Beginning Stages of Python

Seeing that major companies have started using the computer
programming language Python, Dr. Piercy, Andrew Hayes, and
I thought that it would be appropriate to start blogging about
our experience with it. Dr. Piercy and Andrew have some
background in programming while me on the other hand is just
starting from scratch. Posts will be entered from both of us which will
allow you to get three perspectives on our journey with Python.

After careful research and reading, I have decided to learn
python from the book, "Beginning Python" by Peter Norton,
Alex Samuel, David Aietel, Eric Foster-Johnson, Leonard
Richardson, Jason Diamond, Aleatha Parker, and Michael
Roberts. At first glance, I wanted to use the book that the
website, http://www.blogger.com/www.python.org , endorsed but as I was reading through
it, I realized it was a little too technical. In the book, there were
not a lot of exercises to complete. With the book I chose, there are
activities along the way, while at the end of each chapter, there
are exercises to put your knowledge you just learned to the test. Also,
what I liked about this book is that you can obtain the chapters source
code from http://www.wrox.com/ , which is where you can also seek technical
help if your code is not working. All in all, we are excited to learn this
program because more companies are using it. The plan of attack is by
chapters.We will skip around some chapters because we don't think it is
necessary to learn.

TABLE OF CONTENTS OF BOOK

The link above is the table of contents for the book. When we post, we will indicate which
chapter we blogged about. Hope you enjoy this experience as much as we do.

SCHEDULE

Our tentative schedule is to go through two chapters a week. We will not be covering Chapter 13, 17. When we get into the advanced programming of Python, we will decide which Chapters are the most important to us based on the time left in the semester. Our goal is to allot time for us to work on a project using the Python language.