> > I'll grab the h1, h2s, all the links, the meta tags, and the HTTP response > code and throw them into a spreadsheet. >
Oh yeah there's excellent library support for that. You should check out Requests <http://docs.python-requests.org/en/latest/index.html> (for fetching the pages) and BeautifulSoup<http://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/>(for examining them). It sounds like you're exemplifying the virtues of a programmer<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Wall#Virtues_of_a_programmer>already. Have fun! On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 7:32 AM, Francis Storr <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all > > Thanks so much for the replies so far. I've bought the epub version of > Learning Python The Hard Way and have started to work through that. I'll > check out the Dummies book and see what that's like. > > As to why Python? Well, firstly, it's there and looks interesting. > Secondly I've heard Python has some nice data crunching tools and that's > something that interests me. For instance, for my job I frequently audit > the content of sites. On a per-page basis, I'll grab the h1, h2s, all the > links, the meta tags, and the HTTP response code and throw them into a > spreadsheet. It's tedious work, especially on a large site, so if I could > build a tool to extract that data for me, then that would be great. I also > occasionally have to trawl through search logs and they generally need a > good amount of cleaning up before I can start to analyze them. I could try > to use a mixture of grep and sed to do that, but why not try something else > that's probably easier? I'm also interested in what tools there might be to > help with analysis of that data. > > I think that's the gist of why Python :) > > Francis > > On Jun 28, 2012, at 10:32 PM, Matt Youell wrote: > > > Hi Francis! > > > > Why are you interested in Python vs. other languages? Is there some > specific programming task that you have in mind? Or particular > tools/frameworks? > > > > -- > > -/matt/- > > http://youell.com/matt > > > > > > > > On 6/28/12 2:51 PM, Francis Storr wrote: > >> Hi all > >> > >> First post here; I'm hoping for some advice to get me started with > Python. I'm a UX designer based in Portland. I started off on the web years > ago coding (lots of HTML + CSS, a smattering of JavaScript, and some PHP) > before changing tack and moving into design. For a while now I've wanted to > tinker with Python but don't know where the best place to start is. I've > had a look at beginner's books (I am definitely a book person) and there > isn't one that seems to stand out as being great. Is there one that is > better than the rest? I'm after something that's not written for the > hardcore programmer; something that will hold my hand nicely. Also, what > would be a better meet up for me to attend: the monthly meetup or the > monthly hack night? > >> > >> Thanks :) > >> > >> Francis > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Portland mailing list > >> [email protected] > >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/portland > >> > >> > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Portland mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/portland > > _______________________________________________ > Portland mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/portland > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/portland/attachments/20120629/96e53fba/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Portland mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/portland
