This is the first in a series….

Not too long ago, I went back to school to get a computer science degree. But I graduated into a tough economy and I quickly discovered that my 20+ years as a professional writer and editor was being more highly valued than entry-level programmers.

Recently, I began to worry about my skills atrophying so I decided to create a non-trivial application. Not only would this help maintain the language, logic and conceptual skills I learned in school, but I’d work with more real-world concerns like software design, project management and licensing. I’d gain new skills and familiarize myself with some new, useful frameworks and current best practices. When I thought of it that way, I pretty much had to do it.

The one thing I knew when I started was that I planned to develop in Python. I had been pretty well to Python in school. I liked it’s simplicity and it’s sometimes elegant use of whitespace in the code — sometimes I saw programs that almost looked like modernist poetry to me, the way they were laid out on the page. As a writer, that was hard to resist. Besides, it’s named in honor of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

I’m developing on Mac OS X Snow Leopard (version 10.6). My current plan is to produce an app for iPad and iPhone. I’m currently just working on a couple of short modules in IDLE in a directory with some test data. While I work out some logic, I’m researching IDEs. I hope to create a decent beginning project sometime next week.

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed reading a lot of blog posts as I researched various technical issues, and I appreciate the willingness of a lot of technology experts to share their knowledge. I thought I would document some of my discoveries in the hopes that someone may stumble across an answer to a question they have….