my level of
> understanding on programming. I am not computer major or anything, but I am
> highly interested in.
>

I think you'll find that your level of experience is similar to many people
here.


> Today, I decided to make a chat application using python. I have chosen
> python because I know its powerfull and easy to use. The first step for me
> to go should be, clearly, begin learning how to use it :)
>
> My question is, where would you recommend for me to read tutorials, see
> example etc. What is the best approach would be?


Since you say that you're familiar with basic programming concepts, I would
recommend the official tutorial available here: http://python.org/doc/

Since you're just beginning, I will also mention a trap that catches many
beginners - currently there are two versions of Python out, 2.x and 3.x -
that are incompatible with each other in many of the beginner examples you
will see. Currently, there are a fair number of 3rd party libraries that
have been ported to 3.x, with many more conversions underway.  But many
(most?) of the 3rd party packages have not yet been ported.

I will recommend two options: either to start learning with 3.x, and then if
in the future you find a package that has not been ported yet, you can use
Python 3to2 to convert your code. Alternatively, you could start with Python
2.x and use

from __future__ import print_function, division, unicode_literals

which will give you some of the behavior that is present in Python 3.

You stated that you want to develop a chat application, and it's perfectly
possible to create a chat application using the tools that are currently
available in Python 3.

Also, in the inevitable event that you run into problems, remember to post
the full error message along with what you did, what you expected to happen,
and what happened instead. Usually it's also a good idea to copy and paste
your code.

Good luck, and happy coding,
Wayne
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