> 2. Is there a good book to start with while learning Python? I'm > currently reading 'Python Essential Reference' by David M. Beazley. > So far it looks like a pretty good book, but would like more > tutorials to work with (I've also been reading through the tutorials > at 'python.org' which has some excellent stuff!).
Take a walk through the text "How to Think Like a Computer Scientist": http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCSpy/ It's medium-paced, well-organized, and - quite importantly IMHO - builds well on knowledge acquired in the previous chapters as it progresses. There are plenty of hands-on examples; and really, the text was written by a high school teacher for a CS curriculum, so it's structured more like a tutorial. I found it to be priceless when I first got interested in Python, and I would highly recommend it to any newbie, whether with previous programming experience or not, but who has never laid eyes on Python before. As I think back on it, the book gives you just enough information to make you hungry for more - and indeed, after reading it I had enough insight to explore Python on my own and started writing useful programs by myself. > > 3. Currently, I write most of my code with Xcode (on the Mac > platform) using Applescript. This gives me GUI capabilities. Is > there anything you'd recommend that I could use for Python that would > give me a GUI interface? I'd like this to be able to work for both > the Mac and Windows platforms. I've been reading a little about > 'Claro Graphics Toolkit' and 'PyGUI'... would you recommend either of > those? I'll be writing code on a Mac so I need something that will > run on that system. > Try wxPython. I've seen it run on a Mac with OS X and Windows simultaneously, where the operating systems were switched from one to the other at the touch of a button, and the GUI had a very native look in either platform (mind you, the app was running exactly the same code in both cases!). I write my code on a win32 box, so I have no further pointers for you regarding a Mac. -Basilisk96 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
