During my first year of university I took an introduction class on computer sciences that heavily relied on the use of HTML code. However, that was in the fall 2016 term and I have long forgotten what I had learned. The coding language Python isn’t a new term to me, as we touched on the program shortly during my previous computer science class. Python is a high-level programming language. Similar to HTML, Python code is used in order to create webpages, web applications and desktop GUI applications. From my own experience, I believe that HTML is the gateway into Python. I found HTML easy to learn and that it could be picked up by beginners to learn coding quite easily. When one wants to expand their knowledge on coding, Python may be the next great step for a user to expand on their ability to code programs to a much higher extent.
I found the lessons on The Programming Historian quite intimidating and as I sat in the computer lab trying to make my way through the different lessons I found that I still wasn’t grasping the basics of Python. As a “beginner” to coding I struggled my way through the different lessons. I’m not sure that I always completely understood what the author was trying to demonstrate and found myself having to read over instructions over and over again. When it came to lesson 2, it was quite a nice refresher of HTML. In the introduction computer science class that I took we heavily relied on the use of W3Schools. W3Schools made learning coding for me in 2016 a lot less intimidating as it had essentially instructions on every code that you would ever need to create a HTML page. I decided as I worked throughout The Programming Historian that I would also pull up the Python introduction on W3Schools.
Having made my way to lesson 6 of The Programming Historian I thought it would be suitable for me to express my difficulties that I faced with Python. From the get-go I had difficulties trying to open files from the webpage. I also continuously forgot that I had to type “print” to create information. Other difficulties and challenges I faced were inputting the exact code correctly, even the slightest mistake of missing a bracket would throw the entire chain off. It took time for me to get used to the language used for Python, but when I eventually did it made working through the lessons slightly less challenging.
Having already put in a couple of hours into coding Python in the computer lab, I think it is safe to say that I am still quite the beginner when it comes to the Python language. I’m not sure if I would be able to learn Python to an extent where I was able to go off on my own to code. I think I need more than just online lessons and would only be able to grasp a true understanding of Python if I took a class dedicated towards it. For those relying on The Programming Historian I highly suggest running through the early lessons multiple times so you feel more comfortable to proceed onto the next lessons. The concepts of Python are complex and require time and patience before you become more comfortable with the code (something I didn’t have).
I don’t know enough on the subject of Python to talk for all digital historians, however, I can see how it may make digital historians lives much easier. Python can be used to create applications in order to help manipulate texts and words in order to help historians research. Although I plan on staying far away from Python, I clearly see why digital historians use the code in order to make their lives easier when it comes to researching.
– Kharum