> Would they think Python was stupid or would they be grateful that all of a sudden they could use a for loop?
Interesting question. My first language was (Common) Lisp. Not sure if it was a good or bad choice (wasn't a choice really, more of a coincidence), or if those terms even apply. Anyway, I'm fairly certain it took me much longer than necessary to get my first projects done (hint: some of them were never finished). I spent a lot of time trying to express my ideas in a functional style -- avoiding the loop macro, avoiding side-effects whenever possible etc. Slowly but surely drifting away from the actual problems I had set out to solve.
The feeling I got when I discovered Python is very accurately described in that xkcd comic which pops up in your browser when you type "import antigravity" in the interpreter. Then again, if Lisp was a detour on the path to becoming an "efficient and productive programmer", it was certainly a deeply interesting one which left me hungry for more -- I'm learning Haskell now (who isn't?) and am enjoying it immensely.
Since you're interested in both, one possibility would be to somehow combine your interest in music with your curiosity about programming (especially if you're into electronic music). Something like SuperCollider/Overtone or, if Python is your thing, maybe https://code.google.com/p/pyo/. You might not be able to rush through the docs at CodeAcademy-pace, but -- who knows where you'll end up? Also, having a project you're personally invested in (which is usually the case when music is involved) is incredibly helpful when learning new stuff; there is always something to do.
Denemo seems to offer more "direct" input methods for easily transcribing music. The program can listen to rhythms and pitches separately and combine them, rendering the result with Lilypond (or, at least, that was all I was able to figure out before the site went down). It seems like a neat, light-weight tool which one could preferably use when transcribing music. For serious typesetting, Frescobaldi, http://musescore.org/ or http://abjad.mbrsi.org/ are probably better choices. Anyway, it's great to see yet another application tapping into Lilypond. So much work and knowledge has gone into that project.
i think so too. like it says in the docs: "Regardless of the system you’re running on, you can instantiate all of these classes, since they don’t provide any operation that does system calls." http://docs.python.org/3.4/library/pathlib.html#pure-paths
I think Steven Pinker would agree: "...music is auditory cheesecake, an exquisite confection crafted to tickle the sensitive spots of at least six of our mental faculties" (How the Mind Works, p.534).
Interesting question. My first language was (Common) Lisp. Not sure if it was a good or bad choice (wasn't a choice really, more of a coincidence), or if those terms even apply. Anyway, I'm fairly certain it took me much longer than necessary to get my first projects done (hint: some of them were never finished). I spent a lot of time trying to express my ideas in a functional style -- avoiding the loop macro, avoiding side-effects whenever possible etc. Slowly but surely drifting away from the actual problems I had set out to solve.
The feeling I got when I discovered Python is very accurately described in that xkcd comic which pops up in your browser when you type "import antigravity" in the interpreter. Then again, if Lisp was a detour on the path to becoming an "efficient and productive programmer", it was certainly a deeply interesting one which left me hungry for more -- I'm learning Haskell now (who isn't?) and am enjoying it immensely.