[Nottingham] Beginning to program on linux desktop

[Benjamin Crowe]

Hi all,

Thanks for the responses, I think I'll jump ship and start with Python, I
have been looking at the language ever since I brought myself a pi (my
first real introduction to linux) though couldn't think of a decent project
to get my teeth stuck into.

I was advised that in C#/Java a good starter project would be to build a
simple notepad application. Is this something that can be done in Python?

Cheers.

On 2 November 2016 at 19:53, Matthew Styles <matthew.styles at bcs.org> wrote:

> Microsoft have been going on an odd shift recently in terms of
> open-sourcing. .NET isn't open-source, but they are developing .NET Core,
> which shared super similar syntax and setup, but anybody can contribute to
> the code on GitHub.
>
> They've also gone on a paradigm shift in terms of operating system support
> - previously their monopoly position meant they developed everything for
> Windows; now you can get Visual Studio Code on Linux distros and Mac OS. Of
> course it's not up to the same standard as Visual Studio on Windows, but it
> does support debugging, performance monitoring, unit testing, syntax
> highlighting, Git, and [one of VS' best features] IntelliSense.
>
> MS bought out Xamarin recently so you can code things in .NET and very
> quickly make Android and iOS* apps out of them.
>
> That said, it depends on purpose. I do a lot of .NET for work, but given
> the choice would go for Python unless it's very CRUD-centric, which .NET
> MVC is perfect for. I also tend to like Python for beginner programming
> because it lends itself to teaching good practice through its syntax
> (unlike say PHP). Without frameworks it teaches things from the ground up,
> so you can make everything from the simplest to the most complex of apps,
> whereas with C# .NET, you're looking at having a lot of boilerplate as
> Daryl mentions. Apart from being confusing, it's also a lot of unnecessary
> clutter for beginner apps.
>
> So yeah, add my +1 to Python.
>
> * iOS app building requires a Mac build server iirc.
>
> On Wed, 2 Nov 2016 at 18:58 Daryl via Nottingham <
> nottingham at mailman.lug.org.uk> wrote:
>
>> Hi Ben,
>>
>> In all honesty, Linux is very similar to Windows when it comes to
>> development. C# was of course originally a Microsoft created language but
>> it's available on Linux. Java is very close to C#, and really requires an
>> IDE to work with (such as Eclipse, IntelliJ or NetBeans). It also needs a
>> ton of boilerplate code, for this reason I don't think either are great
>> starting languages.
>>
>> I would recommend going with Python, there are a stack of resources
>> available online to get you going and it's considered a solid starting
>> language. I would try and avoid using an IDE or some super fancy editor at
>> first (which does completion/suggestions, etc.), just a simple text editor
>> or Python's IDLE - this is just my opinion, but it's important to build
>> things from scratch before having some tool assisting.
>>
>> Daryl.
>>
>> On 2 November 2016 at 17:00, Benjamin Crowe via Nottingham <
>> nottingham at mailman.lug.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>>
>> I was hoping that this group would be able to help me out. I’m currently
>> trying to learn how to code. I’m not sure what language I should start
>> with, I have some little experience with C# within the Visual Studio IDE. I
>> have recently moved over from Windows to Linux (Fedora to be exact) and
>> would like to know what the best open source alternative would be for C#
>> and Visual Studio. Googling has raised the possibility of using Java,
>> though I’m not sure what IDE would be best. Though could there be other
>> languages I'm over looking, I have also been told Python is a fairly
>> beginner friendly language.
>>
>>
>> Any advice would be most appreciated.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Ben
>>
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>>
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>
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