> -----Original Message----- > From: D. Hartley [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Art, > > So Python was your foundation for exploring Java - Can I ask, by what > route? I began with Python, but lately have been exploring Jython as a > way to make use of Java libraries and so on while writing in Python > (with the option of eventually learning actual Java code--or not!), so > your post on the edu-sig list intrigued me.
Well I also started into Java via Jython (it was JPython then - I always seem to be putting myself in the "old man" role but even if I were a younger man, I still feel like an "old man" of the Python community - I have been causing trouble in it for a decent number of years by now. But there are plenty of older men yet, within it - though most are younger than I.) I was particularly interested in getting at some of the 3d and GUI stuff available as Java libraries. One watershed for me was in exploring Java3d via Jython I ran into something that I couldn't get past, and by a fairly close analysis and boiling the issue down to its most basic manifestation I was able to conclude with some confidence that what I was running into was actually a bug in Jython, and was then able to report it to the Jython developers in a fairly concise manner. Probably the first time I was able to convince myself that I was at some level "getting it". Turns out that in the thousands of line of Jython code, somewhere a ">" should have been a ">=". *That* I would have never found. But was impressed that someone did, and the fact that that missing character manifested itself in the way that it did help teach me something else important about programming. But doing 3d stuff, I went further into Java so that I would be able to do directly in Java some of the more intensive stuff, and gain performance. One key learning project I undertook which taught me something of Java, more of Python, and a good deal about NumPy was a port I did of the Java3d javax matrix/vector library to Python and NumPy. I forgot why. Probably if I knew more I wouldn't have done it. But I certainly knew I was involved in a good learning experience, and was creating those kinds of experiences for myself as I could find them or think them up. Porting from and to Python and Java helped me better understand both, their similarities, and their differences. Good stuff. When VPython (a C++ library) came along a good deal of what I was doing with Jython and Java was mooted. What I was really looking for, or to create, in Jython and Java was in fact something amazingly like VPython. Though it never would have been as good as VPython. With VPython on the scene I have occasionally needed to try to get at least some idea of C++ so that I could understand that code to the extent I needed to. Which is the extent of my C++ expertise. I did accomplish something concrete. Found that "mag2" - the squared length of a VPython vector - was often being first calculated, and then the square root of mag2 was being exposed through the API to Python as "mag". And I often would be needing primarily its square - back to mag2, which was not exposed. So I did a patch that was accepted that exposed mag2 directly, and avoided taking its square root in C++ and squaring it in Python. But that's all a lot to try to fit on my tombstone. Art _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
