[nzlug] HBCLUG GNU/Linux Initiative - initial success!

[Andrew Errington]

On Sun, March 2, 2008 21:21, Simon Bridge wrote:
> Some people thinking along similar lines may find this interesting...
>
<snip>
> One of the students turns out to be a professional programmer. His
> company sells software rather than related things backed by software -
> which leads to discussions about different tools and licenses. Also about
> how Vista is doing quite well these days thank you... I don't know what
> he's doing on this course though.

Sounds like a plant.

>
> I'm going to chalk these first two events up as successes.
>
>
> Could use some pointers vis:
>
>
> * I don't know enough about Vista to talk abouts possible suspicious
> points - I concentrated on lock-in and licensing. (a la badvista.org)

Good for you.  I'd suggest you politely remind Vista-boy that "we're here
to talk about FOSS".  In other words, don't feed the troll.

<snip>
> There are more experienced folk about - what's good for someone who just
> wants to potter around?

Python.  No question.  It's great for 'pottering around', and with the
interactive environment you get immediate feedback.  Not only that, Python
is a serious, powerful and full-featured language, so any learning is
immediately useful for other things.

I recommend the book "Dive into Python" by Mark Pilgrim.  It's well
written, and you could use it as a syllabus for your own course, or indeed
just present one chapter each time.  The content can be viewed online or
downloaded for free at:

http://www.diveintopython.org/

For GUI stuff I recommend wxPython (Python bindings for the cross-platform
wxWidgets library), and to make GUI development easier the Boa Constructor
IDE.  I wouldn't recommend Boa Constructor for beginners, but it's
something you can move up to when the need arises.

Just my $0.02

Andrew