Whoohoo. The Interactive Python class over at Coursera just opened up. I decided to sign up for with a friend of mine who has much less programming experience than I do. Mostly for the lulz and because I’ve discovered I love teaching other people about my (limited) knowledge. I started her off just building websites then started her on JavaScript and I finally showed her the prettiness of Python and she wanted to learn it too.

Also I’m messing around with the layout of this website. So it will probably be a bit messy for the next few weeks (I say weeks because I’m down with a cold and my brain is having a hard time focusing for long periods).

About a year ago for giggles I tried the Rails for Zombies class at Code School. I mean, it’s zombies. I am a huge zombie fangirl and I was getting back into Java programming at the time but wanted to learn something more web develop-y. Anyway, I got frustrated with Ruby/Rails. There were parts of it that just bugged me. So I stopped.

Then a few weeks ago I discovered Python. It was an immediate love. I started with Learn Python the Hard Way mixed in with Codecademy‘s Python lessons. Also I’m in love with the The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python. I’ve been reading it like a novel.

Then I wandered around looking for things to do with my newfound love. Django just seemed too big for my very newb hackings. I can’t remember where but a blog somewhere out there in my searchings mentioned Flask. So I plugged that little baby into my cobbled together Python studio (i.e. my newly reformatted Windows 7 laptop) and felt a little overwhelmed. Undeterred I searched out tutorials and decided to start with this one which just creates some static pages (I’m moving on to more dynamic things as I post this).

Pic spam!!

My first Flask generated page. Isn’t it gorgeous?

Added some pretty pretty CSS (I missed web design, it’s been awhile):

And ta-da:

And then I added navigation and a second page:

And just because I find it pretty, my recolored PowerShell:

I’m about a week and a half away from the end of the school term and these last few weeks are devoted almost entirely to final projects in both of my classes. The more “important” class involves a lot of OOP theory and some lovely easy Java programming (except the final which is in C++, which for some reason I can’t find the love for). The fun one is my game design class. It doesn’t really count for anything for me and it’s not really programming, even though I’m eeking out as much code as I can in GameMaker (we have to use it).

My final for the fun class is to create a an original game and write a giant design doc on the process, but I’m hopelessly enamored with the actual game now. The problem with this is that I want to really, really code it. Not just mess around. Enter a vague knowledge that there are things out there more advanced and a few Google searches later I’m staring at Visual C# 2010 Express and some online tutorials on XNA.

I’m really trying to put the brakes on this. Not forever, but just until I can finish up the term. I have no plans to continue with school for a while. I’ve done everything I can online, now comes getting a new car and an actual will to drive into Portland so I can finish my 2nd Bachelors and I don’t think I will see those goals met before 2013. I’m studying for the CompTIA A+ exam, but I think maybe it’s time I designed a computer game. Also June is National Game Development Month, which is not helping because my projects aren’t due until June 14th and I really would love to design a game this month.