Writings from the author of Automate the Boring Stuff.
Posted by Al Sweigart in news
I've created a series of video screencast tutorials for Scratch. Scratch is a block-based programming environment from MIT. It is a programming education toy that is made for kids between the ages of 8 and 16. The screencasts can be found at InventWithScratch.com
Posted by Al Sweigart in python
This tutorial tells you how to write a Python script that can scan Reddit and download images from Imgur submissions you find.
Posted by Al Sweigart in programming
It can be difficult to see how other number systems (such as binary and hexadecimal) work since they have a different amount of numerals than the ten numerals of decimal. But imagine that you are counting in these number systems using an old-fashioned analog odometer that has a different amount of numerals for each digit.
Posted by Al Sweigart in python
This is a continuation of Part 1.
Posted by Al Sweigart in python
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.
Posted by Al Sweigart in teaching
Posted by Al Sweigart in programming
A text-style game is a common project for beginner programmers. These can be fun to do, but also require spending time up-front to design it is worthwhile. Before you start designing your own game, look at the design decisions of a few different text-style game genres.
Posted by Al Sweigart in python
Posted by Al Sweigart in news
My third book, Hacking Secret Ciphers with Python, is finished.
Posted by Al Sweigart in pygame
Posted by Al Sweigart in programming
Hackety Hack was a project originally started by _why the lucky stiff to teach kids programming in Ruby. It often comes up in "I want to teach my kid programming" forum threads. So I downloaded Hackety Hack and decided to give it a try.
I found Hackety Hack to be frustrating and was very unimpressed with it, and do not recommend it as a way to teach programming to a beginner.
Posted by Al Sweigart in pygame
I've created Python & Pygame script that lets you walk around the overworld map of the original Legend of Zelda game on the 8-bit Nintendo. There are no monsters or levels or items; it is simply a walking tour. The Link walking sprite animation is implemented by my Pyganim module.
Posted by Al Sweigart in python
Posted by Al Sweigart in pygame
A button is a common user interface (UI) control that is used in many software applications. It seems simple enough: there's a button on the window and you click on it and something happens. But there's a lot of details we should plan out ahead of time. Remember, we want to make a generic button class so that other programmers can use this in their games and programs. Once you've read through the process here, you'll be familiar with how to make your own modules for UI elements.
Posted by Al Sweigart in programming
Posted by Al Sweigart in programming
"Zip" programs that can compress multiple files into one smaller .zip file are fairly popular for downloads since the fewer bytes you have to download the faster it will download. But how do you compress files? Files are made up of ones and zeros, which can't be squished like clothes into a tight suitcase.
Posted by Al Sweigart in python
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.
Posted by Al Sweigart in python
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.
Posted by Al Sweigart in python
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).
Posted by Al Sweigart in python
If you need an idea for a game, try this random game mechanic generator.