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I am learning python through this book at the moment. It is my first attempt at learning to code, so I have nothing to compare it with, but I must say that this

by MrJagil 16y ago

I am learning python through this book at the moment. It is my first attempt at learning to code, so I have nothing to compare it with, but I must say that this book is very good. My only gripe is that he poses certain questions/exercises that he fully expects us to solve, one way or another. But if we cannot; we're screwed. He does not give the answer. It has only happened once so far, but that was enough for me to miss out on what seems like a pretty crucial part of the book.

mechanical_fish 16y ago
He does not give the answer. Welcome to graduate school! (And, for that matter, real life.) As in grad school, the secret is: If you can't figure it out, ask around. Form teams that stay up until 3am waving their hands and sketching on chalkboards. If nothing else, it's a bonding experience that you'll treasure for life.
- MrJagil 16y ago
  I get your message, but the problem is this is not grad school. This is a book; one way communication. I have no one to ask, as I am the only one I know who has an interest in coding. Of course I can always ask on the web, but having to break off from coding, pose a question, and then wait for it to get answered before I can continue really breaks up my learning curve.
  - davidw 16y ago
    You could ask on #python on the freenode irc network.
  - volski 16y ago
    >Of course I can always ask on the web, but having to break off from coding, pose a question, and then wait for it to get answered before I can continue really breaks up my learning curve. You're skipping a vital step. Searching for the answer on the web. Most of the time the question you want to ask has already been answered.
    - araneae 16y ago
      Very true! Most things can be solved that way. But sometimes your issues are not googleable. I remember back when I was just learning javascript, it would never in my wildest dreams occur to me that there were host objects and that you couldn't write over them, since I'd only used compiled languages before... it took 5 seconds for my friend to start laughing when he looked at my code because I had named a variable "top."
  - SandB0x 16y ago
    Asking clear questions will help you learn. You can ask on Stack Overflow (or #python) - make sure to credit the source of your question[0] and at what point you are stuck. Often by trying to explain the precise thing that you don't understand, you will have a moment of zen. [0] People will be a lot more helpful if they know you are trying to learn, rather than posting a "send me teh codes plz" request. Also they will hopefully give you just enough of a hint and not spoil the whole thing for you.
    - mgrouchy 16y ago
      Often by trying to explain the precise thing that you don't understand, you will have a moment of zen. This. I often find that I run into a problem, try to solve it on my own, then bring someone unfamiliar in to get a fresh set of eyes on it. It usually goes like this Me: "Hey, I honestly can't figure out why this is doing this particular thing, can you take a look? <start explaining problem here in detail> ...FUCK! Nevermind, I know exactly whats going on. Thanks for your help" Person I asked: "Huh?Uh sure? I can solve problems with my presence alone"
      - sigzero 16y ago
        I cannot tell you how many time I have have posted a question to USENET, hit send, and then had an AHA! moment.
      - rglullis 16y ago
        One of my professors in college would bring a small teddy-bear to the lab. Whenever one student wanted to ask a question, he would just put the teddy bear on top of the monitor, and you'd have to talk to the teddy bear first. It seemed ridiculous, but it worked wonders. Most of the time said professor didn't have to open his mouth. It was just a matter of organizing your thoughts in a coherent way.
      - bmelton 16y ago
        One of my favorite troubleshooting techniques at the office is to have someone SHOW me the problem. Often, in just trying to show me how they're gettingn whatever error they're complaining about, they realize they're doing it wrong in the first place. Then I get to stamp something 'solved' on my task list, and everybody's happy.
  - njharman 16y ago
    > Of course I can always ask on the web, but having to break off from coding, pose a question, and then wait for it I've been programming professionally for almost 20 years. What you described right there is the fundamental skill/activity I have performed. Whether waiting for a spec, or decision if this feature is going in, or most commonly like your self looking for answer to some problem I don't get. Good programmers either know everything (ha) or know how to learn/find the answer quickly. It's a great skill to start honing now.
- vidar 16y ago
  God I miss those times, I seriously need to get into that kind of group again.
BvS 16y ago
Same here. On the one hand it might be a good thing not to give the answers away so you also have to learn to search the web, use stackoverflow... but on the other hand it can be a huge time sink if you just want to know if your solution is correct. Maybe some kind of forum in addition to the bok would be a good idea.
- RyanMcGreal 16y ago
  Learning how to find answers to programming questions is by no means a time sink.
  - silentbicycle 16y ago
    It depends on the question, and if you know the right keywords to use. People starting off in programming and working through a book alone generally won't. Of course, there's always irc.
  - BvS 16y ago
    Totally agree. Just trying out stackoverflow was probably worth it. Nevertheless when I thought I had the right answer I would have liked to compare it to other/the "right" solution. Also if I already spent a fair amount of time searching and had problems to phrase the questions the right way for Google (not knowing the terminology) some kind of help might have been a good thing. On the other hand I might have used thatcher help too early...
jfager 16y ago
Did you share that experience with him? He's still writing the book, I'm sure he'd love the feedback.
Luyt 16y ago
The #python IRC channel on FreeNode is a great resource for programmers learning python. (But don't expect to be spoonfed, or have everything served on a silver platter, it'll be greatly appreciated if you can show your efforts (using a pastebin site, don't paste into the channel ;-))).
mikeryan 16y ago
Learning how to Google problems is an important programming skill. Every programmer in the world is pissed that "I'm not sure - I'd Google It" is not an acceptable answer to a question about "how do I do X in programming language Y". Happens every day. That being said - a book forum or Q/A section on the site would likely be very helpful. I'm learning Objective-C right now and the book I'm using has a corresponding forum associated which usually has the answers I'm looking for.
zedshaw 16y ago
Hey, can you tell me which ones you got stuck on? I can try give a bit of help either here or in the book. One thing about those though is that if you can't complete them, then just move on and maybe mark it for later. You should try to figure them out for a bit, but sometimes you just can't and have to come back to it later. Finally, make sure you have this latest version of the book. I added a small section in the beginning which talks about this, so you might have an older version. EDIT: Oh I'm assuming you mean the Extra Credits. The lessons you should try really hard to do and figure out before moving on. But skipping Extra Credit is quite alright.
- jacobolus 16y ago
  One thing you might add to the book is a “what to do if I get stuck” section. I think especially pointing people (even newbies) at IRC is a good idea, as long as there's a bit of elaboration about how to effectively ask IRC questions. Freenode’s web client http://webchat.freenode.net/ http://webchat.freenode.net/ isn’t perfect, but it should be figure-outable when accompanied by some simple directions.
- BvS 16y ago
  One thing that really took me a long time to figure out was that using python on Windows XP is something different than using it on a mac or on linux. Some things just don#t work or at least work slighlty different. Maybe you could ad a more explicit warning about that. Example: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3391998/pydoc-is-not-working-windows-xp http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3391998/pydoc-is-not-work...

