8 January 2009

Geeks Anonymous

I have a confession to make... I am a geek. I always feel better once somebody understands that about me! I have been trying to learn to program for years now. I've tried loads of different languages, with varying degrees of success. 

I started using Ubuntu Linux a couple of years ago. Now it is the main operating system on my home computer. It's nice, you can fiddle with everything, a geeks paradise. 

Anywho... after getting to grips with the whole Linux thing - A word to anyone thinking of making the switch, don't be afraid of the command line, it is your friend, and so are the people in the forums - I decided to have a crack at learning to program again. This time in the cross-platform language, Python. The reason I chose this language was well, because it looked simple and, happily, it is. When you write a program, or script if you're being pissy, it doesn't look like a spider has been tap dancing on your keyboard, it's nice and simple, just like me.

So once you have got it all up and running, I found the Python Homepage and this tutorial page to be a good place to start, you need something to program. For this, rather than working from a book, I found the Project Euler website. Here they give you maths problems that you need a computer to solve, perfect.

Alright, so now you know my geeky secret, I hope you have fun. 

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