3 ms·

> Side note: While I definitely applaud the idea of trying to create a language that is geared towards beginners and good for learning on, I don't know if I can

by trymas 10y ago

> Side note: While I definitely applaud the idea of trying to create a language that is geared towards beginners and good for learning on, I don't know if I can get behind recommending such a language that is still under development being suggested to beginners. I second this. Especially when python itself is very beginner friendly. IMHO the best advice on learning a skill is just do some projects with it. I am not exactly sure, which should come first, the 1. or the 2. point made in the article. Though I would dare to say the 2. point is more important. By doing python projects first you familiarize with it and then if you are still on - you should read zen of python, pep8, etc..

jacobr1 10y ago
Agreed - you need to experiential context to grok the concepts about best practices. Otherwise, it is just cargo-cultism. Most the great programmers I know learn by working on increasingly more complex projects and then deep-diving into the details whenever they come across something they don't know. They make this process move faster, not by doing tutorials and writing code from scratch (after the initial bootstrapping of learning a new language/framework), but by reading code from others, especially successful project. And again diving into to understand the WHY behind the implementation and this reinforce the choice and knowledge of the HOW.
eric_bullington 10y ago
I strongly agree. Dealing with a language in development is hard enough when you're an experienced programmer, I can't imagine trying to learn programming with an unstable language.
- dwaynecrooks 10y ago
  I tend to agree as well. The Pyret option is probably better done with a mentor by your side. If no mentor is available like they probably have in the Bootstrap (http://www.bootstrapworld.org/ http://www.bootstrapworld.org/) program then Python is more than likely the better option. So I'd expect 99% of the people to stick with Python anyway which is fine.
praveer13 10y ago
>By doing python projects first you familiarize with it and then if you are still on - you should read zen of python, pep8, etc.. Would you mind recommending some projects for a python beginner?
- bluedino 10y ago
  You have the standard things like a calculator, card game (start with blackjack), anagram maker/solver... With the web you can move to things like an address book, todo list, message board (regular or reddit/hn clone)...
- drcongo 10y ago
  I find scratching one's own itches is always the best way to learn a new language. Solve a problem that you have.
  - HelloNurse 10y ago
    Problems are not all the same: choose one that stresses and challenges the language, to gain confidence in its strengths and practical expertise. For example, I once tried to learn Haskell and I started from little exercises (https://wiki.haskell.org/H-99:_Ninety-Nine_Haskell_Problems); https://wiki.haskell.org/H-99:_Ninety-Nine_Haskell_Problems)... I got familiar with syntax and basic concepts, but I was dissatisfied both with the easy, abstract questions and with the simplistic, inefficient answers using basic standard library features that are more or less the same in any language. What was "real" Haskell code like? I expected dealing with serious libraries, memory management etc. would be uglier, more difficult and more cumbersome than exceptionally terse toy examples. So I attempted something not merely useful and small, but with a well defined practical objective, depending on external standards, requiring production quality libraries and with performance challenges: converting the metadata dump from MAME (a nearly 200MB XML file) into an easy to use SQLite database. The task was a good test of programming language productivity because, having already used ElementTree and APSW I was sure I could write it in Python quite easily. (And I did; a complete Python implementation, able to roundtrip data back to the XML format for testing purposes, took me less time than an aborted Haskell attempt that could parse a dumb document tree using a ridiculous amount of memory.) This project allowed me to discover many things about Haskell that are not found in enthusiast-written tutorials: the mess of incompatible and undocumented libraries, the impracticality of basic language design decisions (text handling, lack of namespaces leading to name conflicts, etc.) and my profound disgust for the commonplace syntactic tricks. Of course, a similar challenge for Python is likely to have a better outcome: learning the difference between good and really good libraries, finding a use for many language features, remembering useful idioms nd design patterns, etc.

by trymas 10y ago

jacobr1 10y ago

Agreed - you need to experiential context to grok the concepts about best practices. Otherwise, it is just cargo-cultism. Most the great programmers I know learn by working on increasingly more complex projects and then deep-diving into the details whenever they come across something they don't know. They make this process move faster, not by doing tutorials and writing code from scratch (after the initial bootstrapping of learning a new language/framework), but by reading code from others, especially successful project. And again diving into to understand the WHY behind the implementation and this reinforce the choice and knowledge of the HOW.

eric_bullington 10y ago

I strongly agree. Dealing with a language in development is hard enough when you're an experienced programmer, I can't imagine trying to learn programming with an unstable language.

dwaynecrooks 10y ago
I tend to agree as well. The Pyret option is probably better done with a mentor by your side. If no mentor is available like they probably have in the Bootstrap (http://www.bootstrapworld.org/ http://www.bootstrapworld.org/) program then Python is more than likely the better option. So I'd expect 99% of the people to stick with Python anyway which is fine.

praveer13 10y ago

>By doing python projects first you familiarize with it and then if you are still on - you should read zen of python, pep8, etc.. Would you mind recommending some projects for a python beginner?

bluedino 10y ago
You have the standard things like a calculator, card game (start with blackjack), anagram maker/solver... With the web you can move to things like an address book, todo list, message board (regular or reddit/hn clone)...
drcongo 10y ago
I find scratching one's own itches is always the best way to learn a new language. Solve a problem that you have.
- HelloNurse 10y ago
  Problems are not all the same: choose one that stresses and challenges the language, to gain confidence in its strengths and practical expertise. For example, I once tried to learn Haskell and I started from little exercises (https://wiki.haskell.org/H-99:_Ninety-Nine_Haskell_Problems); https://wiki.haskell.org/H-99:_Ninety-Nine_Haskell_Problems)... I got familiar with syntax and basic concepts, but I was dissatisfied both with the easy, abstract questions and with the simplistic, inefficient answers using basic standard library features that are more or less the same in any language. What was "real" Haskell code like? I expected dealing with serious libraries, memory management etc. would be uglier, more difficult and more cumbersome than exceptionally terse toy examples. So I attempted something not merely useful and small, but with a well defined practical objective, depending on external standards, requiring production quality libraries and with performance challenges: converting the metadata dump from MAME (a nearly 200MB XML file) into an easy to use SQLite database. The task was a good test of programming language productivity because, having already used ElementTree and APSW I was sure I could write it in Python quite easily. (And I did; a complete Python implementation, able to roundtrip data back to the XML format for testing purposes, took me less time than an aborted Haskell attempt that could parse a dumb document tree using a ridiculous amount of memory.) This project allowed me to discover many things about Haskell that are not found in enthusiast-written tutorials: the mess of incompatible and undocumented libraries, the impracticality of basic language design decisions (text handling, lack of namespaces leading to name conflicts, etc.) and my profound disgust for the commonplace syntactic tricks. Of course, a similar challenge for Python is likely to have a better outcome: learning the difference between good and really good libraries, finding a use for many language features, remembering useful idioms nd design patterns, etc.