by MrJagil 16y ago

mechanical_fish 16y ago

He does not give the answer. Welcome to graduate school! (And, for that matter, real life.) As in grad school, the secret is: If you can't figure it out, ask around. Form teams that stay up until 3am waving their hands and sketching on chalkboards. If nothing else, it's a bonding experience that you'll treasure for life.

MrJagil 16y ago
I get your message, but the problem is this is not grad school. This is a book; one way communication. I have no one to ask, as I am the only one I know who has an interest in coding. Of course I can always ask on the web, but having to break off from coding, pose a question, and then wait for it to get answered before I can continue really breaks up my learning curve.
- davidw 16y ago
  You could ask on #python on the freenode irc network.
- volski 16y ago
  >Of course I can always ask on the web, but having to break off from coding, pose a question, and then wait for it to get answered before I can continue really breaks up my learning curve. You're skipping a vital step. Searching for the answer on the web. Most of the time the question you want to ask has already been answered.
  - araneae 16y ago
    Very true! Most things can be solved that way. But sometimes your issues are not googleable. I remember back when I was just learning javascript, it would never in my wildest dreams occur to me that there were host objects and that you couldn't write over them, since I'd only used compiled languages before... it took 5 seconds for my friend to start laughing when he looked at my code because I had named a variable "top."
- SandB0x 16y ago
  Asking clear questions will help you learn. You can ask on Stack Overflow (or #python) - make sure to credit the source of your question[0] and at what point you are stuck. Often by trying to explain the precise thing that you don't understand, you will have a moment of zen. [0] People will be a lot more helpful if they know you are trying to learn, rather than posting a "send me teh codes plz" request. Also they will hopefully give you just enough of a hint and not spoil the whole thing for you.
  - mgrouchy 16y ago
    Often by trying to explain the precise thing that you don't understand, you will have a moment of zen. This. I often find that I run into a problem, try to solve it on my own, then bring someone unfamiliar in to get a fresh set of eyes on it. It usually goes like this Me: "Hey, I honestly can't figure out why this is doing this particular thing, can you take a look? <start explaining problem here in detail> ...FUCK! Nevermind, I know exactly whats going on. Thanks for your help" Person I asked: "Huh?Uh sure? I can solve problems with my presence alone"
    - sigzero 16y ago
      I cannot tell you how many time I have have posted a question to USENET, hit send, and then had an AHA! moment.
    - rglullis 16y ago
      One of my professors in college would bring a small teddy-bear to the lab. Whenever one student wanted to ask a question, he would just put the teddy bear on top of the monitor, and you'd have to talk to the teddy bear first. It seemed ridiculous, but it worked wonders. Most of the time said professor didn't have to open his mouth. It was just a matter of organizing your thoughts in a coherent way.
    - bmelton 16y ago
      One of my favorite troubleshooting techniques at the office is to have someone SHOW me the problem. Often, in just trying to show me how they're gettingn whatever error they're complaining about, they realize they're doing it wrong in the first place. Then I get to stamp something 'solved' on my task list, and everybody's happy.
- njharman 16y ago
  > Of course I can always ask on the web, but having to break off from coding, pose a question, and then wait for it I've been programming professionally for almost 20 years. What you described right there is the fundamental skill/activity I have performed. Whether waiting for a spec, or decision if this feature is going in, or most commonly like your self looking for answer to some problem I don't get. Good programmers either know everything (ha) or know how to learn/find the answer quickly. It's a great skill to start honing now.
vidar 16y ago
God I miss those times, I seriously need to get into that kind of group again.

