My 19 Days of Python: Day 1

Chapter 1: The Way of the Program. The title of this chapter immediately made me think of "the Way of Bushido, but my mind takes random turns and makes strange associations from time to time. Still, it's either a very dramatic way to begin the journey of learning to think like a computer scientist, or at least something that sounds vaguely mystical or philosophical. Sort of like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. But I digress.

This is the very first chapter of Allen Downey's book Think Python, and the very first day of My 19 Days of Python. What will it teach me?

First off, the chapter starts differently than most of the beginning programming books I've read. It starts out conceptually. OK, a lot of books start out with the concepts of programming in general and the programming language being addressed in specific, but then they drone on for 50 or 70 or 165 pages boring the reader half to death and making them beg to either be put out of their misery, or to be allowed to write the 'Hello, World!' program and then move on.

Downey starts out with a conceptual section but it has two qualities I appreciated: 1. It was brief. 2. It was useful to the beginner (me, that is). What's a low-level language and why is it sometimes called a machine or assembly language? What's the difference between a low-level and a high-level language? You might not think these distinctions are important if you're just going to learn how to program, but the goal of the book is to get the reader to think like a computer scientist, which means the reader will have to understand some basic terms and concepts.

This also helps if you plan on talking to, or maybe just listening to more experienced programmers (and at this stage of the game, that includes just about everyone). That is, if you expect to understand little bits and pieces of what they're talking about. In addition, learning these distinctions helps the reader better explain what they're doing to others, which comes in real handy for people like me who are reviewing this book.

Actually, more than anything, I really appreciated the description of natural vs. formal languages. It makes a great deal of sense to talk about programming in these terms since everyone uses a natural language with which to communicate (in my case, English). We're all familiar with one or more formal languages, such as math or chemistry, and this helps the readers build a bridge from concepts and ideas we're familiar with to the one we're trying to learn; the formal language of programming.

This could have been a real snooze but as I said, the section is relatively brief and it's presented in a way that (for me at least) is engaging and even compelling.

Guilty admission: I skipped Exercise 1.1. It's actually placed in the middle of the chapter and not with the rest of the exercises at the end, and it could be considered a "pre-programming" exercise. However, I've done enough writing and editing in my career to be able to readily picture how a sentence looks when it is constructed using invalid tokens and/or with an invalid structure. Believe it or not, it's the reader's first foray (there I go with military metaphors, again) into parsing and debugging.

The bottom of page 7 has a section called "The First Program," and so I thought, "Here comes 'Hello, World!'".

Well, sort of. Downey briefly describes a print statement and lightly touches on Python 3, though it seems the reader will won't be asked to learn programming on Python's "bleeding edge."

I was a little surprised at the Glossary section being included near the end of the chapter, (each subsequent chapter has a Glossary) but it makes sense if part of the book's intent is to be used in the classroom. This also allows the reader to have immediate access (instead of repeatedly thumbing pages at the back of the book) to the meanings of specific terms used in the current chapter.

OK, that's the "set up," but most readers by page 11 will be ready to write their (our, my) first program in Python.

But wait a minute.

Downey briefly mentions Linux (well, really the UNIX command window) on page 3, but he didn't include some information that an absolutely beginning programmer/computer scientist will need to know. How do I run Python on my computer? It's not quite the same thing using Windows vs. Linux. What do I have to do?

Since I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) for all of my exercises, and I've read a few books on Python before, I know that Python is already installed on my Ubuntu PC and all I have to do is open a terminal, type "python" at the prompt, and presto, I'm in interactive mode.

If a total programming neophyte wants to get past this step, they'll need to go online and look up how to install Python and then run it on whatever operating system they're using.

Hint: If you're using Windows 7, try this handy tutorial. Assuming this book will eventually go into a second edition, or better yet, a second printing of this edition, I'd like to see Downey include a little information to help the reader find out if Python is already installed on their computer (Linux, Mac, Windows), and if not, how to install it. Then, of course, explain to the reader how to start a terminal session and start Python.

If this is a beginner's book, these are beginning steps.

The exercises.

I assume Exercise 1.2 is more a "look ahead" since a "programming virgin" will be able to review the information at http://python.org/ but not make a lot of use of it right now.

I've never seen the help feature for Python in the terminal before, so Exercise 1.3 was kind of interesting. Without any experience with Python though, the reader (me) can do about the same thing as he or she could do on the Python.org site; just noodle around and poke their nose into a few corners. There's no way to really know what you're looking at until later on (hopefully).

The last exercise is a math problem but not a horribly complicated one. It's more of a "familiarity" exercise designed to let the reader actually "do something" in interactive mode with Python.

At the end of Day 1 of my 19 Days of Python, I didn't feel really challenged, but so far what I have been asked to understand and perform has been well within my grasp. But then a lot of beginning programming books start out this way. Downey's introduction to the book even said so. Chapter 2 is called "Variables, Expressions, and Statements," so I assume that's when I'll actually have to do more than convert kilometers to miles.

At this stage in my journey, I'm concerned with two things: 1. The ability to retain information as I move from one chapter to the next, so that I can use information I learned on one day when I'm performing exercises on subsequent days. 2. (this one is critical) Eventually being able to understand enough Python and to think, even a little bit, enough like a computer scientist to write simple programs in Python on my own, and not just copy them from the book or other sources.

Will I be able to get that far and will Downey's book be able to take me there? That's what we're going to find out together as I progress through the next 18 days of Python.