[Tutor] Boa-Constructor
Hey Guys, I am trying to pick an IDE, and it seems to me that Boa-Constructor has great potential. However, in searching google looking to see what others have said, I am reading that the latest version of Boa-Constructor is unstable at best and crashes a lot.being said, at least, by those promoting non-free IDE's. Yet, Boa-Constructor looks from the outside to me, like a really great IDE. Does anyone who is using this latest version or who has tried this latest version have any comments concerning its actual usability? Thanks, Terry ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
[Tutor] Boa-Constructor
Nephish, I run Mandriva Linux with Gnome, but also have the KDE desktop set up as one of my optional desktops that I can log into for a session, and in fact, I do run a lot of KDE stuff on gnome, like Konqueror, etc. I urpmi-ed Eric and will check it out. Thanks! I liked the idea of Boa-Constructor because it is written with wxPython and it is wxPython that I will be using on my eventual project, I think. Although, so far, no one has responded to my usability question concerning Boa-Constructor yet. Terry On Mon, 2005-09-12 at 18:57 -0500, nephish wrote: Terry Kemmerer wrote: > Hey Guys, > > I am trying to pick an IDE, and it seems to me that Boa-Constructor > has great potential. However, in searching google looking to see what > others have said, I am reading that the latest version of > Boa-Constructor is unstable at best and crashes a lot.being said, > at least, by those promoting non-free IDE's. Yet, Boa-Constructor > looks from the outside to me, like a really great IDE. > > Does anyone who is using this latest version or who has tried this > latest version have any comments concerning its actual usability? > > Thanks, > > Terry > > > >___ >Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org >http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor > > if you don't mind KDE, eric is really cool. I run gnome, but i use eric because of things like syntax error checking, etc.. i really dig it sk ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] More IDE's (was: Boa-Constructor)
Thanks. This was going to be another question of mine, as to what was wrong with going the Emacs and Vim directions. Terry On Wed, 2005-09-14 at 09:40 -0400, George Flaherty wrote: Yeah, I have been using PyDev with Eclipse. It is pretty good, since with the latest version the debugger is working and they have include the ability to add additional paths in the PYTHONPATH variable. I honestly would prefer to use Emacs, but I have not found any tool that provides code-completion with python. Until I have been using Eclipse (with Emacs running minimized :) -g -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of D. Hartley Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2005 10:27 PM To: Python tutor Subject: [Tutor] More IDE's (was: Boa-Constructor) This thread made me wonder: Is anyone out there using Eclipse and PyDev? (I started using Eclipse when I was toying around in Jython, and know others that are using it for C/C++, but I am curious if others have tried out PyDev and what they think). ~Denise ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
[Tutor] Aschenputtel problem - Shorter is not better?
"Bearing in mind that shorter is not necessarily better..." Wouldn't shorter, as a rule of thumb, as in less language statements, mean fewer executions, and therefore faster? ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
[Tutor] Lost Color Lost Mind
Just learning Python Running: Python 2.4.1 (#2, Aug 25 2005, 18:20:57) [GCC 4.0.1 (4.0.1-2mdk for Mandriva Linux release 2006.0)] on linux2 Concerning: IDLE I tried several fonts, and finally changed the font on IDLE to courier size 22 bold, so that it is easier for my old eyes to read, and while the shell window still has color depicting the structure, the program window is now displaying only in black. (I also forgot what font IDLE originally was set on. A mind is such a terrible thing to loose...) Question: How do I get color back in my programming window??? (It's s pretty that way!) Thanks! Terry ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
[Tutor] Lost Color Lost Mind]
> Just learning Python > > Running: > > Python 2.4.1 (#2, Aug 25 2005, 18:20:57) > [GCC 4.0.1 (4.0.1-2mdk for Mandriva Linux > release 2006.0)] on > linux2 > > Concerning: IDLE > > I tried several fonts, and finally changed the font > on IDLE to courier > size 22 bold, so that it is easier for my old eyes > to read, and while > the shell window still has color depicting the > structure, the program > window is now displaying only in black. (I also > forgot what font IDLE > originally was set on. A mind is such a terrible > thing to loose...) > > Question: How do I get color back in my programming > window??? (It's > s pretty that way!) > > Thanks! > > Terry Until you save the program window to a file with a '.py' extension, IDLE doesn't realize it's Python source code so it doesn't do any syntax highlighting. HTH, Don Ha! Thanks Don! I knew this was a dumb question. But, Tricky! Tricky! No wonder I couldn't find a combo of changes to revert things back. I kept looking at my test programs, and they were all in color because I always type the first word and SAVE to start a file! (a habit) I never noticed the difference. You just saved me a lot of confusion time wondering if I had broken something. Terry __ Yahoo! for Good Donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. http://store.yahoo.com/redcross-donate3/ ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
[Tutor] Can anyone help me?
