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Taking the Python Plunge

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I'm finally doing it. I'm learning Python through Codecademy's online tutorials.

So far, I really like Python. Everything is natively object oriented, so every variable is born as an object. Working within the paradigm has already shown me how much time I spend wrestling with IDL to make it work more like an object-oriented programming language, when it simply isn't. I've been known to call my style within IDL as Pseudo Object Oriented Programming, or POOP. It's often just as ugly as it sounds. So, philosophically, I'm finding that Python is well aligned with my programming style and needs.

Big ups to my student, Tim, for helping me with some of the nuances of Python arrays and syntax. He also pointed me to the Enthought Canopy programming environment, which is a great way to write code. Think of it as IDL's Development Environment, but less clunky.

I'm planning to start a new research project built solely on Python. It's a bit daunting, but I figure the only way to learn is to dive right on in. If you have any encouragement to lend, I could use it!

BTW, the Codecademy tutorials are a lot of fun, too. Here's a little easter egg that one of their "PSAs" alerted me to:


In [1]: import this
The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!

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Comments

Tom Rice said…
Great to hear you're moving to Python! Some resources I really like:
Python 4 Astronomers: http://python4astronomers.github.io/

Astropython blog:
http://www.astropython.org/

Astropy project: http://www.astropy.org/

Astropy user mailing list: http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/astropy

and the CfA maintains a useful internal pythonusers mailing list (Tom Aldcroft should be able to point you to it).
June 1, 2013 at 10:43 PM
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