Posts by sanoski

This might be a dumb question. I don't know. I'm new to all this. How do you find icons for your programs? All GUI applications have cool icons that represent various things. For instance, to save is often represented as a disk, etc. You know, the small little picture references that give meaning to the phrase 'Graphical User Interface'. But I'm not a graphics artist! Drawing is simply one talent that skipped me completely. Where can I find icons to use with my programs?

I don't even know how to search for them, because I'm not sure how to word it. I tried Googling various things: icons, software graphics, application icons, custom graphics, etc, etc. But I'm not getting much luck here you guys.

Also, besides just finding a collection of various pre-made icons, who would I talk to to make me some original custom made icons? I'll look for hours and find one or two places, but they never respond to my messages, so I figure they must not do that kind of art work.

I'm looking for both: a collection of graphics and some place (or someone) that can make custom original graphics. The latter is just for future reference. The more important one is the former, because I can't even afford to pay for originals right now. But maybe I will soon, so it would be nice to have a resource.

Thanks in advance,
Joshua

I'm pretty new to programming. I've just been studying a few weeks off and on. I know a little, and I'm learning as I go. Programming is so much fun! I really wish I would have gotten into it years ago, but here's my question. I have a longterm project in mind, and I wont to know if it's feasible and how difficult it will be.

There's an XML feed for my school that some other class designed. It's just a simple idea that lists all classes, room number, and the person with the highest GPA. The feed is set up like this. Each one of the following lines would also be a link to more information about the class, etc.

Economics, Room 216, James Faker, 3.4
Social Studies, Room 231, Brain Fictitious, 3.5

etc, etc

The student also has a picture reference that depicts his GPA based on the number. The picture is basically just a graph. I just want to write a program that uses the information on this feed.

I want it to reach out to this XML feed, record each instance of the above format along with the picture reference of the highest GPA student, download it locally, and then be able to use that information in various was. I figured I'll start by counting each instance. For example, the above would be 2 instances.

Eventually, I want it to be able to cross reference data you've already downloaded, …

Okay dude, Im not actually here to help, but I have a friendly suggestion:

don't ever say simple python code confuses you if you'd like to be taken seriously. I came in here expecting to read a stupid person's rant. Of course, your problem wasn't being confused by simple python code, just being thrown off by one of the language features.

By the way, I hope you enjoy python as much as I do.

Happy coding.

That makes sense. Keep in mind, though, I'm totally new to this stuff. I doubt I'd be taken very seriously right now, anyway. Sure, I am a pretty quick learner, and I love everything about computers. But I respect anyone smarter than I am. Humility isn't something that bothers me. Compared to the majority of folks in here, this was a stupid question. There wasn't really a way to hide that. So I figured it was only fair to be upfront and honest, rather than to try and make lame excuses for my confusion.

"I'm tired." | "I lost my glasses." | "My contacts fell out." | "I can't turn on my other computer that has all my notes." | "The dog ate ate my power supply again."

If I did something like that, people really wouldn't take me seriously. However, you do have a point. I probably should have been more descriptive with my title. In the future I'll choose my words more carefully.

Thanks a lot everyone. This cleared it up perfectly. I think I was confusing myself trying to associate the code with the month. I should have known the month was irrelevant. What I should have been focusing on was the days. The multiplying of strings kind of threw me.

But after reading these well delivered answers, it makes perfect sense. As is expected, the code is simply executed in order (obviously). So another way it could be expressed is to forget the month altogether for a moment, and just focus on 1 through 31.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31

So it could be explained like this. It starts with assigning the months, 'January through December', into the variable "months". The next sequence which confused me, simply sets up another variable with the days 1 through 31, each one named appropriately. Starting with 'first, second, and third', then followed by 17 'th's (fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and so on). then another second, third, and fourth, then seven more 'th's for the twenty fourth through the thirtieth, and finally ending on the last 'st' for the 31st.

Beautiful. Thanks a lot, you guys

I recently bought a book on Python, and I'm working my way through it. However, I've come to a very simple program, but I can't understand a certain part of the code. Can someone explain?

# Print out a date, given year, month, and day as numbers
months = [
'January',
'February',
'March',
'April',
'May',
'June',
'July',
'August',
'September',
'October',
'November',
'December'
]

# A list with one ending for each number from 1 to 31
endings = + 17 * \
+ + 7 * \
+

year = raw_input('Year: ')
month = raw_input('Month (1-12): ')
day = raw_input('Day (1-31): ')
month_number = int(month)
day_number = int(day)

# Remember to subtract 1 from month and day to get a correct index
month_name = months[month_number-1]
ordinal = day + endings[day_number-1]
print month_name + ' ' + ordinal + ', ' + year

OK, pretty simple. But here's the part that confuses me.

# A list with one ending for each number from 1 to 31
endings = + 17 * \
+ + 7 * \
+

Ok, I understand what it does. I just don't understand why. It just adds the ending to the month. September 11th, etc. But what's with the + 17 multiplied by 'th' -- + 7 multiplied by 'th'? This is really driving me nuts, and …

OK, here is an update. I changed the font, and the symbol changed from a unusual music looking thing, to a little square. I went through all my fonts, and I can't get it to not show something. Either it shows a tiny square or it shows that symbol above. I'm at a loss here. Haven't a clue what is going on.

For clarification, here is another picture from the Python Shell. As you can see, it haunts me at almost every line.

You can find a better quality version of this picture on photobucket

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff273/ezname420/pythonmystery.jpg

And yes, I am in a text editor. I simply open up the IDLE GUI editor, I go up, press 'File' then 'New' -- and then I write my programs in that new window.

Yea, I downloaded the latest version of Python from Python.org

Running the Python Command prompt confirms: Python 2.5.2

Everything works fine. But when I press enter to move down to the next line, one of these stupid symbols pops up, and I have to delete it. I tried running a program without deleting them, and it still works. Apparently Python ignores them, but it really makes my code look crappy, and it's such a hassle having to delete them every time I press enter. Sometimes they wont show up. If I press enter a bunch of times it skips a few. But as soon as I pause, and then I press enter; sure enough another one of these mystery notations pops up. It's extremely frustrating.

oops.... I was really tired when I wrote that. I mean IDLE. The GUI editor included with python. I'm running Win-XP home (if that matters)

Anyone????? Here is a picture of what I mean. Surly someone knows what this is. It's driving me nuts!!!

OK everyone, this is probably gonna be a stupid question, so brace yourself. I'm brand new to all this. I'm really not having a literal problem, but it's driving me nuts because I don't know what it is.

Forgive me if something like this has been discussed before. I just have no idea how to even find an answer without someone telling me. I've gone through the documentation, the beginners section says nothing of it, nor does the tutorial. I even tried Google, etc. Here's the thing. What is that little symbol in IDEAL when you press enter? It looks like a music notation.

Thanks a lot everyone,

Sincerely,
Sanoski