> >If I create a program that randomly draws 6 numbers, its like the lottery. > >According to an article I read in Reader's Digest, if you get a Quick Pick > >- which is six numbers at random - you increase your odds of winning. > > Odds are how many tickets you buy relative to how many tickets everyone > else has bought. Has nothing to do with the mechanism for generating > numbers. Any guesses you make are "random". My guess is that the point of the Reader's Digest article (I haven't read it, this is just my conjecture) is that a truly random (or pseudo-random) number is a better lottery play than a "favorite" number like an anniversary date, your kids' ages, etc. It's not that a random number is any more likely to hit the winning combination. But numbers that are based on dates or ages of a typical family are more likely to be played than a completely random set of numbers; and therefore, a win with a random set of numbers will likely have a smaller pool of winners with whom you'll need to split the payout. Put another way: a set of randomly selected numbers is no more or less likely to hit the lotto than a set of non-randomly selected numbers, so randomness does not affect the likelihood of there being a payout. However, the collision space for a set of randomly selected numbers is likely to be smaller than the collision space for a non-randomly selected set of numbers, which does affect the amount of a payout, in the event of a win. If this is the case, you are working on the wrong program. A random number program, like the one used for the lotto game, will give equal opportunity to any possible number. Whereas, you are now looking to maximize your winnings, when that win finally comes, by picking numbers that humans would not be prone to pick. That means your program needs to be finding numbers that are MORE popular to humans, in order to isolate numbers that are LESS popular to humans. This is sounding more like a massive search of all data and databases on the web, looking to count occurrences of numbers that have an immediacy to the human experience, while grading out counting numbers that are more arbitrarily nuetral or even inactive in the human experience, and after that evaluation is done, simply looking at your tally list of numbers and which numbers occur less frequently. The more you are able to evaluate whether a number has great or small impact upon the human mind, the more accurate your final results. Can you say, WEB CRAWLER? BUT!! I have good news! I got a great deal on car insurance at Geiko! And, by the way, Reader's Digest is just a tad above the National Enquirer in credibility, although they both have big readerships..which should tell you something about them. ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
[Tutor] Newbie Anxiety
I'm working on Ch. 5, "Fruitful Functions", or "How To Think Like A Computer Scientist" and I still can't count. (Don't laugh! I can't play the violin either...) In Basic, I would have said: 10 x = x + 1 : print x : goto 10 run 1 2 3 etc I don't know why, but this great UNKNOWN bothers me a lot. Maybe it is because it was the first thing I learned in Basic, back 20 years ago when I was actually a programmer But I think it goes toward visualizing how things are going flow and be constructed without line numbers and the venerable GOTO statement. How is this done in Python? (So I can stop holding my breath as I study this great languageand relax.) Thanks, Terry ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
[Tutor] Newbie Anxiety
(I accidentally sent this to the originator. Sorry.) Sweet! Almost everything is sooo familiar, yet, merged in many interesting ways. I never had a DO WHILE statement, but in many ways, your further examples are like a combination of my old FOR NEXT loop and IF logical evaluation statement put together for reading in/out lists. JUST TOO COOL! And it looks so CLEAN! --compared to my old BASIC of having to name the variable belonging to each NEXT incrementation executed while keeping the code nested properly relative to each FOR NEXT loop!!! Thanks! THIS LOOKS GREAT! Terry On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 11:49 +1300, John Fouhy wrote: On 11/11/05, Terry Kemmerer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm working on Ch. 5, "Fruitful Functions", or "How To Think Like A > Computer Scientist" and I still can't count. > (Don't laugh! I can't play the violin either...) > > In Basic, I would have said: > > 10 x = x + 1 : print x : goto 10 > > run > 1 > 2 > 3 > etc > > How is this done in Python? (So I can stop holding my breath as I study > this great languageand relax.) Hi Terry, There's a couple of options. First, we could do it with a while loop. This is not the best or the most idiomatic way, but it's probably most similar to what you've seen before. count forever i = 0 while True: print i i = i + 1 Of course, we generally don't want to keep counting forever. Maybe we'll count up to 9. count to 9 i = 0 while i < 10:: print i i = i + 1 A while loop contains an implicit "GOTO start" at the end. At the start, it checks the condition, and breaks out of the loop if the condition is false. Like i said, though, this is not idiomatic Python. Python has for loops which are based around the idea of iterating over a sequence. So, we could count to 9 like this: count to 9 for i in [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]: print i The loop will go through the list, assigning each item to i in turn, until the list is exhausted. The range() function is useful for building lists like that, so we don't have to type it out manually. count to 9 for i in range(10): print i And, of course, once we've got range(), we can give it a variable limit (eg, n = 10; range(n)). Iteration is the key to doing all kinds of funky stuff in python (including new ideas like geneartor functions), so it's good to get the hang of :-) -- John. ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