BvS 16y ago

Same here. On the one hand it might be a good thing not to give the answers away so you also have to learn to search the web, use stackoverflow... but on the other hand it can be a huge time sink if you just want to know if your solution is correct. Maybe some kind of forum in addition to the bok would be a good idea.

RyanMcGreal 16y ago
Learning how to find answers to programming questions is by no means a time sink.
- silentbicycle 16y ago
  It depends on the question, and if you know the right keywords to use. People starting off in programming and working through a book alone generally won't. Of course, there's always irc.
- BvS 16y ago
  Totally agree. Just trying out stackoverflow was probably worth it. Nevertheless when I thought I had the right answer I would have liked to compare it to other/the "right" solution. Also if I already spent a fair amount of time searching and had problems to phrase the questions the right way for Google (not knowing the terminology) some kind of help might have been a good thing. On the other hand I might have used thatcher help too early...

jfager 16y ago

Did you share that experience with him? He's still writing the book, I'm sure he'd love the feedback.

Luyt 16y ago

The #python IRC channel on FreeNode is a great resource for programmers learning python. (But don't expect to be spoonfed, or have everything served on a silver platter, it'll be greatly appreciated if you can show your efforts (using a pastebin site, don't paste into the channel ;-))).

mikeryan 16y ago

Learning how to Google problems is an important programming skill. Every programmer in the world is pissed that "I'm not sure - I'd Google It" is not an acceptable answer to a question about "how do I do X in programming language Y". Happens every day. That being said - a book forum or Q/A section on the site would likely be very helpful. I'm learning Objective-C right now and the book I'm using has a corresponding forum associated which usually has the answers I'm looking for.

zedshaw 16y ago

Hey, can you tell me which ones you got stuck on? I can try give a bit of help either here or in the book. One thing about those though is that if you can't complete them, then just move on and maybe mark it for later. You should try to figure them out for a bit, but sometimes you just can't and have to come back to it later. Finally, make sure you have this latest version of the book. I added a small section in the beginning which talks about this, so you might have an older version. EDIT: Oh I'm assuming you mean the Extra Credits. The lessons you should try really hard to do and figure out before moving on. But skipping Extra Credit is quite alright.

jacobolus 16y ago
One thing you might add to the book is a “what to do if I get stuck” section. I think especially pointing people (even newbies) at IRC is a good idea, as long as there's a bit of elaboration about how to effectively ask IRC questions. Freenode’s web client http://webchat.freenode.net/ http://webchat.freenode.net/ isn’t perfect, but it should be figure-outable when accompanied by some simple directions.
BvS 16y ago
One thing that really took me a long time to figure out was that using python on Windows XP is something different than using it on a mac or on linux. Some things just don#t work or at least work slighlty different. Maybe you could ad a more explicit warning about that. Example: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3391998/pydoc-is-not-working-windows-xp http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3391998/pydoc-is-not-work...