Ian, i agree with you if the tasks for experimentation are kept small. and the experimenting is above all a lot of fun. people hang themselves in systems work by biting off more than they can chew.
writing a system from scratch can be a good learning experience, but it is rarely done in the world of professional programming. "piecing together code other people have written..." that is usually the shortest path to at least the first version of a large system and even a little one sometimes. also, one of the chief reasons OO came into existence was the desire to increase the amount of reuseable code in the world. but i think you have actually implied this in the last part of yr msg. the topic here is really about the situation of the beginning programmer and i think yr advice on it is very true and very valuable. thanks for taking part in the discussion. regards, tom ..... Faced with the possibility of its extinction, every species finds within itself powers unimaginable in the days of its complacency. They try to make the words of sounds and things their property and use them to divide us. But they will never own the words in our eyes. On 7/2/15, Ian Mallett <i...@geometrian.com> wrote: > ​Since this has turned into an advice thread . . . > > Having taught Python for several years, I find that the best way to learn > any language, but Python in particular, is to just sit down and try a lot > of things, without assistance. It sounds like you're trying to make a game. > That's great, but you shouldn't try to do that by piecing together code > other people have written. You will learn more by writing it all from > scratch. *After* you have done this, then you'll have a better idea of what > goes into making a game, what code is best reused, and what code is best > left outsourced to dedicated projects. >
