Why learning Python is a good thing

Lately I've been addicted to learning "Python" from CodeCademy -  https://www.codecademy.com/catalog/language/python - to form a habit you have to do something daily for around 3 weeks, but as I'm already on my 10 days streak ; I know that I'm doing myself a favor.

It feels good to have a daily little challenge and while I'm not too fond of "sudoku" - I like to flex my old knowledge of developing language - after all I used to know Turbo Pascal, Turbo Basic, and Turbo C++, and had some java experiences too ; I always felt that in  order to know about computers I had to learn how to program.

why Python?

The fun thing about programming language, is that it almost always involve endless arguments like "language X is the best because this or that" and my first experience with programming started with Gw-basic (and everyone would agree that it was the worst programming language).
But those discussions are really trivial - the important thing is To code.

Python is attractive because it's pre-installed on OS X and Linux (although the version might differ greatly) - it can run interactively through the terminal or can run files and frankly can handle pretty complex project (myPaint if I'm not mistaken is written in Python).

what benefits?

Spending 5 to 10mn each day solving puzzles on codeCademy is fun,  giving me a nice feeling of achievement to start the day and in the long run - it feels good to realize that I've made progress and can now write simple  Python scripts.

CodeCademy is a great website to track efforts, and to motivate people to continue.

Incidentally 2 stories lately picked my interests - one was about a generous developer who offered a homeless guy a challenge and the second was the interview of CodeCademy creator Zach Sims by Stephen Colbert - these 2 success stories revolve around the passion for coding.


Another thing inspires me and that's making a game - (maybe involving a call-centre simulation?)

Why you shouldn’t make a game (or, why you should make a visual novel) | Kinetic Literature: Answer: probably not good game developers willing to work for free. ”Developer” tends to be a profession with relatively high demand, and a correspondingly high market value. $50 per hour is on the low end of what you can expect to pay a freelance developer. Similarly, good artists expect to be paid for their work. When it comes to art, there’s a wider spectrum “acceptable” qualities (and prices to go with them), to get a good idea of what’s available, browse around the Deviant Art jobs forum.

But that would be in the long long run...