Ask HN: What's after learn python the hard way? too easy.

6 points by willpower101 14 years ago | 6 comments

I started on 'learn python the hard way' and I'm blowing through 5-10 lessons a day. What's next step that will really teach me to build a web app?

Before I switched majors to digital media (facepalm) I covered in C++ vectors, pointers, arrays, loops, constructors, strings, classes, recursion, various C functions, as well as basic data structures and algorithms that I can't quite remember. So this is all pretty basic review, just in a different language. (and after C it feels like I'm cheating, lol.)

What's going to be a lot more intense and teach me the type of data structures that I need to learn in order to produce web applications?

Is there an online resource that goes through your first big app like lpthw does with basics?

andymoe 14 years ago |

Do. Next is to come up with a web app and build it! Come up with a "simple" idea. Write out a spec or outline. Pick some small WSGI based tools like Flask or web.py or something else that strikes your fancy (Not anything monolithic and huge like Django) and find out where on IRC people who use this tool hang out. Hit a problem, ask someone or google. Rinse and repeat...

Oh and finish LPTHW because Zed gets into the basics of a web app near the end and thats a fine start.

khakimov 14 years ago | |

nice catch, Flask is amazing and easy to start ;) Flask skeleton for Google App Engine here https://github.com/blossom/flask-gae-skeleton

khakimov 14 years ago |

nothing new, the easiest way to learn a programming language is to first learn the basics and then try to build something with it (learn by practice). And it's better if you are building something you are actually interested in rather than something out of a book because it will get you to think about the problem and be more meaningful.

Start with simple idea. For example scrap instagram images trought their api and create wallpaper from 80 images (10x8 small thumbs 150x150 size each). Similar idea would get into basics of language like string manipulation, url fetch, handling exceptions, etc. For this stage all you need is diveintopython.com and stackoverflow.com (google.com).

willpower101 14 years ago |

Thanks for the advice, I've several small projects I think I could start out with. Django definitely looks like a good next step.

Looking at the resources available I wonder, should I be learning RUBY instead?

twog 14 years ago |

I would recommend working your way through http://thedjangobook.com, which will allow you to make practical web applications

trip42 14 years ago |

Check out Pyramid, it's full featured but with a little less "magic" than Django. Though, Django is great for rapid development of content based sites.