ideas for programs?

[Brandon McGinty]

Hi,
I've been learning python for the past couple of months and writing misc
scripts here and there, along with some web apps.
I'm wondering if anyone has ideas of programs I might try my hand at making?
I'd appreciate it if they don't use images, because I'm blind.

Also, I'm thinking of hiring myself out as a free-lance programmer.
Are there many individuals/companies which would aprove programs written
in python?
Most adds I've seen require the programmer have a strong grasp of c++ or
java.
Thanks much for all of your help.
THX,
Brandon McGinty

[akameswaran]

I have always found it easiest to scratch a personal itch when learning
a new language. One of the first things I wrote was a shopping list
program for my wife. It was a pretty good way to start learning the
lay of the python libraries - it needed a small object database, a gui
(tk, although I far prefer wx at this point), and I generated HTML
pages for printing out the lists. Good architecture? no. good to
learn the lay of the land yes. Ask your friends/family - everybody has
one thing they wish the computer would do. Not only will you learn
python, but you'll help your friends.

As far as employment. I come from a java background, and that seems
the only language I can pay the bills with:). Particularly in the US -
paid python jobs are hard to come by. I have been able to scrape some
side income doing zope/plone development for small businesses in the
area wanting to create a web presence - ok so it's only a little bit of
python and bunch of TAL/DTML. If you want to make money with python
skills, I would recommend learning a python based web/app server, ie
(Zope, cheetah, twisted) and look for small businesses needing
websites. They frequently could care less about implementation
choices, and it sounds like you have some experience in that field.

[Thomas Bartkus]

"Brandon McGinty" <br*************@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:ma***************************************@pyt hon.org...

Hi,
I've been learning python for the past couple of months and writing misc
scripts here and there, along with some web apps.
I'm wondering if anyone has ideas of programs I might try my hand at making? I'd appreciate it if they don't use images, because I'm blind.

Also, I'm thinking of hiring myself out as a free-lance programmer.
Python is your tool to put your expertise on a computer. Skill with Python,
or any computer language for that matter, counts for little. Expertise that
you can code into a computer program however, counts for much. No matter
what the language you use to accomplish computer automation.
Are there many individuals/companies which would aprove programs written
in python?
Don't even ask that question. It's irrelevant.
Companies approve programs that solve company problems! Does anyone care
what Excel, Quickbooks, Autocad, Turbo Tax, MySQL, whatever, are written
in? No!

Automate something useful! A bookeeping problem. Or a computer networking
problem.
OR a chemistry, cooking, gardening, truck routing, record keeping, music
problem.
What about new ways a computer might make life easier for the handicapped?
Or old ways done better. How do the blind communicate with a computer? I
see nothing but software opportunites yet undone.

Python plus expertise in something else. It's the something else that hangs
people up. You need to have or acquire that something else. I can't write a
bookeeping program if I don't understand bookeeping and my Python abilities
offer no relief from that particular deficiency.
Most adds I've seen require the programmer have a strong grasp of c++ or
java.

Those ads are worthless! They are put forth by people with meaningless jobs
in human resources and no understanding of what one might do with computer
software.

Hobbies? Interests? Expertise? What inspires you that might be put into
computer code?
You can't sell a program because it's written in Python. But you can sell a
Python program that solves a problem. Find a problem and beat it with
software.

The particular language you choose to use has nothing to do with it!

But we do like Python ;-)
Thomas Bartkus

[SuperHik]

I agree with Fred.
So here is a "problem" I had and wanted to solve.
I needed an Atomic clock (well, not the real one but the one
that connects to NTP server and gets the exact time) in a
window that stays always on top. While I was writing it I
included alarm, and a stopwatch.
Than I wrote a simple e-mail client. First plain text and
than included attachments, and even encryption.
Ofc I could have found millions of such aplications on the net,
but that's not the point, right? ;)

[George Sakkis]

Brandon McGinty wrote:

Hi,
I've been learning python for the past couple of months and writing misc
scripts here and there, along with some web apps.
I'm wondering if anyone has ideas of programs I might try my hand at making?
I'd appreciate it if they don't use images, because I'm blind.

One ambitious idea would be to implement (a subset of) MDX,
the Multi-Dimensional eXpressions language
(http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms145506.aspx). If you have
any java experience, there is an open source implementation in it so
you don't have to start from scratch: http://mondrian.sourceforge.net.

George

[James Stroud]

A digest of the major points summarizing the consensus opinion:

Thomas Bartkus wrote:

Python is your tool to put your expertise on a computer. Skill with Python, or any computer language for that matter, counts for little.
And ak*********@gmail.com wrote: As far as employment. I come from a java background, and that seems
the only language I can pay the bills with:). Particularly in the US
paid python jobs are hard to come by.

James

--
James Stroud
UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics
Box 951570
Los Angeles, CA 90095

http://www.jamesstroud.com/

[akameswaran]

James Stroud wrote:

A digest of the major points summarizing the consensus opinion:

Thomas Bartkus wrote:

> Python is your tool to put your expertise on a computer. Skill with

Python,

> or any computer language for that matter, counts for little.

And ak*********@gmail.com wrote:

> As far as employment. I come from a java background, and that seems
> the only language I can pay the bills with:). Particularly in the US
> paid python jobs are hard to come by.

James

Hmm, I'm not clear what you were trying to say when you put these two
quotes together. They seem actually opposed to each other.

Despite what I wrote, Thomas is making a more accurate statement.
However, Java EXPERIENCE does look good on my resume - and seems to
carry a lot more weight than python experience. I don't like that fact
- but let's face it, a lot of HR departments look at things just that
way.

[Florian Diesch]

Brandon McGinty <br*************@gmail.com> wrote:

I've been learning python for the past couple of months and writing
misc scripts here and there, along with some web apps.
I'm wondering if anyone has ideas of programs I might try my hand at making?

Something I wanted a few days ago: I have a graph described in the .dot
language (used by GraphViz <http://www.graphviz.org>) and want you get
things like "shortest path between two nodes", "all paths between two
nodes", "all cycles" and whatever graph theory knows as interesting.
Florian
--
<http://www.florian-diesch.de/>

[Daniel Nogradi]

> I've been learning python for the past couple of months and writing

misc scripts here and there, along with some web apps.
I'm wondering if anyone has ideas of programs I might try my hand at
making?

You could put together a handy CSS generator library that could be
used from a python webapp to generate CSS stylesheets on the fly. I'm
sure many webdevelopers would find this helpful.