Zed Shaw is Writing A Book Teaching Beginner Python

http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1272132621.html

by sverrejoh • 16 years ago

179 95 16 years ago

callahad2• 16 years ago

I suggest reading the nascent PDF that he's posted, it's very good in some ways, less good in others, but if Zed keeps it up and is willing to have others help shape his voice, then this could end up as a very valuable project.

zedshaw12• 16 years ago

I'd like to know what you think is less good.

callahad2• 16 years ago

The items on my "less good" list are admittedly subjective, but might be worth considering as you continue to develop the text. And in this case, I mean "less good" as "not bad, but not yet great."

For instance, should you be using printf style formatting when string.format is is available by default in 2.6, Snow Leopard's default python?

A weaker argument could be made for importing print_function from __future__, but I don't believe the added complexity is worth it, even if it eliminates a special case.

In Exercise 0, you might want to stipulate a python version, since some intrepid readers will search out the "latest and greatest" python, and they will download 3.x unless explicitly told otherwise.

Beyond that, I think some of your prose could be improved. For instance, "Notice I use a text editor called vim. You shouldn’t use it, it’s too hard to use for you right now." may be a bit off-putting to someone completely new.

The statement after your listing, however, is perfect:

"If a programmer tells you to use vim or emacs tell them no. These editors are for when you are a better programmer. All you need right now is an editor that lets you put text into a file."

ivenkys• 16 years ago

From the book: "You might not really learn “programming” from this book, but you will learn the foundation skills you need to start learning the language. "

This is good. There is a place for books like these.

If nothing else, he is at least following-up his "DiveIntoPython is crap" words with concrete action.

pavelludiq• 16 years ago

Mr. Shaw, i am once again impressed. This is not the first time I've seen Zed Shaw rant about something he dislikes and then goes off and attempts to fix it.

zedshaw12• 16 years ago

Thank you. Even though I complain about things, if I think I can fix it I usually do.

projectileboy• 16 years ago

Agreed. I've whinged about Zed's whinging in the past, but it's another thing to create something. Kudos to Mr. Shaw.

anujseth• 16 years ago

I could have called this yesterday, after the spat on twitter, that he's going to write one. Soldier on Zed.

theBobMcCormick• 16 years ago

So is that why he was trashing Dive Into Python? Trying to discredit the competition?

kingkilr2• 16 years ago

No he trashed DiP first, and then was inspired to work on something better. I'm not thrilled with the way he expressed his dislike for DiP, but good on him for working on an alternative.

rikthevik• 16 years ago

I agree. There's not many people who put their money where their mouth is. Regardless of how people feel about him personally, he's a very talented coder and has a lot of experience in this domain. I'm excited to see where this goes.

steveklabnik5• 16 years ago

Get the story from the horse's mouth: http://oppugn.us/posts/1272050135.html

ern• 16 years ago

I decided to learn Python recently, and I ran into "Dive Into Python" as a recommended resource (I think I Googled "Python book"), and it almost did put me off the language. It's not really the author's fault, it is the fault of those who recommend it.

pgbovine• 16 years ago

skimming thru it now, pretty amusing in parts ... from the beginning of chapter 5:

Every programming language has some kind of way of doing numbers and math. Don’t worry, programmers lie frequently about being math geniuses when they really aren’t. If they were math geniuses, they would be doing math not writing ads and social network games to steal people’s money.

jokes aside, this could serve as a good syllabus for giving classroom Python tutorials for absolute beginners

grandalf• 16 years ago

This is pretty darn good. I would probably do it a bit differently but I think he's off to a very good start.

I think an example like:

print "hi there", "how are you"

with a brief explanation of the argument structure of print would be helpful.

This makes me want to write a tutorial.

Avshalom• 16 years ago

I like the idea, though I know enough python that it's not for me.

The design/typography kinda sucks though, of course even Zed has pointed out how hard it is make a good looking code book.

fretlessjazz• 16 years ago

"If a programmer tells you to use vim or emacs tell them no. These editors are for when you are a better programmer. All you need right now is an editor that lets you put text into a file."

Ha! When I started to program, everyone told me the opposite. After weeks of head scratching and spending more time learning editors than coding, I secretly switched to Pico. But man could I use the hell out of Pico.

phren0logy• 16 years ago

This is exactly why I have such a soft spot in my heart for TextMate. I used it like Notepad until I knew what I was doing, and although I'm far from an expert I'm still pulling new tricks out of it.