[Tutor] Newbie Anxiety
I want to thank everyone for their responses. This has help tremendously to ease my mind. Thanks! Branching in the program, is actually my real anxiety, as I have been feeling the void, (maybe that should be WITHDRAWALS!) as I am working my way through How To Think Like a Computer Scientists. By the way, I REALLY LIKE THE BOOK! --However, your recommended discussion comparing against basic is going to be very helpful in orientating me! Basic was my only language (although we went through several versions) and I haven't written a line for almost 20 years, so, I am very rusty as it is. Terry > compared Python to old style BASIC. You might find it helpful if you > were weaned on BASIC. You can still find the old site here: > > http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld/oldtutor/ > > Check out the Loops topic for the GOTO discussion. Oops, so long since I looked at that version... Its actually the Branching topic that discusses GOTO. Alan G Author of the learn to program web tutor http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
[Tutor] Newbie Anxiety
A good natured word of explanation for Chris and others: Rest assured I am not criticizing the FORM and USE of white space that Python so eloquently uses, and subsequently makes it so beautiful and easy to read to the eye, by my example of a single line of BASIC. Actually, back in the day, I would never have written it the way I did for my question. I would have written it this way: 10 X=X+1:?X:GOTO10 (The Computer would have automatically translated that to 10 X=X+1:PRINTX:GOTO10) And I would have written Chris's for next loop as follows: 10 FORN=1TO10:?N:NEXTN: REM It is bad form not to name N after NEXT to label which FOR NEXT loop is being incremented. And I would not have been ashamed of the crunched out spaces, nor the multiple statements per line, because in the real world when you are building a business, you do what you need to do to get the job done. Let me explain. My company was writing full blown computerizations of every aspect of various kinds of companies on micro computers in the micro revolution, and replacing big IBM systems with tiny multi-user systems, and we had only 48,000 bytes of RAM CORE, of which 20,500 bytes was used for the entire operating system, which included either OS-65D or OS-65U Basic programming languages of OSI (Ohio Scientific Inc.), which left only 27,500 bytes to construct your entire program in. We were selling against the BIG machines, (WE WERE BEATING THEM OUT!) and we needed SPEED, which meant a lightning fast BASIC (which we hired Steve Jobs to create when he was a starving software engineer) and then we implemented coding in ways that sped that up further. Spaces and wasted lines that a teacher would have given me an A+ for in school (if there had been a class on it), in the real world, both cut down on the speed of execution of the program and drastically cut back on the amount of what could be accomplished in a single program, thus forcing a jump to a new program, all of which again cut down on speed of getting things done because we had to write our variables to disk before making the jump, and then reloaded them in the "chained" program next to be executed making a big PAUSE in the process of processing. (Of course, don't forget we also had to leave room for all of the data we were going to hold in memory also..IT ALL SHARED THE SAME 27,500 bytes. To give you an idea of how successful we were at invading BIG BLUE's turf with our tiny machines, we ended up specializing in Telephone Companies, after having written complete "turn-key" systems for many many different kinds of companies. And in all of those lines of code my company generated, which surely must be in the seven figures, GOTO, and its other versions was unabashedly and freely used because BASIC is a line-number-orientated language, and GOTO naturally follows as the size of the program increases. And I can only say to you, from a personal point of view, that the real grade for excellence that counts, is the real world reward of what happens and continues to happen with your business's bank account. Customers buy solutions that work out well for them, both in the sale and after the salethey just want it to work. And while I am sure someone is thinking Spaghetti Code, our style was highly conventionalized, something that we enforced rather strictly. What can I say? It worked out great! Maintaining the programs and adding new abilities was never a problem. When I sold the company, we were still writing 99% of our code in Basic. (IT WAS A VERY VERY VERY FAST BASIC.) So, you see, Basic was my ONLY language. But that was the PAST. This is FINALLY the FUTURE. And while I am a bit disappointed those flying cars that were promised aren't here yet, we of the future now have the luxury of white space with no downside. It makes sense to use it as part of the programming logic. And while I am used to reading condensed code more than I am the great open spaces of programming freedom today, I will surely get used to it, and love it. My only real concern has been in how the flow of python works for the WHOLE PROGRAM FLOW, and you all have help me a lot here...and I really appreciate it. And I assure you, intend to CONFORM to how Python sees itself being written. This is, after all, the future. I am really looking forward to the adventure of Python. And rest assured, I read up on all the other languages first, as it is my habit to trace the path to the goal in advance of launching the ship, and nowhere do I find as much potential in the view I gained, than python affords. Which is why I am braving the waters of SOMETHING DIFFERENT, that is MUCH BETTER! And n =+ 1 is an abbreviation that warms my heart to see! Thanks, Terry On Thu, 10 Nov 2005, Terry Kemmerer wrote: > I'm working on Ch. 5, "Fruitful Functions", or "How To Think Like A > Computer Scientist" and I still can't count. > (Don
