Fibonacci and Circles

The past week I didn't do too many exciting new things with programming. I basically just finished up the exercises in chapter 3. Most were easy. I enjoyed the Fibonacci sequence problem. However a little research online shows the Fibonacci sequence really starts 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 and not 1, 1, 2, 3, 5. I also had to look up the formula for the Fibonacci sequence. After knowing the formula, writing a program to find a specific number in the sequence was easy. I'm not however, entirely sure how to write the desired program starting the sequence at 0, 1, 1. I also have not given it too much thought. If you have the book, I still do not know how to solve exercise 15. Some day I'll revisit it and figure out how to write a for loop so that it alternates addition and subtraction.**

The new chapter discuses object-oriented programming and requires a free download of a graphics library graphics.py. It was rather easy to find and the instructions for downloading it and what folder to put it in were quite easy. Also Python includes something called Tkinter, but according to the book, it will teach principles of computer graphics that should help with more in depth GUI frameworks.

Thus far I have used the graphics.py library to draw circles, text, squares, and other shapes. Also starting to learn how to manipulate these objects. However the brain power to comprehend this change to writng GUI programs is a little more difficult. In my high school programming class over 10 years ago we only ever used C++ for very basic text based data programs. My current schedule only allows a little programming every day, so I'll let this new information soak in over night and get back at it tomorrow.

** I'm open to suggestions. So if you know the problem I'm talking about feel free to contact me or post what to do to solve it.

Busy...

It is nice to have a busy life. I really enjoy all the things I am doing. Even work can be nice to some extent depending on the job. I really like doing break/fix work on consumer electronics displays. It's the tedious work on other things I am not overly fond of. But I suppose no job can be perfect. Except cartooning. I always say my ideal job would be a cartoonist. I would have to have an idea, and some real skill first.

To summarize, I have not had an over abundance of time to learn programming this past week. That's not a bad idea, to update this on a certain day every week... Maybe I'll revisit that idea next week when I update this.

I did however finish chapter three in the Python Programming book. I am in the programming exercises at the close of the chapter. So far I did the first ten exercises. I really like how it seems to be teaching just one point in each chapter while still helping you to learn how that one area of Python can be used for different, sometimes practical, applications. Such as writing a program to calculate the cost of ordering coffee by the pound where the program user inputs how many pounds of coffee he or she wants.

Python seems to be a powerful programming language. I have not used any previous versions but the way the book explains, it seems Python 3.x has made some improvements over 2.x. So I am glad I don't have to relearn things. I suppose that will come later with Python 4, or whatever other language I want to tackle next.

Anyway, now I feel as this little robot does and am going to bed now so my brain can compile the input from today.

This is just a quick sketch on paper I scanned.

I should add I'm also kind of trying to learn how to use Manga Studio. That is a really intriguing program to use. Then maybe I can turn these sketches into professional looking pieces of art.

Back to the Keyboard

I took a bit of a hiatus from programming. In June I went for a week class in Ohio to increase my skills in teaching the Bible to people that are deaf. Then I visited friends in California for 10 days. It was a crazy month and I had few opportunities to study programming. So my few days using Codecademy.com has been my only attempts so far to learn how to use Python.

I did however get my two books and was able to read the first two chapters of the "Python Programming" book. It is very interesting and takes a slightly different approach to teaching than Codecademy. For example I noticed this has not used if or elif loops, but Codecademy used them fairly early. This early in my venture I have no idea which is a better way. I intend to use both for the time, especially since the book seems more in depth and Codecademy's purpose appears to give an introduction and overview of learning the languages it offers.

Another hindrance to learning is that I didn't have access to a real computer while I was away. Yes I had my iPad but I can't type on it. The absence of tactile feedback causes me to believe a touch screen keyboard will never replace a real keyboard.

I'm not sure when the pocket reference will come in handy, but I think it will be when I learn more things in Pyhon so I will know what I'm looking for in that book.

Finally I arrived home July 3rd after being on an overnight plane. Now I've had a few days to try out what I learned! Will explain when I have more time to write.