I'm sure there are other, similar options but TextMate has been good to me.

steveklabnik5• 16 years ago

I'm a huge vim advocate, but you're spot on. It's like giving a high powered rifle to a new recruit.

Get used to programming first, then use better tools.

zedshaw12• 16 years ago

I'm actually looking for a simple editor that works on all platforms, doesn't look totally like ass, and is easy to use. I'll then change things up so people just install that. Basically a GUI cross platform pico would be perfect.

nfnaaron• 16 years ago

evim (vim in -y easy mode) is cross platform and simple (as I mentioned in an email I just sent to you).

isthisaquestion• 16 years ago

gedit is cross-platform and pretty easy to use. I never tried the windows port though. It doesn't look totally native on OSX but it's not bad.

frio• 16 years ago

There's TextMate on Mac, and e-texteditor for Windows (which is a port of TextMate)... but that leaves Linux high and dry until the developers finish porting it there too. It requires cygwin under Windows too :/.

Other than that, there's SciTE, which is quite nice. Notepad++ on Windows is a derivative thereof.

grncdr• 16 years ago

I second gedit, just installed it on my Mac, and it doesn't look like complete ass. (It does however use GTK for file open dialogs etc. so that might put other people off?)

Flow• 16 years ago

Won't Idle work for that?

jules• 16 years ago

I recommend Scite. It has syntax highlighting and runs the program and displays output when you press F5, and the UI is very similar to notepad.

earcar• 16 years ago

What about Komodo Edit? http://www.activestate.com/komodo_edit/

bcl2• 16 years ago

gvim

no, really.

The basic vim commands are easy. As with python you can ignore the more advanced topics until you are ready to take advantage of them. It has a GUI interface so users used to pointing and clicking will feel comfortable.

bwh2• 16 years ago

Wing IDE 101 might work: http://www.wingware.com/wingide-101

code_duck• 16 years ago

I agree, vim is overwhelming at first. It simply does not work like a new user expects... i.e., you can just start typing and using arrow keys.

Nano is much more straightforward.

What these people should really be using, though, is Kate on Linux, or Notepad++ in Windows. I gather that Textmate is the equivalent for Macs, but I've never used that personally.

Syntax highlighting and a multiple document interface goes a long way.

stcredzero• 16 years ago

What I've found is that the best thing for learning programming is something that can run programs, and example programs to run and debug. That's been true ever since I started playing with BASIC on the Apple II. I've also found that dynamic languages are better, since they provide immediate feedback.

terra_t• 16 years ago

zed's dead baby

pesho• 16 years ago

whose motorcycle is this?

rabidgnat• 16 years ago

Before now, I assumed that teaching programming meant giving exercises where students figure out how to piece together the fundamentals of programming languages, and then try to build them up to harder programs. After reading through Zed's PDF, I realize I may have been wrong! If you let people absorb ideas by typing existing programs, they won't need to be taught how to decompose ideas, they'll try new things themselves. To teach game programming, you don't need to teach every single fundamental and build the user up to making a full fledged game. You just need to get them to install PyGame and draw a rectangle that they can move with the keyboard arrows, and tell them where the documentation is. Anyone who is really interested will do the rest themselves.

d0m• 16 years ago

From my experience, the coolest thing to do when beginning is to work with a GUI because you really have the feeling to do something great (contrary to print hello in a terminal which is more than useless (from a novice point of view, of course)).

So, my suggestion is to put a small bundle library with a main.py to modify and learn. For instance, that library could only show a simple dialog which you can draw and fun with it.

And the exercice might be more about: - Print the current time in this GUI (which might be useful) - Create a small game (such as guess the number, lower/bigger), - Generate a close-me button that move when you try to aim on it.

Etc.. you get the point: easy and fun exercises.

Finally, there are software which abstract the terminal and merge the editing window with the interpreter. I think this might be way better than saying: try to find the terminal, learn to create a directory, etc.. Why not creating the directory directly from the explorer if the user wants to? More particularly, when you start learning something, everything is new. So it's important to separate the concept of what you should know and what you are supposed to learn. So by this respect, creating a directory shouldn't be part of the same as creating a .py file and writing something in edit for instance.

