My 19 Days of Python: The Introduction

I recently requested (asked for; begged for) a review copy of O'Reilly's new Think Python book. Over the years, I've toyed with the idea of learning (no, actually learning) how to program in at least one language, but I never could get past a certain point. Usually, it either came down to getting stuck at a particular stage and never being able to progress forward or I just plain ran out of discretionary time and had to pursue more productive activities (write a book).

I've always felt that there should be a book "out there" that would be able to take a non-programmer and successfully lead that person (namely me) to be able to program in a particular language, as opposed to just copying exercises out of a book or from some online source. I've looked at various texts over the past several years but never found one that fit the bill. I had high hopes for V. Anton Spraul's Think Like a Programmer, but ultimately the book failed due to lack of accessibility and ease of use (in spite of the author's comments otherwise, C++ is not an ideal first language for the "learn-at-home-in-your-spare-time" student).

At about the same time I heard about Think Like a Programmer, I discovered Think Python, but Spraul's book arrived at my home first so I reviewed it first. Then Downey's book was delivered by UPS and I started peering into the first page's of his text. I found it refreshing and very honest:

In January 1999 I was preparing to teach an introductory programming class in Java. I had taught it three times and I was getting frustrated. The failure rate in the class was too high and, even for students who succeeded, the overall level of achievement was too low.

One of the problems I saw was the books. They were too big, with too much unnecessary detail about Java, and not enough high-level guidance about how to program. And they all suffered from the trap door effect: they would start out easy, proceed gradually, and then somewhere around Chapter 5 the bottom would fall out. The students would get too much new material, too fast, and I would spend the rest of the semester picking up the pieces.

Yes! In a nutshell, that's my experience with just about every book I have ever used to try to learn to program. I work with software developers every day and in listening to their conversations, they seem to be a group of people who are just "wired" to know how to learn to program. I believe that people have certain natural aptitudes that allow them to acquire specific skill sets with some relative ease, while those who are wired differently struggle and ultimately fail to acquire the same skill sets, even when generating great effort to learn them.

I don't think I'm wired to be a programmer. I don't "think like a programmer." I think like a writer, which is what I'm good at. However, I'd like to expand my areas of interest and competency and stretch myself a bit so that I could learn how to program. Not only do I need to successfully learn a programming language and to write programs in that language, I need to learn to "think" in a way that allows me to program. If Spraul's book isn't written to teach me to "think like a programmer," then maybe Downey's book is.

Certainly Python is a more "accessible" language, since it doesn't need to be compiled. Linux (specifically Ubuntu 12.04) has a Python interpreter available, so all I need to do is open a shell, type "python" at the prompt, and away I go.

Downey's goal in writing his book (the book actually has a number of contributors who have become involved thanks to the fact that it was originally released under the GNU Free Documentation License, so Downey isn't the sole creator of this product) is to provide a resource to assist students, both in class and learn-on-your-own, to "learn to program and think, at least a little bit, like a computer scientist."

It seems as if Downey should have the background to enable him to accomplish his task:

Allen Downey is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the Olin College of Engineering. He has taught computer science at Wellesley College, Colby College and U.C. Berkeley. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from U.C. Berkeley and Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from MIT.

But how can I tell if his book really does what Downey says it does? The answer is to use it to learn how to program in Python.

Here's what occurred to me.

The book has nineteen chapters. Each chapter is relatively short, maybe ten to fifteen pages per chapter, including glossary section and exercises. That doesn't seem like a lot of material, but looking at the table of contents, the book seems fairly comprehensive.

I could kill two birds with one stone: thoroughly read and practice with the book so I could write a good review, and learn to "think like a programmer" (at least marginally) and as a result, learn to program in Python. I could take a chapter a day (I'll explain this part in a minute) and see if, by the end of the book, I was where I wanted to be, not as a programming expert, but as a fairly competent "hobbyist."

So that's what I'll do. I'll write a blog post after I successfully read each chapter and perform the exercises it requires. That's nineteen blog posts or "my 19 days of Python" using Downey's book. Nineteen "chapters" on my blog to write a book review. What more could a publisher want?

As I go through each chapter, I'll post my responses, successes, frustrations, not only with the book but with the process of learning to change my thinking to adapt to "thinking Python." This is just the introduction. My next post in this series will be on my experiences with "Chapter 1: The Way of the Program."

Is Think Python really a different book? Is it the "magic text" that will teach a non-programmer like me to program? That's what I'm going to find out. That's what we'll find out together.

Wish me luck and come along for the ride.