So, I've decided to try learn Python. I got a book and sat down and...

...70 pages in, I was still learning what a number was...

Why? Why do I care? I don't want to do complicated maths! I want to make space invaders, or make scary boxes pop up on my friends' computers. Knowing about the decimalisation of imaginery numbers is not useful (or fun!)

So anyway, I abandonned the book in favour of an online tutorial. The official one starts thus:

"Python is an easy to learn, powerful programming language. It has efficient high-level data structures and a simple but effective approach to object-oriented programming. Python's elegant syntax and dynamic typing, together with its interpreted nature, make it an ideal language for scripting and rapid application development in many areas on most platforms...Python is extensible: if you know how to program in C it is easy to add a new built-in function or module to the interpreter, either to perform critical operations at maximum speed, or to link Python programs to libraries that may only be available in binary form (such as a vendor-specific graphics library). Once you are really hooked, you can link the Python interpreter into an application written in C and use it as an extension or command language for that application."

... Eh? I have no idea what that means! Where does it tell me how to draw boxes?!

Extensive research has failed to 'whet my appetite' (as the chapter the above extract was taken from is called) or to teach me anything. So I searched for "Python tutorial for girls". Nothing. Next best thing: "Python tutorial for dummies", which yields little. So what do we do now? We write one!

So I now have a notebook, called 'Python Tutorial for Girls', in which I write what I have learned. So far, I can print 'hello world', and have learnt that whilst it is important that the computer is told the difference between whole numbers and decimal places (or 'floating point') numbers, it doesn't really matter for what I'm doing as Python will do it itself.

I feel well accomplished.

Stay tuned for updates!

P.S. Please don't send me links to tutorials you think are particularly useful or good for the thick; I have committed to doing it this way (setting myself a series of projects and seeing what I have to learn to get them done) and anyway, filecoreinuse is watching over me for when I fsck up.

Now, on to LaTeX!