That's my 2 cents. Good luck and have fun with that :-D

cdr• 16 years ago

Python For Software Design (nee Think Python) does exactly that with its "TurtleWorld" library, and I think it's a pretty great book.

what• 16 years ago

re: doing something less "useless"

Interesting idea. Each lesson you could learn something and apply it to incrementally build an "interesting" program. In the end you have learned the language and have actually created something.

steveklabnik5• 16 years ago

Sounds like you need to check out Ruby and Shoes.

zedshaw12• 16 years ago

While I admire the desire to immediately get a new programmer productive and into the industry where they can be a useful member of society, what you suggest would be for much later in their learning.

iamdave• 16 years ago

This is the way absolutely every book that aims to teach people a language should be written. When Ruby on Rails hit it big, I picked up two books and couldn't get past the first two chapters.

Why?

The first two chapters were filler chapters. The history of ruby, the history of taking application languages and putting them on the web. An entire quarter of the book in pages was full of back-story, it was chapter 4 before I even saw any code, and chapter 6 before the actual instruction even began.

I will certainly buy this book, and if Zed produces any more about other programming languages in this format, I'm buying them too.

DannoHung• 16 years ago

Okay, but why were you trying to learn Ruby from a book about a web programming framework for Ruby?

Did you try reading the PickAxe or Why's Poignant Guide?

Pistos2• 16 years ago

He didn't say he was specifically trying to learn Ruby.

zedshaw12• 16 years ago

Thank you, I hope it works out that way. I may do other books, especially since this is turning out to be easy enough to do. First though I need to write this one.

simonista2• 16 years ago

It would be really interesting to sit someone down who is fairly comfortable surfing the web, answering emails, using iphoto or microsoft word, but who has never had any experience programming before, and see where they trip up and where they are bored in working through this.

I know a few people I might be able to talk into it. If I do, I'll report back.

zedshaw12• 16 years ago

If you do, take notes, and let me know every part they have a problem with. Usually there's some "magic word" or missing bit they didn't know, or that exercise is just total crap.

simonista2• 16 years ago

My brother agreed to try it once school is out in a couple weeks. I think he's a pretty good candidate: computer savvy and uses a mac, is interested in what I do but has never tried to learn it before. I'll definitely take notes and pass them along.

motter• 16 years ago

I'd like to hear his opinion on "How to Think Like a Computer Scientist", which (approximately) matches his description of a beginner's book, and uses python for the examples.

http://openbookproject.net/thinkcs/python/english2e/

zedshaw12• 16 years ago

I think it's great. It will be in the list of books to read next for sure, especially since it's free.

sigzero• 16 years ago

MIT uses "How to think..." for their intro to compsci course. They speak highly of it.

swaroop• 16 years ago

Zed, I've written a beginner's book called 'A Byte of Python', and I'd like to know your opinion about it - http://www.swaroopch.com/notes/Python

FWIW, the background is that it has been under a Creative Commons license since 2004, it has had about half a million downloads/readers (guesstimate, of course), is used as a text book for introductory programming courses in at least 8 universities worldwide, and has been translated to at least 5-6 languages by volunteers.

jpwagner• 16 years ago

Search online for all of the Python format characters. - page 16

Awesome! Not your usual textbook exercise.

chbarts3• 16 years ago

> Not your usual textbook exercise.

Textbooks do seem to exist as if the Internet weren't usable, don't they? At most they seem to have a few URLs to the publisher's and author's websites. It's actually kind of sad, as if textbook authors didn't trust themselves to outdo what people can find online. Zed does not seem to have that problem.

bslatkin• 16 years ago

Go for it, Zed!

heresy• 16 years ago

Look forward to seeing where this goes.

My girlfriend asked me to teach her Python - she's doing her masters in statistics, so she's coming from an R/SAS background.

Apparently Python is useful to know in the investment banking arena, which surprised me.

zedshaw12• 16 years ago

Yes, the SEC has recently suggested that all banks encode their financial calculations in Python.

But, tell your girlfriend that if she ends up working for a bank I will cry and take my book away from her. :-)

tel• 16 years ago

I love this style. Notably: "if X doesn't look like Y, something broke. Figure out why."

Nothing is more important in learning any task than learning how to keep learning, and holding someone's hand too tightly might keep them from trying. Sink or swim.

Great start, Zed.

jcdreads• 16 years ago

Had I had this book when I was ten or eleven I think I would have been the happiest ten-or-eleven-year-old in the entire world. Like many technical things, programming is typically either self-taught or taught horribly; this seems like a completely reasonable attempt to do it right.

