Journey to becoming a Pythonista

Python charmed me tremendously. It's very elegant, very expressive, very concise, of course these are just few of the very good things about it. I spent a lot of my spare time nowadays (yes I do have a day job) to sharpening my Python skills, with the ultimate goal on to becoming a real Pythonista one day.

It seems a lot of Pythonistas love VIM as the IDE, so I also spent a lot of time mastering it. The VIM links below helped me tremendously.

• VIM.org. The official site of VIM, the first resource you need to visit. You can download a lot of python related plugins and stuff here.
  
• A Byte of VIM by Swaroop. An online book with lots of tutorials and tips.
• Vim Cookbook. A kind of cheatsheet, loads of helpful tips as well.

Googling Python, you'll get tons of hits. That's definitely an indicator of how popular Python is. The Python links below I find useful.

• Python.org. The Python official site, the first site you need to visit to get learning resources.
  
• A Byte of Python by Swaroop. Very easy to read online book. Lots of tips and tutorials just like Swaroop's VIM book.
• Python Tutorials. This site definitely lives up to its name, a lot of very useful tutorials.
• Python Challenge. If you want to get challenged as a Pythonista, then this site is worth a visit.

I'm a dotNET developer by profession, and it's sweet to hear that Microsoft is embracing Python as one of the dynamic languages that could seamlessly run on the dotNET platform, either on the Desktop or the Web. Below are the links I find useful on developing dotNET applications using Python.

• IronPython and the Dynamic Language Runtime. A quick overview of how Python fits in the CLR.
• Python in your Browser with Silverlight 2. A very easy to follow tutorial on how to develop Silverlight apps using Python.
• DevHawk. Tons of info and tutorials about IronPython here.
  

There you go folks, a collection of links that helped me a lot so far on to my journey towards becoming a real Pythonista on both the Windows and Linux platforms.