1. Programming Tips, Tricks and Tools for Novices Linux Users of Victoria Beginners Workshop Dec 2011 Alec Clews twitter:@alecthegeek email:alecclews@gmail.com

3. Python programming

4. Debugging

5. Using an editor

6. How and why to use the shell

7. Git version control Short of time so many simplifications and omissions

9. Have fun

11. Use simple tools to complete the job

13. Build an Arduino device to measure the water in your rainwater tank

14. Write a desktop application to track your Star Trek A/V material meta data

15. Create a web application to publish your Star Trek viewing stats and build community

17. Simple syntax and easy to learn

18. LOTS of learning material, support & user groups

19. Works for desktop, web and many enterprise applications

21. Learn other languages later e.g. Lisp, Go or Java

23. Good introduction for younger programmers

24. Demo

26. Use Python 2.7 or below

27. Some useful libraries

29. Also has a free book “How to Design Programs, 2 nd ed”

30. http://www.racket-lang.org/

32. http://www.greenfoot.org/

34. Look for tutorials to use the testing frameworks of your language (e.g. PyUnit)

35. Use a debugger e.g. pdb

36. An example debugging session

38. Chose one and get good with it

40. Complex find and replace

43. Used in editors and tools like grep, sed

44. Also available in many languages to use in your code

45. Demonstration of grep

47. Hides complexity from user => harder to fix problems

48. Vim features

52. Provides access to tools like grep, diff etc

54. Stuck on Windows? Install Cygwin (or learn the Power Shell?) http://www.cygwin.com/

55. On OS X? Use HomeBrew to install tools

56. Use links to create shortcuts to projects etc.

57. Building software? (compiling etc) Use a build tool like make

59. Answer questions

60. Work with others

61. Experiment freely

62. Create different variations of your program

64. Fast

65. Very flexible

66. Fast

67. Widely used

68. Fast

69. Lots of tutorials on the web

70. Did I mention is was fast?

72. Mercurial

73. Subversion – not distributed but used in many projects for historical reasons. Don't use for new projects

74. Kdiff3 – can be integrated for merging and diff. Works on all major desktop OS

76. Join a project

78. Free languages and tools

79. Free code hosting (+ bug trackers etc.)

80. Arduino boards cost A$40 from local firms

81. Android SDK is free

83. http://littlebirdelectronics.com/

85. Intro to Git (by me) http://www.sitepoint.com/version-control-git/

86. Vim Tutorial videos http://www.derekwyatt.org/vim/vim-tutorial-videos/

88. Vim Links http://delicious.com/alecclews/vim