Learning Python

I think it was maybe a year ago that I headed to Eurogamer and got a chance to talk to one of the lead artists at Creative Assembly and we spoke about how I could go about getting into animation and things I could learn to become a more useful member of the team. One of these was learning Python/Mel. So now I have a good 4 hours a day back and a nice quiet place to work I've made a start over at codecadamy .

Obviously I can't say 'this is amazing and it teaches you Python super fast' as I'm two days in and haven't applied any of the things its taught outside of the projects and materials it provides. That said it does have achievements and they are something I adore. Give me icons and badges and collectables and I will sit and plough through the material for as long a necessary. Well played codecadamy, well played. Another thing worth mentioning is that the Python course is still in it's Beta phase so there's not heaps of content but the bits and bobs I've done so far have been surprisingly easy to get my head around and often find myself testing bits out in the console on my desktop before committing to the one on their site.

So yeah with the points/achievements and streaks its a nice little incentive to keep at it and will hopefully give me a decent enough foundation to restart the 'Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner' I bought a while back.

The whole idea behind learning it is to help improve my rigging and writing tools that could speed up workflows etc. I had ideas for small bits and pieces that would speed things up when working at Rare but had no way to apply them. Moving house has been a genuine breath of fresh air and I think this is probably the most productive I've been outside of work and training ever.