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I am a newbie to the world of programming. I'm a systems administrator (Windows and VMware), but I've always wanted to learn to program. I've been doing a lot of reading, and the suggestion seems to be that if you have something specific you want to do then you're more likely to learn things in a meaningful way.

Some of the reading I've done suggests Python as a useful first language to learn, but I thought I'd post here and see if the community can give me some specific feedback, based on what I'd like to do.

So here it is. I play in a fantasy baseball league with custom scoring. I would like to create an application which uses the XML data from MLB's website (this type of data), in conjunction with a spreadsheet or CSV with our rosters, and a scoring chart, to automatically score the games.

So, is this the type of application that Python would be appropriate to create? Or is there another language which might make more sense? Again, I'm an experienced admin with some basic scripting experience, but no programming experience. I'm open to all suggestions and feedback, thanks.

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closed as not constructive by larsmans, CanSpice, Jan Højriis Dragsbaek, JBernardo, todofixthis Dec 12 '11 at 20:15


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3 Answers

Yes, python would be appropriate.

In fact, any language you know might be appropriate.

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any language makes sense, parsing input computating stuff and printing output, i cant think of a langue that cant do that.

so just start with something your friends are using so they can give you a hand

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What if I wanted to have it be a web application so other members of the league could score games? Would Python still be applicable? –  Subversive Dec 12 '11 at 20:10
yep - take a look at djangoproject.com wiki.python.org/moin/WebFrameworks –  jackdoe Dec 12 '11 at 20:12
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The type of Application that you describe could be done with just about any language.

My advice would be to start with C#. You can get VS Express for free, and Stack Overflow has an enormous repository for questions. If you know anything about objects in the programming world, it would be golden.

Granted, I'm not the most experienced programmer in the world; there might be others that will tell you different, or disagree. However, I've found C# pretty simple to grasp myself.

In any case whatever you choose, don't get disgruntled because you can't parse XML perfectly at the very beginning. Learn to crawl before you sprint.

Good luck.

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