Learning to program in Python

[jbchua]

Hello everybody.

I am an Electrical Engineering major and have dabbled in several
languages such as Python, C, and Java in my spare time because of my
interest in programming. However, I have not done any practical
programming because I have no idea where to get started. I taught
myself these languages basically by e-tutorials and books. This makes
me feel as if I don't really know how to implement these languages.
Does anybody have any advice on where to start applying my limited
knowledge practically in order to advance my learning?

[John Henry]

jbchua wrote:

Hello everybody.

I am an Electrical Engineering major and have dabbled in several
languages such as Python, C, and Java in my spare time because of my
interest in programming. However, I have not done any practical
programming because I have no idea where to get started. I taught
myself these languages basically by e-tutorials and books. This makes
me feel as if I don't really know how to implement these languages.
Does anybody have any advice on where to start applying my limited
knowledge practically in order to advance my learning?

Which area of EE are you in? Or just starting on that as well?

If you're just starting, chanllege yourself to build a R mesh and
calculate the Thevenin equivalent looking out from a particular node.
Then you can expand that to an RLC network.

Besure to use Objects, think in terms of objects, and code in objects.
Don't hard code the data type. You'll be able to see how magical the
Duck Typing is in Python.

Have fun.

[jbchua]

John Henry wrote:

jbchua wrote:

Hello everybody.

I am an Electrical Engineering major and have dabbled in several
languages such as Python, C, and Java in my spare time because of my
interest in programming. However, I have not done any practical
programming because I have no idea where to get started. I taught
myself these languages basically by e-tutorials and books. This makes
me feel as if I don't really know how to implement these languages.
Does anybody have any advice on where to start applying my limited
knowledge practically in order to advance my learning?

Which area of EE are you in? Or just starting on that as well?

If you're just starting, chanllege yourself to build a R mesh and
calculate the Thevenin equivalent looking out from a particular node.
Then you can expand that to an RLC network.

Besure to use Objects, think in terms of objects, and code in objects.
Don't hard code the data type. You'll be able to see how magical the
Duck Typing is in Python.

Have fun.

I'm a freshman-- I have yet to take any actual EE classes. I am
actually thinking of maybe changing my focus towards Computer Science
or at least minoring in it.

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what you just asked me to do ;\

[Adam]

jbchua wrote:

Hello everybody.

I am an Electrical Engineering major and have dabbled in several
languages such as Python, C, and Java in my spare time because of my
interest in programming. However, I have not done any practical
programming because I have no idea where to get started. I taught
myself these languages basically by e-tutorials and books. This makes
me feel as if I don't really know how to implement these languages.
Does anybody have any advice on where to start applying my limited
knowledge practically in order to advance my learning?

I am just starting to learn to program as well. (In my spare time.) The
advice about deciding on a goal, a project to work on, is good.

I have just got through the basics section in this guide here
(http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld/), which I found very
useful for beginners and the address book example you build up shows
the python in practice.

Once I had learnt about file inp/out I decided to make a program that
would split a file in half for email and then could be used to join
them together again. This helped me get used to most of what I had
learnt in the beginner section.

Also don't forget the Python.org documentation it's very helpful and is
a great companion to most the 3rd party tutorials around.

[Paul Watson]

jbchua wrote:

Hello everybody.

I am an Electrical Engineering major and have dabbled in several
languages such as Python, C, and Java in my spare time because of my
interest in programming. However, I have not done any practical
programming because I have no idea where to get started. I taught
myself these languages basically by e-tutorials and books. This makes
me feel as if I don't really know how to implement these languages.
Does anybody have any advice on where to start applying my limited
knowledge practically in order to advance my learning?

This would be a good site to investigate.

http://diveintopython.org/

[Steve Holden]

jbchua wrote:

John Henry wrote:

>jbchua wrote:

>>Hello everybody.

I am an Electrical Engineering major and have dabbled in several
languages such as Python, C, and Java in my spare time because of my
interest in programming. However, I have not done any practical
programming because I have no idea where to get started. I taught
myself these languages basically by e-tutorials and books. This makes
me feel as if I don't really know how to implement these languages.
Does anybody have any advice on where to start applying my limited
knowledge practically in order to advance my learning?

Which area of EE are you in? Or just starting on that as well?

If you're just starting, chanllege yourself to build a R mesh and
calculate the Thevenin equivalent looking out from a particular node.
Then you can expand that to an RLC network.

Besure to use Objects, think in terms of objects, and code in objects.
Don't hard code the data type. You'll be able to see how magical the
Duck Typing is in Python.

Have fun.

I'm a freshman-- I have yet to take any actual EE classes. I am
actually thinking of maybe changing my focus towards Computer Science
or at least minoring in it.

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what you just asked me to do ;\

That's an answer that indicates you are likely to learn fast.

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden [phone] [phone]
Holden Web LLC/Ltd http://www.holdenweb.com
Skype: holdenweb http://del.icio.us/steve.holden
Blog of Note: http://holdenweb.blogspot.com
See you at PyCon? http://us.pycon.org/TX2007

[Paul Rubin]

"jbchua" <ch*****@gmail.comwrites:

I am an Electrical Engineering major and have dabbled in several
languages such as Python, C, and Java in my spare time because of my
interest in programming. However, I have not done any practical
programming because I have no idea where to get started. I taught
myself these languages basically by e-tutorials and books. This makes
me feel as if I don't really know how to implement these languages.
Does anybody have any advice on where to start applying my limited
knowledge practically in order to advance my learning?

Try http://www.diveintopython.org .

If you want something more academic about programming in general, try
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/