Wow...this place has changed...

[Mgalekgolo]

Ugh... Math... Hurt... brainnnnnn

[BRIMSTONE]

It does integer division if you only use integers. For example, 4 / 3 = 1, but 4.0 / 3.0 produces a floating-point 1.33333333333.. and 4 / 3.0 or 4.0 / 3 produces that floating-point as well.

Huh. So its only specific to integers, and not all mathematical formulas. Thats really helpful actually...my lesson thingy probably will go over that, but, im new at this so it probably left it out.

Side note: I have been officially introduced to "Hello, world!", and made my first freakishly simple program. I know its just a print greeting, but still...better than three days ago.

I've been told by conflicting sources that Python is suitable for creating applications, and another who said it isn't. (To which I replied wouldn't any high level language be able to write an application?), from what I understand, a high level language is put through a compiler or an interpreter anyway, to turn it into byte code. So what does it matter? If anything, Python seems more efficient than something like Java or PHP.

[CC Corp Programmer]

Python is perfectly suitable for creating applications. I happen to know of a very powerful server application that runs primarily in python with certain critical sections written in C. See the list on wiki for more information: link.

Python does run in an interpreted environment. Java runs in a virtual machine. By default .net programs run in interpreted mode. The objective-c runtime environment adds significant overhead that is similar to having to run an interpreter but it provides many benefits.

The runtime difference is usually less than an order of magnitude so isn't worth considering in most situations. Unless you need to squeeze as much performance as possible out of your processor, you'd be better served fixing algorithms or getting better hardware. It wouldn't make much sense to use interpreted languages for writing drivers or kernel code but you probably could if you really wanted to.

There is also an increase in memory footprint. It takes up more space to have program running that translates your program into machine instructions. It's usually the memory issue that stops you from seeing interpreted languages on embedded platforms. But even that's changing: Java on Android, Objective-C with it's runtime environment on iOS.

[Sparky]

Once you're done with Python, start on Objective C so you can write some Mac OS X apps. Then study some OpenGL so you can do 3D graphics with those apps. There are some standard Objective C and Cocoa and OpenGL books you can buy that will do well as references also.

Oh, and check out my Eschaton plugins at HDM!

[Fonzeh]

O hai, learn all you can, if you need PDF's I haz.