Hi James,
Installing Python isn't the struggle. It's knowing what and what not to
install. Python, and especially the NVDA codebase, seems to have so many
components and subcomponents and subpackages and other things which don't
make it remotely clear as to what is necessary and what is just extra blah.
Of course Python compares nothing to small, area-based, sandbox scripting
languages such as BGT, AutoIt, AutoHotkey etc. However it seems to relate
more to C++, which has so many variants I ended up uninstalling it out of
sheer frustration because it didn't work how I would expect a language to
work, and not just in the way it presents information neither.
My current everyday language is FreeBASIC which, though a fully fledged
programming language, only installs the bare basics along with a bunch of
helper headers so you can use various API's. All you have to do then is find
the libraries you need. Modules are linked with #include, libraries are
linked with #inclib, there you have it, compile yourself a nice executable
program, run it, be happy. Python seems immeasurably different to that, both
in the language and its components, and it's partly that difference that is
frustrating. I want to be able to get to grips with it, but I've no idea
where to even start.
I don't know. Sometimes I don't even know myself exactly what the issue is.
Sometimes I feel like I'm drinking a large glass of water and then it comes
straight back out, or there's not enough of it to get to where I need to be.
I feel like I'm taking one step forward and two steps back sometimes.
Kind regards,
Damien.
-----Original Message-----
From: James Scholes
Sent: Friday, April 08, 2016 4:04 PM
To: nvda-addons@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [nvda-addons] Re: Developing Addons - The best way to get started?
Damien Sykes-Pendleton wrote:
and the way it works with classes seems different as well (take for
instance the class of AppModule(appModuleHandler.AppModule) which I
believe refers to a class inheritance, looks like it is inheriting
from a class property instead of another class).
For the most part learning a new language has been easy for me, since
its only difference is usually with syntactical differences, but
Python seems to change more concepts than just syntax, hence the
reason I find it more confusing.
I think that perhaps the other problem I am facing is that, because I
generally wouldn't consider writing in Python in an everyday setting
and thus would only use it for NVDA addons, and NVDA can
automatically create the relevant files based on the source code, I
haven't installed Python and therefore only have NVDA as a testing
mechanism. I may be wrong, but I have thought before now that
installing a whole component when you would possibly only use a minor
percentage of it is rather pointless, especially if you then have to
learn to run it as a full system. In this case Python, which relies
on command line usage to run scripts, separate compilers to compile
them to binary, and other dependencies for extra functionality etc.
