Doreen Learns To Code

I had a discussion via Discord on Sunday with someone willing to answer some of my questions. This post is like the TLDR of a nearly hour long discussion, plus some "notes to myself" as to what I need to do about what I learned. Recommended course: Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python It can be done for free. You just won't get official academic credit if you do it for free. It's possible to mod non-FOSS games as a project. Minecraft is not FOSS and there are lots of mods of it. It can potentially be used as a city building platform. Unity was mentioned. It's a framework. If you start with a framework, you don't have to write a game from scratch. I think Gems of War uses Unity and I think I have discussed this with my sons a little. FreeCiv has poor documentation. Modding it is probably not a good place to start learning to code. Minecraft has a more robust community, etc. That's probably a better place to try to

Illustrated explanations are generally superior in information density to "chapter book" style explanations. Visuals allow a tutorial to speak at a high level without losing beginners. Such materials are often designed for kids. I was pointed to Phippy when I asked a question on HN. I intend to be on the look out for more such sources. https://www.cncf.io/phippy/ https://www.cncf.io/the-childrens-illustrated-guide-to-kubernetes/ I love this in part because I actually took some Greek in college. Kubernetes is just a Greek word meaning captain . It is also linguistically related to governor , a term used both politically and in engineering.

Goal: Find a FOSS city building game to play with as a first project to help me learn to code. The below table is from Wikipedia . Name Sourcecode Programming language 3d.city [1] JavaScript Citybound [2] Rust Citygame [3] GDScript Derbados [4] Kotlin JS-City [5] JavaScript Konstruisto [6] C++ KotCity [7] Kotlin Lincity [8] LinCity-NG [9] C++ Micropolis [10] TCL/Tk micropolisJS [11] JavaScript OpenCity [12] OpenSC2K [13] JavaScript Simple-City [14] Mathematica , C++ Simulopolis [15] C++ SubCity [16] Perl , C++ µCity [17] Assembly , C Lincity and Lincity-NG link to the same Wikipedia page. OpenCity also has a Wikipedia page. I will need to do a little more digging to find overviews of others on the list. Given my social nature, I probably want to find a FOSS project to play with that has an active development community where I can hang out. That may not actually wor

I've had a lot of people recommend Python to me as a language I should learn. I have just tripped across this comment on HN : Not to be a total smartass, but if your Python codebase is not that big yet, then the correct answer is none of the above- rewrite in a compiled language if you find the lack of static checks disturbing. I have been using "type checked" python for a year and let me tell you, it is not even 10% as good as having a real compiler. Python type checkers are not even close to 100% accuracy. Now I'm wondering if Python is really a good first language to learn or not.