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To: python-list@python.org
From: Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Intermediate Python user needed help
Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:22:18 -0400
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On Mon, 06 Aug 2012 09:05:50 -0700, Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us>
declaimed the following in gmane.comp.python.general:

> 
> Are there scales out there that would put these types of questions in 
> the "intermediate" category?

	"Never seen it" vs "Job Hunter Resume" <G>

{feel free to skip the rest, it's more of an autobiography}

	I always hate trying to estimate my skill level with a language.
I've been using Python -- mostly for one-of quick&dirty jobs -- since
the first edition of Programming Python. My first real program (within a
week of obtaining the book and installing Python on my Amiga) was an
outgoing SMTPd with an ARexx script as the spooler from AmigaELM (The
first outgoing SMTPd I used was from the days before "ISP Relay only",
and generated an outgoing message for each target domain, and would
connect directly to that domain -- which failed when the target had no
SMTPd to receive mail, and blocked the outgoing queue as it kept
retrying; the second program used ISP Relay BUT failed to handshake
using the addresses in CC and BCC headers [and left the BCC header line
IN the sent messages]). I've written some nasty file handling code to
populate an SQLite3 database... I've written one program using
Tkinter/PMW to allow users to select a Clearcase configuration and push
the selected NetAcquire DLLs to a collection of machines, then reboot
the machines...

	But I've never written a "decorator", or a meta-class... I
understand the impact of the GIL on threaded code (I/O bound - good, CPU
bound - bad).

	So am I beginner, intermediate, advanced, expert?

	I used to consider myself a near-expert with DEC VMS FORTRAN 77 (I'd
say VAX, but half the period was on Alpha systems too), but that was
after over 10 years using the system. After all, using the DEC I/O
extensions to patch in a double-buffered magtape handler into regular
F77 read statements has to count for something (the application had been
ported from PDP-11 Macro -- but they were dissatisfied with the long run
times; double-buffering the input tape meant the code didn't lose time
waiting for the next block of data to transfer; made a significant
speed-up).

	These days, I suspect most new Fortran is F90/F95 (or later). I'd
only had a summer assignment with F90, and at the level of the
assignment, using "modules" was just a cleaner means of declaring a
"common block" include file and a set of subroutines using that "common
block".

	Similar with C and C++... My major C development was to produce a
program that emulated the display of an obsolete Ramtek 9300 graphics
engine, using very low-level Xt/DECWindows for the user interface, and
(now practically forgotten) GKS to handle the plot data. The nature of
the plotting application(s) [a separate program was run to produce each
of the plot axis, color-coded data, and overlay notations -- something
like 80 programs in total] required an ability for the display to
"blank"/"redisplay" data and overlays under operator control; redisplay
could NOT require rerunning all the data manipulation code, hence GKS
for display list management. The C++ application (VC++) was controlling
a parallel port to emit three pseudo-RS422 balanced signals in response
to an externally applied clock signal (on one of the port input pins).

	Both rather complex applications, but neither anything that really
lets me claim "advanced" overall skills.

 
-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
        wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/