No choice but learn Python…

Browse Book
Learning Python

I was reading about the guy who started the Specto project and started reading through his blog. I came across this blog post mentioning how it all started out of frustrating because there was a lack of interest for person tracking system like Specto turned out to be.

I do want to spend sometime learning Python for this exact reason, theres a small tiny apps which I want to write to speed up/improve a task or too on my machine. But I'm not sure where to start and I'm starting to think I should just use Flex/Air as i can do that much quicker.Yes its bad news but what other alternatives are there for a non-progrmmer like myself? I had hoped Konfabulator might have offered a simlar thing but the linux alernatives are all writtern in Python anyway (screenlets, gdesklets, etc). Then my favorate application which i have yet to play with deeply Conduit is also written in Python and its add on are also in Python. And last of all the xbox media centre uses python for its scripting. So it time to get serious, and to be fair I did say I was going to start learning python in my new year resoultions.

So first point of call, what editor? I only got attached to XMLspy ages ago for writing large dense XSL and XSDs. So I can change easy enough. I thought I'd ask Mr Python, Simon Wilison but looking at his blog he was undecided in 2003 and who knows what he's using now (i did twitter too).

Jedit was in the comments and was one of the first I looked at. It runs on everything Java does, is GPL and support Python along with XSLT too. What also tops it off for me is Robin McKinnon uses it (i actually remember him showing me this). So I'm giving it a try and pull up some Python hello world type stuff to play with. I left the O'reilly Python book at home but when I get back I'll have a look through that. If you know anywhere else I should be looking, shout. I've not forgotten Uche's 4Suite.

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

Author: Ianforrester

Senior firestarter at BBC R&D, emergent technology expert and serial social geek event organiser. Can be found at cubicgarden@mas.to, cubicgarden@twit.social and cubicgarden@blacktwitter.io