About

This is about the blog minimumViablePython.

Q. How did you get started on this?

A. Well, it was a couple of things. Of course, Python IS ‘the other’ data science language for anyone using R.

I heard someone say, “You know, it’s easy to read a giant ‘geojson’ file with python, and it just goes into a dictionary. Very handy’

A college classmate said ‘you know, I always used Basic in DOS, and in the last Windows update, I don’t seem to be able to do that anymore. Any recommendations?’ After the topic was batted about a bit by a computer science prof, and one of the original documentation workers on Lotus, and myself, our classmate went with python. I recommended Will Vincent’s blog as a way to set it up, and soon the classmate was writing random walk generation code. Because, of course!

Plus, I’ve always liked the name Django, and someone I know named her dog Django, after famous jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. So I had already started humming and strumming.

Then one day I looked over at my bookshelf, and there was David Beasley’s book “Python Essentials 4th edition”, a solid 600 pages. I got that book when I was first interested in Python, only to discover the language was in transition from version 2 to version 3, and so … “it’s complicated”. I guess I must have set it aside at the time. But today I wondered. Is there a 5th edition?

So, on Amazon I found “there’s a newer version of his” O-KAY! And … 🍸😹 there was a martini on the cover of Python Distilled.

The book arrived the next day, and I read a little bit of each chapter, including the very promising-looking Chapter 6, on generators. What’s that? Something I had not seen. Fortunately this book is only 300 pages. I read it. One of the things I noticed was that … TK

Q. Is this only about Python A. No

Danger Zone (post idea)

Top Gun is run by beginners. Have you ever seen the movie Top Gun?

So it looks like I’m about to learn computer language with one of the longer names I’ve encountered. (When I wrote this I was talking about Python, but have picked up another one since: Dart/Flutter)

Ok, don’t think I ever did write any 68000 code

Basic
FORTH

But before that … - PL/1 - MIX - SNOBOL (ok, that is the same length & even if it were shorter it would tend to snowball)

6502
6809
8086
68000
32010

Ruby
HTML
CSS
Obj- C

Java
Ant
PHP
Tkl/TK

R
Swift
Powershell — okay, a longer name than python!
… Python!

It was a long time ago, but … a good year nonetheless.

A year in rowing

--- title: "About" image: profileKF.png about: template: trestles --- This is `about` the blog `minimumViablePython`. ```{=html}  ``` Q. How did you get started on this? A. Well, it was a couple of things. Of course, Python IS 'the other' data science language for anyone using R. I heard someone say, "You know, it's easy to read a giant 'geojson' file with python, and it just goes into a dictionary. Very handy' A college classmate said 'you know, I always used Basic in DOS, and in the last Windows update, I don't seem to be able to do that anymore. Any recommendations?' After the topic was batted about a bit by a computer science prof, and one of the original documentation workers on Lotus, and myself, our classmate went with python. I recommended [Will Vincent's blog](http://wsvincent.com/install-python/) as a way to set it up, and soon the classmate was writing random walk generation code. Because, of course! Plus, I've always liked the name Django, and someone I know named her dog Django, after famous jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. So I had already started humming and strumming. Then one day I looked over at my bookshelf, and there was David Beasley's book "Python Essentials 4th edition", a solid 600 pages. I got that book when I was first interested in Python, only to discover the language was in transition from version 2 to version 3, and so ... "it's complicated". I guess I must have set it aside at the time. But today I wondered. Is there a 5th edition? So, on Amazon I found "there's a newer version of his" O-KAY! And ... 🍸😹 there was a martini on the cover of Python Distilled. The book arrived the next day, and I read a little bit of each chapter, including the very promising-looking Chapter 6, on generators. What's that? Something I had not seen. Fortunately *this* book is only 300 pages. I read it. One of the things I noticed was that ... TK Q. Is this only about Python A. No ::: callout-warning ## Danger Zone (post idea) Top Gun is run by beginners. Have you ever seen the movie Top Gun? ::: ### About So it looks like I'm about to learn computer language with one of the longer names I've encountered. (When I wrote this I was talking about Python, but have picked up another one since: Dart/Flutter) ::: panel-tabset ## Dawn of time - Basic - FORTH ## In school But before that ... - PL/1 - MIX - SNOBOL (ok, that is the same length & even if it were shorter it would tend to snowball) ## A bunch of numbered languages! - 6502 - 6809 - 8086 - 68000 [Ok, don't think I ever did write any 68000 code]{.aside} - 32010 ## Letter grades - C - C++ - AWK ## The web! - Ruby - HTML - CSS - Obj- C ## Java time - Java - Ant - PHP - Tkl/TK ## Today - R - Swift - Powershell --- okay, a longer name than python! - ... Python! ::: It was a long time ago, but ... a good year nonetheless. [A year in rowing](https://web.archive.org/web/20001209084300/http://thedailychannel.com/adventure/row94.html)