Especially since every kid these days knows how to look stuff up online, but almost no adults know how to teach them how to program from scratch.

petercooper2• 16 years ago

FWIW, the concept of getting people programming ASAP in order to learn has been sort of poo-pooed by findings in the ACM:

http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/45725-how-we-teach-intro...

I'm on the fence. I see the music-style logic to picking things up and working on the practical stuff right away, but, hey, studies are studies.

codyrobbins• 16 years ago

Wow, thanks for posting that link. I’m really glad the ‘learning by doing’ methodology is under some scrutiny, because it’s not the way I learn at all. For what it’s worth, if I had come across the draft of Zed’s book when I was first learning to program, I suspect I would have hated it, very quickly gotten bored, and dropped it in favor of something else. I can’t stand being presented with the absolute minimal amount of explanation required for something. Glossing over the details is the quickest way to lose my interest. I need a complete, in-depth explanation, even if I don’t necessarily understand it all at first; I will come back later and re-read parts because I know exactly where the explanation was.

Another thing that I think would have especially bothered me about this book is that there are exercise upon exercise without answers. I remember being in algebra class in high school and hating that the book didn’t provide an answer to every single exercise; without an answer, doing the exercises was almost completely useless to me because I had no idea whether I had solved them correctly.

Hacking away at something until it works with minimal explanation is certainly one way to learn, but when I’m first learning something, as a novice, that particular methodology just makes me frustrated and angry. I could go into my garage and fiddle with my car’s engine for weeks on end trying to figure out how things work, but that seems like a largely inefficient way to go about learning. There are people who know how a car engine works that can communicate their knowledge to me—after all, isn’t that the whole point of instruction and education: somebody has already figured it out, and they can explain it to you quicker than it takes for you to figure it out yourself.

This isn’t to say I can’t now hack away at something in the dark and probe it to figure out how it works—I suspect that’s a necessary skill for being a good programmer. But learning how to program initially through such a method would not have been ideal for me.

That being said, I think there’s still a lot to be said about the straightforward, practical programming advice Zed throws out. In particular his explanation about the importance of noticing minor differences is really awesome. Obviously people have different personal learning styles, and I suspect this book is geared to those who learn like Zed, so I don’t doubt it would be valuable to those people. I definitely don’t learn like this, though, and I just wanted to point that out.

zedshaw12• 16 years ago

You already think like a programmer, probably you were either born or raised that way. For example, you already have an attention to detail which is why you demand solid details about every possible thing before you feel as if you understand it.

I actually learn some things like you, but I had to learn to not learn this way when I started studying music. There's actually a lot of things you just cannot learn by first having all the details. Insisting that everything be presented this way will prevent you from learning a vast array of topics that require an intuitive artistic sense or require non-verbal expression.

I would say that if you read this book as a beginner and found it boring then you should move on to the books I'll mention as the next books to read. I would also say that you should try a few other ways to learn something. It'd do you some good to learn something without having to completely explain it first.

zedshaw12• 16 years ago

Funny, you read that as saying, "Zed's wrong." I read it as, I may be right. For example:

> no one challenges KSC on the basic premise, that putting introductory students in the position of discovering information for themselves is a bad idea!

The article doesn't say, "Don't get programmers studying code right away." It also doesn't say they shouldn't work on problems.

It says that the constructivist approach to teaching by giving students very little direction on complex problems right way isn't effective. Instead the direct instruction method of having them work on directed problems to build initial capabilities is more effective.

This has been the position of the direct instruction school of education for a while now. In fact, if you actually RTFA they mention that the constructivist model of is the failing. If you then read the linked articles you'll find the same thing.

Not a single thing in that linked article supports what you've stated.

petercooper2• 16 years ago

Not a single thing in that linked article supports what you've stated.

I stated: "the concept of getting people programming ASAP in order to learn has been sort of poo-pooed". This is based on the article stating that programming "is a bad way to start" and "expecting students to program as a way of learning programming is an ineffective way to teach."

Funny, you read that as saying, "Zed's wrong."

Why would I have? That would be a meaningless and uninformed judgement. The effectiveness of the techniques is the interesting part. My observation - accurate or not - that the article "poo-poos" a technique is not to say that the technique is "wrong" as linking to an article says little of my opinion, which I stated as being "on the fence."

