I have prepared a ~2 hour workshop on scapy, an interactive and scriptable network packet generator, based on python, which I can hold at the weekly meeting.
Would next tuesday be okay for all interested people? (If not object untill saturday)
To participate you'll need a notebook with a working python and scapy installation!
would you mind terribly waiting a week so I can update the meeting noticies on meetup and facebook and give people more advanced notice?
ok, then in two weeks
Cool! Can't wait. Except I should probably get started verifying that Python is actually working... (-:
Speaking of python... can you recommend any good books to get started? I can hack existing code, but that's just a matter of knowing how programmers think. A good decent project to work on Pyhton with would make life a lot easier[I learned PHP by installing Menalto Gallery for my wife...once it was up then I had something working I could poke around and break...just "learning" a language doesn't work well for me.]
I've been trying to hack something together that would manipulate images to insert text. It's been a pretty good excuse to dig in to at least one library as well as an opportunity to get comfortable with syntax and some python-y concepts. It hasn't been the fastest way to learn, per se, but in the few days I've been playing with it I've at least made something work.
Got any unimplemented Good Ideastm that you could use as an excuse? If so, I can give you the same 20min intro that codemonk gave me to get me started.
I would agree with thor, the best way to start with a language is to take a problem you have to solve anyway and solve it in the new language.
If you want to learn through a tutorial, a very good start is http://docs.python.org/tutorial/ it gives a good insight into the language, more then most useres actually need.
The docs in general are very usefull, once you have a general idea.
Yeah, but when every problem I can think of can be handled with PHP......
Though there is an email system which PHP just can't handle the mime-attachment and formatting[well, it could, but I'd have to write a lot of libraries wheras python has a bunch already]
For image manipulation, I use ImageMagick.... there are bindings to it in every language.
Oh, and obviously I didn't make it......a certain 6 year old just isn't up to it.
But then you could just do it in Python, for the challange. And for image stuff use PIL.
You definitely could write more in php but even doing your next imagemagick project in python is a good excuse to learn the language with the bonus of already knowing at least one library. I've had fun on several occasions implementing the same thing in multiple languages just to see how they 'feel' on that particular problem.
I suppose it would be important to know why you wanted to learn the new language. If it's just for the hell of it, you could replace your next bash script with a python script. It would obviously take longer but I'm sure you'd end up figuring out a lot about the assumptions that the language and community make.
If I wanted a challenge I'd dive into Java.... ***shudder***
As for why learn python, mainly because it seems to have become the most commonly installed scripting language around, embedded in everything, and since I setup and maintain my own EC2 servers, there are a lot of admin scripts written in it.
So it behooves me to learn it..
Between PonyExpress: https://github.com/tony-landis/PonyExpress and Lamson: http://lamsonproject.org/ there seems to be good coverage for the features I want in an email server[running mailling lists, discussion lists, campaigns. Automating open and click tracking, etc.] And since this is a project I've been wanting to work on for a while it would be a good fit[whenever I am between jobs and looking for work I always hate it when recruiters don't reply to me....so with open and click tracking I can tell when they looked at my email and if they were interested enough to go further.]
Wow, Lamson looks pretty cool. I might have to play with that.