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Computer Programming for Everybody, a Newbie Project

Tony Clarke a.clarke11 at ntlworld.com
Fri Sep 12 10:52:44 EDT 2003 
rdsteph at earthlink.net (Ron Stephens) wrote in message news:<8e6e8e5d.0309111939.4f1bf1d7 at posting.google.com>...
> As most of you know, the founder and creator of Python has stated an
> interest in bringing the joys of computer programming to a wider
> audience, and he has coined the phrase "Computer Programming for
> Everybody" to sort of sum up this concept. I fit in this category, for
> prior to about 3 yrs ago, my programming experience and knowledge was
> next-to-none. After 3 yrs of enjoying Python as a hobby in my limited
> spare time, I have created a program, which I call askMerlin, that is
> simple enough for a newbie to understand, yet interesting and
> different.
> 
> Having greatly cleaned up the original code, the basic program is now 
> a class Decision() that allows one to simply analyze any decision one
> needs to make. The other modules are subclasses of Decision() and are
> sort of ultra-mini expert systems on how to decide what to eat for
> lunch, who to vote for in an election, how to predict who will win a
> given basketball game, football game, and how to answer yes or no type
> questions. The last two modules apply the same technique but also
> utilize the internet to gather data used to analyze and make
> decisions.
> 
> I think it is a fun little program. Newbies can not only understand
> it, but can add simple modules, in any area of their expertise, by
> simply subclassing Decision(), or by simply creating an instance of
> Decision and over-riding a few key methods, or perhaps more simply by
> imitating the functional logic.
> 
> OK, that's my spiel. The program can be found at my web site at
> http://www.awaretek.com/plf.html
> 
> Ron Stephens, humbly-yet-fearlessly-treading-where-he-ought-not-ly-yours
> 
> P.S. of course I am still adding to this program, especially the
> internet-enabled part, and welcome ideas / contributions from any and
> all, especially relative newbies who need a place to start.
> 
> P.S.S. to Newbies, the best way to understand this program is just to
> run it a few times. It is a command line program, and although I have
> cleaned up the code, I also removed for the time being the
> documentation and comments, that were becoming unwieldy after three
> years of fiddling. I think the code speaks for itself, especially
> after you run it a few times and see how it works. And yes, I do
> intend to add some simple comments back into the code ;-)))
> eventually. Also, I apologize in advance for any indentation errors
> anyone has after downloading or cutting and pasting the code; just run
> the program and let the Python error messages help you sort out any
> formatting or indentation errors you may encounter.
> 
> The basic idea is to choose between a few options or alternatives, by
> basing your choice on a few good criteria, with each criteria having a
> weight, or relative-importance-factor, and then, by various means,
> determining a score for each option on each criteria. There, that's
> the documentation for now ;-)))
> 
> And lastly, yes, I do realize it isn't much to show for three years of
> part time work, but hey, I give me A's for persistence.
> 
> Ron Stephens


Excellent Ron,
As one long term newbie to another!
Worked first time, I downloaded from the page source info, perhaps that helped.
Now give us the GUI!
Tony Clarke
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