Posts by lennys (70)

lennys June 28, 2024

"Introducing Python"...

So I'm reading through a new book called "Introducing Python" now. I've made it through to the start of chapter 5 so far, and it's done a good job of explaining the basics like the math operations, variable assignment etc. I picked up this book because after reading through the first 5 chapters in my other book "Fluent Python", I saw that I needed to do some more work on the fundamentals before going any further. Both of these book are from the same O'Reilly series of Python books, so they should complement each other pretty well (I hope). I'm not a beginner at this stage with this stuff, but I still need to do some work to understand fundamental principles better. Between this and the DataCamp stuff I'm doing, I'm spending several hours each workday on Python. Hopefully some of it will stick in my head.

lennys June 21, 2024

Frustration...and other things.

So I was just working on some Datacamp stuff. I quit because I got frustrated with it. I got frustrated with it because I couldn't figure out the answer and had to take a hint, which cost me experience points. The points themselves are meaningless except for my ego, so I shouldn't get upset over them but I do. I have trouble letting go sometimes. I've been banging my head against Python for a year now, and while I know I've made some progress I still don't feel like I have a solid understanding of it yet. And I have this book, "Fluent Python", which appears to have been written for people who are well-versed in other programming languages, know the lingo, and are coming to Python with a background that I don't have. It's all frustrating at times, but for some reason the points bother me more than anything else. I'm back at work after some vacation time away in Oregon. We had a weird incident yesterday with someone who wandered onto the property. He eventually left after being told that he couldn't be here. He didn't appear to be homeless but spent a couple of hours sleeping in his car in the parking lot. It's not the first time we've had someone randomly show up here, in the past it's been homeless people with mental issues but this time was different. I'm going to have to be more vigilant about who comes onto the property. I have two switches sitting in my cabinet on the floor that I need to rack and finish configuring. I've had them for a few weeks and haven't got around to doing anything with them yet, but I plan on using them to replace a couple of other switches that I do have racked and running right now. The two on the floor are a newer model and support SSH, whereas one of the racked switches I have doesn't, so it's going to go in the e-waste pile whenever I get around to it. I have an IPv4 block from ARIN that I'm not really using at the moment and I plan on reconfiguring all my Cisco gear to use it, so whenever I can get to it I'll be setting all that up. Hopefully I can find some time this coming Tuesday to work on it. Things are going pretty well overall, I have to say. I talked about this in therapy last week, and it didn't hit me until then that the last few months have been pretty okay. I think I'd gotten used to being stressed out all the time and so I carried tat feeling over into the time when I didn't really have anything to worry about. All my bills are paid, I have some money left over, I have a dependable vehicle and a roof over my head, etc. It's a big difference from years ago when everything was in flux. Used to be, I had a beat-up old car that didn't run very well, I was sharing a bedroom with someone I didn't get along with, and was working at a part-time job that was revolting much of the time. I've come a long way since then.

lennys June 02, 2024

A small update

Over the last few days, I've been reading through a long and extensive Python tutorial I found at python.org. It covered a lot of what I had seen before, but went into more depth than the other tutorials I've done and was a good use of my time. I have a better understanding of the complexities of the language now, and while I'm still a relative novice with this stuff I feel like I might be getting somewhere with it finally. This python.org tutorial was very different from the tutorial lessons I've done on datacamp.com - the interactive datacamp.com tutorials basically hold your hand while you work through them, to a point that I feel like I'm progressing through the lessons but not really understanding what I'm doing. The fill-in-the-blank lessons datacamp.com has aren't getting me where I want to go with this language. I bought another book, called "Fluent Python". I haven't started reading it yet other than the introduction, which is where I learned of the python.org tutorial. It's going to take me a long time to work through this book as it has over a thousand pages, so I'll be spending a little bit of time on it each workday for the next few months. I still don't feel like I am capable of writing good code from scratch. I can read and edit code others have written (I've been doing that for a while now), but coming up with useful code off the top of my head is still a major weak spot I have. Writer's block, I suppose. It makes me wonder if other people who have struggled to learn Python have dealt with the same thing. My vacation starts after I leave work tomorrow. I'm feeling a little burned out, so it is a welcome distraction but I think tomorrow is going to be a long day. I'm still planning on going to the gym after work, then going home and packing a bag. I'll be driving to Oregon early Tuesday morning, which should be a little fun. I hope the weather cooperates.

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