_b8r0• 16 years ago

Interesting. Having read the PDF I think this could do well. I did think that it was unfairly skewed toward Macs. I know Zed mentioned in the PDF that later versions would be more Windows/Linux friendly - I guess there's just a need to try to keep things as agnostic as possible to minimise the effort. I'd be happy to help with the Windows side where I can if there's alternative stuff that needs writing for what is likely to be the majority of users.

It might also be worth considering using PyGame later on if there's an interest in creating more visual programs. I know that it's important to maintain the interest of people, that's why a lot of the awesome 80s type and run books would include graphical programs. Again, I'm happy to contribute where I can.

gastlygem• 16 years ago

Chapter 10.2 -- "False or True" should be "True" I think..

overgard• 16 years ago

I really like this idea of learning things the "hard" way, of doing something and then figuring out why without a lot of handholding. I think it works for beginners, but it also works equally well for experts -- for instance if I'm learning a new language I'd rather just do something and figure out why it's acting in the way it is, rather than read through a chapter explaining it.

brianjherman• 16 years ago

Can he make a mean, dirty, nasty version? Like the former blog. I miss the angry in your face Zed Shaw.

bcl2• 16 years ago

Post the Sphinx source to github so we can start submitting patches.

migiale• 16 years ago

Hi,

There's a long tradition in ex-USSR math schools and math department of "teaching by doing", or by solving to be more precise. And I think it gives superior results given talented and motivated students. have you ever seen this book?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Algorithms-Programming-Undergraduate...

it would be really cool to have a book of the same level for python.

Kilimanjaro• 16 years ago

Easy read, I'd use it if I were learning python.

Now to the critics:

- Change the book title. If I see it on a shelf I wouldn't pick it. "Easy Python", "Python: First Steps", "Become a Pythonista" or something more approachable to the unwashed.

- PDF sucks for online reading. Big time. Make it one huge html file, no page breaks, no headers and footers on every page, it sucks. Epub may be a good choice but I rather use one single html file.

Good work!

chbarts3• 16 years ago

> Make it one huge html file

Make this one option. The other option should be one HTML file per chapter (or subchapter, or thereabouts) for the people who want to use the browser's bookmark functionality to pick up where they left off.

> no headers and footers on every page

Footnotes, OTOH, are fine if you make them links in both directions (to the note and back to the body text). Both HTML and PDF can do this, and it makes it so much less of a pain in the ass to actually read the things when you know you won't get lost.

cracki2• 16 years ago

i see some strange things in the truth tables.

first, the left and right operands are ordered differently. on second glance, this smells like gray code, so only one operand changes to the next line. nevermind my reaction here.

then, the NOT AND table contradicts what python evaluates the forms to.

cracki2• 16 years ago

uh, after revisiting the tables in the PDF, i understand the situation better.

the NAND and NOR tables don't follow the same evaluation scheme.

the NOR table is "(not A) or B", which is according to python's precedence rules without parentheses.

the NAND table is "not (A and B)", which matches the common definition of NAND.

julio_the_squid2• 16 years ago

A lot of people mention Dive into Python. I'm curious, what are the opinions out there regarding this online Python book?

http://homepage.mac.com/s_lott/books/python.html

giardini• 16 years ago

re Section 10.2: I'd suggest defining operator precedence rather than asking the programmer to, for example, memorize tables of logical operations.

dotandimet• 16 years ago

The first example print statements in Zed's book have backticks (`foo`). I don't know Python, but I'm guessing those should be single ticks ('foo')?

Estragon• 16 years ago

Not in the rendering I see.

But backticks are valid python syntax, but relatively unused, these days. The contents of backticks are evaluated, and the result is returned as a string representation.

  >>> `1+1`
  '2'

DarwinLann• 16 years ago

I have to admit that I find Zed's comments about DiP to be spot on. I hate saying that, because I actually have a favorable opinion of both Mark Pilgrim and his blog.

leed25d• 16 years ago

I think that David Beazley's "Essential Python" is the best introduction to Python that I have seen.

Chuuwudo• 16 years ago

I looked through what he has written so far and it seems to be really nice. I might give it a try as I have no experience in Python (my only programming experience is writing simple Bash and PowerShell scripts). I do, however, wish he had made it available in HTML as well as PDF.

Zed Shaw is Writing A Book Teaching Beginner Python

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