3 questions about programming

[monkeymartin]

I am learning python. I have no programming experience.

what I want to do is program some simple scripts for my linux box. i all so want to make GUI's I was thinking of a simple mp3 player / media box. I am looking at pygame. I know freevo uses python and pygame

I picked python because I was a gentoo user and that is what a lot of getoo users recommended to me

1. Is python a good language for a non programmer?
2. what should I use for making GUI's something for a tv display (pygame osd etc)
3. Do you know of any good sites to get stated I have a book. I just want to keep it interesting

thanks

[toojays]

1) Python is a fine language to learn, whether or not you have previous programming experience.

2) You will need to investigate the options on your own, to find what best suits you. I have found wxWidgets to be quite good for GUI programming in Python, but I've never targeted a TV-based application.

I would suggest that you not tackle learning GUI programming until you are confident with the basics of programming in general.

3) My favourite introductory programming books are Programming in Emacs Lisp (http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-lisp-intro/emacs-lisp-intro.html) and Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/), but neither of these are concerned with Python or GUIs. They do both fit your criterea of "keeping it interesting" though. :)

A quick intro to wxWidgets, which you could look at after you finish your Python book, is the "Getting Started" document on the wxPython wiki. (http://wiki.wxpython.org/index.cgi/Getting_20Started)

[DirtDawg]

1) I agree with toojays. Python's a great language to start with.

2) Python comes with something called "Tkinter".

3) I learned a TON from "Learning Python". O'Rielly is the publisher and it really holds your hand through everything. I've found copies using Google's "Froogle" feature for three bucks.
Otherwise check out www.python.org for some great tutorials ("How to think like a computer scientist" comes to mind. Mostly based on Python).

[monkeymartin]

thanks for the help