Writings from the author of Automate the Boring Stuff.
Thu 11 December 2014 Al Sweigart
Text adventures are an old game genre where the entire world is textually described as a series of rooms. Play involves entering simple text commands such as "move north" or "eat pie". Each room in the game world has its own text description, items on the ground, and exits to adjacent rooms.
Thu 20 November 2014 Al Sweigart
IDLE Reimagined is the project name for a redesign for Python's default IDLE editor with focus as an educational tool. IDLE's chief utility is that it comes installed with Python, making it simple for newbies to start programming. But professional software developers don't use IDLE as their IDE. Instead of turning IDLE into a sophisticated IDE for professional software developers, it can be tooled with features specifically to make it friendly to those learning to program.
Tue 11 February 2014 Al Sweigart
I had the idea to use Google Maps' API to draw out a map of all the Muni routes. This would have the benefit of the system map PDF but also be easier to load and navigate. I have no experience using the Google Maps API and am vaguely aware that there's public data about Muni bus routes, but I'll learn along the way.
Mon 30 September 2013 Al Sweigart
This tutorial tells you how to write a Python script that can scan Reddit and download images from Imgur submissions you find.
Thu 13 June 2013 Al Sweigart
This is a continuation of Part 1.
Wed 12 June 2013 Al Sweigart
In this blog post, I’m taking a game off of Pygame.org and going through it to make it more readable and extend its functionality.
Mon 22 April 2013 Al Sweigart
Wed 21 November 2012 Al Sweigart
Mon 13 August 2012 Al Sweigart
This is a continuation from Part 1 and Part 2, where I go through the source code of Square Shooter, an Asteroids clone, and try to redesign the code to be more readable.
Fri 10 August 2012 Al Sweigart
This is a continuation from Part 1, where I go through the source code of Square Shooter, an Asteroids clone, and try to redesign the code to be more readable.
Thu 09 August 2012 Al Sweigart
In this blog post, I'm taking a game off of Pygame.org and going through it to make it more readable and extend its functionality. You'll see an example of how to take code that works and changes to improve it's design (but more importantly, I explain why I make those changes).
Mon 30 July 2012 Al Sweigart
If you need an idea for a game, try this random game mechanic generator.
Mon 09 July 2012 Al Sweigart
Figuring out what Python's error messages mean can be kind of tricky when you are first learning the language. Here's a list of common errors that result in runtime error messages which will crash your program.
Thu 03 May 2012 Al Sweigart
This post goes into the details of how you can add a "save game" feature to your Python games.
Fri 06 April 2012 Al Sweigart
To figure out bugs in your code, you might put in print statements/print() calls to display the value of variables. Don’t do this. Use the Python logging module.
Sun 25 March 2012 Al Sweigart
I made a twitter bot that checks every hour for someone who has asked the question, “Why do homeless people have dogs?” and automatically replies, “Because a dog will love you even though you are homeless.”
Tue 29 November 2011 Al Sweigart
IDLE is great, but over time I’ve noticed a lot of problems with IDLE that I wish someone would fix.
Mon 09 May 2011 Al Sweigart
"MooseGesture" is a Python module that implements a basic mouse gesture recognition system. It can identify gestures made up of strokes in the eight cardinal and diagonal directions.
Mon 02 November 2009 Al Sweigart
From 2008 to 2009, I wrote a book called “Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python” ( http://inventwithpython.com ) which guides young adults and complete beginners through learning how to program in the Python language. I’ve just completed the second edition of the book, which has been an exhausting amount of work. Looking back over it, I realized that it could have been a much less exhausting experience if I had made some simple preparations.