[Tutor] Newbie Anxiety
Ah, memory lane time again :-) Oh, you had advanced BASIC - it allowed nested for loops! :-) My first BASIC only allowed for loops that could be written in a single line...Anything more complex you had to call a subroutine with GOSUB. Ha! Yes! As Monte Python would say, "Well..It got better!" Yes, I remember those days, in fact 48K was quite generous! My original box only had 16K RAM and 16K ROM for the OS and interpreter. The OSI "machine" I learned BASIC on, had 8K of usable RAM (I could have bought it with 4K RAM instead, but I splurged) and I used a radio shack cassette tape to store my programs and play them back into the CORE. Speaking of ROM, I remember setting there in front of the TV screen, thinking this means if they upgrade the OS, I am going to have to throw away the second most populated board in the machine! (The biggest board was the nearly empty BUS back plane board. You had Disks?!! We were using loops of punched tape... OSI led the micro computer revolution in technical innovation. We were years ahead of the other microcomputer manufacturers. Of course, at the onset, WE CHEATED. (Cheating is natural...sometimes...) We didn't wait for the little hard drives or small floppies that were priced right. Instead, we immediately adapted, and used the more expensive Industrial components available for the REAL COMPUTERS of our day, which were all around us already. This move immediately PUSHED US FORWARD in OS development. So, early on, we had the option of 8 inch industry standard dual floppies, a 40 MB and 80 MB Winchester hard drives (they were very big and very heavy), and OSI quickly added time sharing capability to the OS, which opened up a whole new level of capability and opportunity, then distributed processing, then Multiprocessing, etc. while the rest of the micro computer world lagged behind us. We were the first in the microcomputer world to do all these things. In fact, OSI created and marketed the first SINGLE BOARD COMPUTER which they called the PC. (That's right. IBM stole the name from OSI. It is very true, the victor writes the history.) So, with these innovations our OS and BASIC were pushed for increased capability. This, of course, was all done on the 8 bit 6502 chip which had the advantage of pipe line processing. So, while the 6502 was seen as a gaming chip by the world, running video arcades in the mall, we were running full blown timeshare computer systems on it. It was only natural that later OSI jumped to the Motorola 68,000 series chip which had pipe line capability also. Each step from time sharing forward, gave us orders of magnitude of capability over our peers and bigger and bigger teeth to bite IBM with. It was a magical time..full of wonderful risks. Ha Ha Ha And here we have another advanced feature. Our BASIC didn't renumber GOTO or GOSUB statements, you had to do that manually. Thats why we used a lot of GOSUB but very few GOTO. And SUBs were all given 1000 lines each to minimise risk of renumbering... Yes. Our Basic was very advanced for its time. When Steve Jobs began doing his Apple thing with real money, he came back to OSI, and wanted to purchase "rights" for the stuff he had written for us. The factory made it's second biggest mistake by not SHARING the OS and the BASIC with Apple. That would have put both Apple and OSI on the same team against IBM, and made all the software being developed on their 6502 platform run on ours also and viceversa. Oh? What was the first biggest mistake? The factory turned down the wall street guys who wanted to take them public, and those same brokers went to Apple next, and took them public instead. Ooops! Depends on how you measure excellence. A lot of excellent software has been written by companies that went bust. The software was sufficiently excellent to survive and be bought out or just made publicly available as open source. So excellence can also be measured on how long lived the software is regardless of how long lived be the commercial body that created it. Essentially, I agree with you completely from the lifetime viewpoint of software. From the productivity business point of view, I would have said it differently, but we both would have ended up with the same goal. No one floats far on thin ice. But I've fortunately never been limited to one language, even on my most primitive machines I've had recourse to assembler, and usually some kind of scripting environment. Only on very early PCs, where BASIC was the OS was I so restricted - and PEEK/POKE were my friends :-). Ha! Yes. We used PEEK/POKE also in our BASIC STATEMENTS, but soon left that behind. Before we went into business, however, as we surveyed the lay of the land, and we saw people laboriously toggling programs in binary into Emsai and Altair machines by flipping switches, and we saw people programming in assembler, and we looked into that, but the bottom line for my thinking
[Tutor] TurboGears - and some issues
TurboGears sounds pretty good. But, from the write up, TurboGears appears to be for MAC only. Or am I misreading the write up? Terry ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
