Rad wrote on Feb 14^th, 2009 at 7:24pm:

Yup, that's the book.

I'm only a few chapters in, so my current assessment isn't worth much, but I'll tell you what I know now and give you an update when I get further in.

Slow is good for someone who isn't familiar with the material, but I feel like he goes even slower than that.  It feels almost like it is aimed at someone who has never used a computer beyond browsing the web.  As an example, he spends a page or two explaining the difference between RAM and a HD.  So, as someone who is very familiar with computers and at least passingly familiar with programming, the book feels almost too slow.

Now, I think it will still be worth it for me if he does a good job of covering all the CS basics that I never had any formal instruction in.  So far, it looks like that is the direction he is headed.

What I meant when I said I was on the fence was that I think it is going to do a good job of covering CS basics, but that it may proceed too slowly for someone like you or me that has some solid computer experience and maybe has seen a script or two.  I'll let you know when I get through a little more of the material.

Our other thread just past the 5 page mark, and I remember we used to have problems with long posts, so I split this one out.  It may generate a little discussion.

I'm finished with chapter 9 of 13 in this book, so I'm a good way through the book.  At this point, I feel comfortable with making some general observations.

The first observation is that this book WILL NOT move too fast for ANYONE.  The author assumes you have no prior programing experience, very little prior computer experience, and at one point goes into a short explanation of integer division and remainders, just in case you didn't pass 4th grade.  He explains everything in simple terms and uses easy to follow examples.  I honestly think a 7th grader with no prior programing experience could learn python from this book.

So, if you want a gentle introduction to programing, this is your book.  If you like things to move a little faster or have any programing experience, you might want to look for a text that is going to be a better compliment to the knowledge you already have.

Chapter 9 wraps up the functional introduction to Python, and chapter 10 starts in on the objective programing.  So, at this point I am beginning to get an idea of what Python is capable of and if it is a good language for people to start with.  

The advantage of Python is that it is fairly clean to read and write and popular enough that there is a wide variety of code out there and lots of libraries available.  It is a high-level language, and takes care of memory allocation and garbage clean-up for you.

The disadvantage is that Python isn't as capable as Perl or Ruby.  It isn't very flexible about how information is passed between functions, like Perl is, and it doesn't allow you to pass functions as input or output to other functions (at least I haven't seen a way yet.)  

My feeling at this point is that Python would be a good replacement for Basic and other "starter" languages used in high school classes.  It would be a good stepping stone for a 10th grader who knows some HTML to get into programing.  It's also nice to know, just because of its popularity.  But, if you are really wanting to do interesting things, you will quickly need something more powerful.  

There's nothing in Perl or Ruby that make me think they wouldn't suit the a beginning programmer, and both have enough libraries and code examples out there that you won't be at any disadvantage.  Unix geeks have been pumping out Perl code for a long time, and you can find a module to do just about anything with a few tweaks.  For those who have done a little scripting but don't want to jump head-first into LISP, I'd say to start with Perl or Ruby and then go from there.  You can go back and learn Python afterwards and it will only take a week or two to learn the syntax if you need to read someone's code.

Rad wrote on Feb 18^th, 2009 at 11:50pm:

I wouldn't call it a replacement.  It's more like the next step up.  Shells are not written as programming languages.  While they have basic support of loops and things like that, its fairly clumsy.  If you need to do something more serious than clearing out files on an automated schedule or starting a list of processes in a particular order, Perl does it more elegantly than a shell script and isn't all that hard to learn if you already understand control structures and such.

Perl has awesome support for Regx.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression

That makes it a favorite for admins who need to look through gigabytes of web logs looking for a particular referring URL, for example.  As popularity for Perl grew, its popularity meant that there was lots of code examples and snippets of code that people had already written, making the job of writing a script often a matter of taking something that's out there and tweaking it to fit your needs.  So, its popularity made it popular.  The trend continues, and huge repositories of Perl code (like CPAN) exist on the internet.

Perl is also very high-level - managing memory for you.  So, you can whip together a few quick scripts without having to rack your brain too hard looking for memory leaks.

The writers of Perl have also done a great job of keeping the language relevant.  They added support for classes several years ago, and continue to update the language.

Ruby has a lot of the same capabilities but is a newer language, so it lacks the huge existing code base.

Rad wrote on Feb 18^th, 2009 at 11:50pm:

My experience is limited, but I enjoyed the little bit of Ruby I wrote much more than a lot of code I've worked on.  I also enjoyed the teaching material more than any other:

http://whytheluckystiff.net/ruby/pickaxe/

That text balances tutorial and reference better than almost anything else I've read on any subject.  Most texts are meant either as a reference and you can't read them without your mind wandering off in the middle of the gory details, or they are meant to be read through and aren't dense enough to make you feel like you really know something at the end.

With that said, I had trouble following a few of the examples and it does little to teach you Computer Science.  It is meant to teach programmers how to use Ruby, so I don't think it is aimed at us beginners.

I'm really beginning to agree with Nigel that it doesn't matter what language you learn to start out with, as long as you learn something.  Python, Perl, and Ruby are all very similar syntactically, so its not hard to move between them.  Even the little bit of C that I know, while syntactically very different, is functionally similar to Perl in lots of ways.  You define procedures, feed them input, grab their output, pass that to another procedure.  

Even shell scripting is useful and gives you a good introduction to flow control, variables, boolean decisions, etc.

Rad wrote on Feb 18^th, 2009 at 11:50pm:

No.  It looks interesting, but I think I'd rather learn Rails since I like Ruby better than Python.