Learning How to Code in Python:

I have been trying to learn a little bit of programing off and on for the last year or two. I found a book called "How to Think Like a Computer Scientist" that I am actually learning something from.

This Turtle Clock was not an easy thing to figure out, and I don't know if the coding I came up with is the best coding or not. I searched high and low on-line to find the answer to the Turtle Clock exercise but there simply were no answer out there on how to do it.

** My code at the bottom of the post**

My first and second and a lot of other tries did not go well, but by continuing to try things I got it down. First try of the turtles making the clock face was inputting the same code basically 12 times. Once I had the clock face and it worked, I then used the for I in range() loop. So I only had to input the information sequence once making for a smaller number of code lines.

The book had zero information on how to add text to the Screen, (at least not in the first 3 chapters), I am only part way through chapter 4. A short search on-line did give me some methods to try and get text on the page where I wanted it.

I am going to try to keep the clock program going. I would like to make it work like a clock, not sure if I will be able to do that and make the Hour, Minute, and Second hands work. I did manage to figure out how many hours and minutes lesson/exercise so I think I understand how the modulus operator (%) works to get the remaining minutes. Perhaps one day in the future I will have my own private desktop working clock widget.

It has been fun trying to learn, it does take time, and I have been putting a little bit into it this past four days. That is why there has not been much commenting from me. I may not make the Engagement League top 100 list this coming Monday. I'll have to try and tear myself away from my self studies to try and let people know I am still around just distracted by Python.

It is slow progress, but steady. More than I had in the past. So I'm at chapter 4 - 4.1 Functions, It will take me a bit to get through it, I keep doing a brief review of what I supposedly learned, but some of it from chapters 1-3 still need to sink in.

That's my journey so far, perhaps by the end of the year I will be able to figure out how to pull things from the Hive API's.

If you know of other resources that help speed learning along please leave a note, also I am currently using Thonny IDE, (that is what came with the Raspberry Pi), it seems to be a good learning program, and is somewhat easy for me to use. Oh and i am doing all this while still trying to learn and figure out Linux Mint Cinnamon. the year is starting out rather interesting for me.

That temperature up there is from Eleven PM Alaska time, pretty warm for this time of year.

import turtle

wn = turtle.Screen()
wn.bgcolor("lightyellow")


alex = turtle.Turtle()
alex.color('darkgreen')
alex.shape("turtle")

hourhand = turtle.Turtle()
hourhand.color("blue")
hourhand.hideturtle()
hourhand.pensize(4)

minhand = turtle.Turtle()
minhand.color("red")
minhand.hideturtle()
minhand.pensize(6)

sechand = turtle.Turtle()
sechand.color("black")
sechand.hideturtle()
sechand.pensize(2)

#Move alex to the top of the page
alex.left(90)
alex.penup()
alex.forward(300)

#Have alex write his message
style = ('Arial', 50, 'italic')
alex.write('My Turtle Clock!', font=style, align='center')
alex.hideturtle()
alex.home()

#second message at bottom
alex.right(90)
alex.penup()
alex.forward(300)
alex.color("blue")

style = ('Arial', 40, 'italic')
alex.write('Seven seconds til One-oh-One!', font=style, align='center')
alex.hideturtle()
alex.home()
alex.color("green")

alex.left(90)
alex.stamp()

for I in range(12):
    alex.penup()
    alex.forward(90)
    alex.pendown()
    alex.forward(20)
    alex.penup()
    alex.forward(10)
    alex.stamp()
    alex.penup()
    alex.left(180)
    alex.forward(120)
    alex.right(30)

alex.hideturtle()

hourhand.showturtle()
hourhand.left(90)
hourhand.penup()
hourhand.forward (25)
hourhand.pendown()
hourhand.forward(70)

minhand.showturtle()
minhand.left(60)
minhand.penup()
minhand.forward (25)
minhand.pendown()
minhand.forward(55)

sechand.showturtle()
sechand.left(133)
sechand.penup()
sechand.forward (25)
sechand.pendown()
sechand.forward(80)


wn.mainloop()
'``