http://catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#skills1

That's ESR's page. It's a good read and goes over a lot of what you guys are talking about. I'm following his advice. Currently learning as much python as I can. I also dabble in Java and C, but my main focus is on Python. It allows me to focus on the basics of programming without doing the dirty work like:

prototyping functions
declaring variables
using { and ;
You know all that extra typing that can result in an error.
The trivial programs I write scream for python. Java and C take MANY more lines of code to accomplish the same thing. Oh and I can write GUI programs with Python too (Tkinter).

Since he's going to learn Java anyway in school why not learn python now and get some of the basics down. I suggest buying 'Learning Python' and devouring it. Write programs with a focus on oop.

I've taken Java in college and ended up dropping it. It was a LOT of information. I feel I can take it now and pretty easily get through the class.
HTH

-Mike Hoy

On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 5:19 AM, Mike Schwartz <mike.l.schwartz@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 7:29 AM, Jerry Davis <jdawgaz@cox.net> wrote:
BTW, can someone tell me why this happens?

$ perl -e 'print "hello world\n"'
hello world

$ python -c 'print "hello world"'
hello world

notice that I DID NOT have to put the \n at then end of the python print
statement? is it something to do with the -c (i.e. smart enough to know it is a
cmd line script, and automatically puts a \n at the end?) or something?

notice what happens when you leave the \n off of the perl script, and add a \n
to the python script.

just curious.

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YES, I think it has something to do with the way the 
syntax works, in Python, for  whether one "wants" to start 
a new line or not.
   Instead of being specifically "indicated", e.g., by having some kind 
of  \n right where one "wants" to start a new line, it is determined by 
whether or not a COMMA is present, after the last item in the list (of 
stuff to be printed).  (The last item in the list might also be the only 
item in the list...)  Note that, in a sense the "polarity" is kinda backwards 
from the "\n" way of doing things.  If the comma is ABSENT, then it 
ends the old line (starts a new one). 
    By the way, in the summer of 2007, I was searching in the on-line 
tutorial for Python, to find where it teaches (/slash, documents) about 
how this ["comma"] feature works.  I finally found it, but NOT by using 
the (very limited) indexing feature that is provided by that on-line 
tutorial for Python -- rather, I found it by using the "site:..." feature of 
doing a google search, and remembering that it can take any leading 
substring of the target URL, -- that is, it is NOT [!] limited to a domain 
name (as the word 'site:' might suggest). 
    In fact, I later wrote an e-mail to Alan Dayley (I looked for it today 
but I have been unable to find it...!) about using that "site:..." feature of 
doing a google search, and remembering that it can take any leading 
substring of the target URL -- so it can go beyond (by far) just limiting 
itself to the domain name part of the URL. 
--
Mike Schwartz    
Glendale  AZ
schwartz@acm.org

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Mike Hoy