On Sat, Jan 19, 2002 at 09:35:42AM -0500, Greg Fischer wrote: > I'd like to learn python. I know a bit of C++ as a result of taking a > course. Once I get started programming, I generally enjoy it, but when > I don't have any definite problem to solve, I have problems motivating > myself. So... > > What should I do? Everything in free software-land seems too > complicated to just jump right into. What kinds of things did you > people write when you were learning python (or any language for that > matter)?
Can't help you with Python, but I once had the same problem of motivation when trying to learn Perl. At the time I was writing a Usenet archive system, and I was building the archive data using a pile of hacked-up shell scripts. There were about 100,000 articles involved, and when things started taking days to run it became clear to me that the process count involved in shell programming was just way too expensive. That gave me the incentive I needed to learn Perl, and after that I started using it as my language of choice for all kinds of things. It's quite hard to learn a programming language unless you find yourself writing programs on a regular basis anyway, so of course the first couple of languages are always the hardest to learn. Without knowing what kinds of things you do, the best advice I can give is to find something that will make your own life easier. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
