Developing

[ppietro]

Posting this for larrythechim:

Are there any good resources you can point me towards to get into scripting and programming ( mainly on Linux) that you know of? I have no training and I'm just starting. I'm hoping to learn python and c+ and I need just to be pointed in a good direction to start.

So - I've had a very odd computer educational history.

Our school district was one of the first in the greater Issaquah (WA) area to get an Apple II in 1977. However, we only had enough money for one. So - we all read the Apple programming book, and wrote and debugged BASIC programs on paper and in our heads for the limited time we'd actually get to spend with the computer.

In high school, this ability to BASIC program in my head prompted the computer teacher to ban me and a couple of my friends from the class to the TRS-80 computer lab because we were "too disruptive". (Don't worry - we were cool with this, and we all got A's.)

From there, I got an electrical engineering degree and started work at Boeing. When I joined the 777 program, they decided we needed to use a CAD program to do electrical schematics, so they trained us all on SunOS UNIX - for free! (SunOS is the predecessor to Solaris.)

When the aircraft industry hit the skids in 1993/94, a friend of mine from the computer lab in high school got me a job software testing at a startup, and I've been a software tester ever since.

I've tried a lot of books, and they're useful, but only so far. They seem to get me through the immediate programming challenge I'm facing - say in a work situation - but no further. The thing that's worked the best for me lately is when I went to the local Extension college and got a certificate.

In Seattle, where I live, the University of Washington has an Extension college. The classes take place after work, and, although non-credit, count towards a certificate.

I spent a year obtaining a Java programming certificate, and that has really stayed with me. I had started the C++ certificate, but that's on hold due to the birth of my daughter 2 years ago.

As for Linux, I just took my SunOS/Solaris knowledge and kept experimenting, not being afraid to start over from scratch with a new installation. Linux isn't too different from BSD, which SunOS was based on. (Solaris is based on System V Unix.)

(Also - I worked for 7 years at one of the major Unix terminal emulation companies - WRQ - so I got a lot of on-the-job Unix practice. )

I guess what I'm saying is - I don't have a particular recommendation for books or websites. (Well - except for this website - this one rocks. ) For me, my natural inclination for computers, and attending classes that force me to synthesize the information in my head, have worked the best.

Cheers,
Paul

[larrythechim]

That is honestly an interesting history. Unfortunatly my school district offers very little chance to actually interact with the computers on that level. The most in depth it gets is the multimedia class and that works with Photoshop. I just now discovered that you can take classes at the local community college in coding but the catch is that's half your schedule and in my family academics is a huge thing and taking a class like that is "unacceptable." I found a book about Python and learned a bunch. Oddly I can't find any IDE or IDLE. At the moment I have a good start but can't find any IDE. Can you recommend any packages for installation?

[billb]

Oddly I can't find any IDE or IDLE. At the moment I have a good start but can't find any IDE. Can you recommend any packages for installation?

IDLE is included with Python, though there's no application menu item installed for it. You can start from a terminal window with:

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python2.4 /usr/lib/python2.4/idlelib/idle.py

If you get an error make sure you have tkinter installed (yum install tkinter).

If your Python book or course uses Python 3.x, I have parallel install packages available on the PS3Bodega repo for YDL 6.2. If you're using The PS3Bodega repo you'd install that with:

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yum install python31 tkinter31

And you'd start IDLE with:

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python3.1 /usr/lib/python3.1/idlelib/idle.py

Re: books, I like the "Head First" series from O'Reilly. "Head First Programming" uses Python to help you get your head around some of the basic concepts of writing software. I was motivated to rebuild the python31 packages from IUS for YDL 6.2 since that book uses Python 3 (though it's not really geared towards teaching Python specifically).

@Paul -- haha we only had one Apple II for a while in middle school, too ... Oregon Trail, Lemonade Stand, Odell Lake ... any of those ring a bell? I didn't start playing with BASIC until we got the Commodore 64 at home

[larrythechim]

Thank you. Amazingly I successfully compiled and installed python 3.1 through a tarball. I also did the same thing for tkinter. This may seem odd but, why is it that computers from yesteryear are more notable among programmers and what not. Those systems had it all apparently. They were popular in the homes too (if you could afford them ). I can't find an explaination for that question at all. I wish Linux was much more popular than what it is now.

[ppietro]

@Paul -- haha we only had one Apple II for a while in middle school, too ... Oregon Trail, Lemonade Stand, Odell Lake ... any of those ring a bell? I didn't start playing with BASIC until we got the Commodore 64 at home

Heh - our Apple ][ was so old, we had StarTrek, StarWars, Applesoft IIa, and a couple of other cassettes I can't remember right now.

There's scans of 'em here:
http://www.brutal-deluxe.fr/projects/cassettes/apple/

and pictures of this stuff running here:
http://apple2history.org/history/ah14.html

We never did get a disc drive for the school district's Apple ][, but my parents' Apple ][ had one.

Cheers,
Paul