Last night the final addition to www.wikipython.com for 2017 was added. It is an article called Anatomy of a Class – an overview for beginners. It is written with the benefit of having spent considerable time with a 14 year old grandson learning the basics of Python. So, instead of starting out with a technical definition of class virtually copied and pasted from doc.python.org, I start out talking about functions and namespaces and variable scope, plus a tiny script that should prove to skeptics that a name used inside a function is unrelated to the same name used outside that function unless it is declared as a global variable.  The vast majority of internet  articles and YouTube videos assume that is know by the reader/listener already.

The hardest and most time consuming thing I had to research – and finally had to figure out for myself – had to do with tkinter.  I wanted to end the article with a tkinter demo making a bunch of instances of a widget by calling a class definition – and then interacting with those widgets.  I spent most of three weeks, on and off, searching everything on the web for how to access the name of a widget created by a call to a class. I found others who said they were pounding their heads against a wall trying to figure out the same thing. I think I read everything even close to the subject on stackoverflow without success – one of the few time Bryan Oakley has disappointed me.  When I did figure it out, it was so simple I joined the guy pounding his head against a wall.

Anyway, for 2018 there are just a few projects in the hopper to finish until I return my attention to Raspberry Pi.  I orphaned the Data on Disk toolbox when its flip-side, Formatting Options, got expanded to a full 2 page toolbox. I would like to take another look at that project and make it into a full toolbox – TB7.  I need to update TB5 -tkinter Toys Starter set to include a few key environmental commands.

I have a demo GUI app that I want to create just for fun.  It is a 12 question fun personality test loosely based on the Marston personality system that assumes the fate of the species hangs in the balance as aliens test a select group…. well more on that later.  I’m thinking I can mimic the real, professionally constructed tests in a few mintues and  along the way I will learn a lot about canvas, compiling, graphics, etc.

I need to get into threads and multiprocessing in order to get deep into a creator project I have in mind for the Raspberry Pi.  We’ve gotten a number of quiet accolades, by the way, on the GPIO toolbox.  My favorite: “Your website is one of the seven wonders of the Python world.”  You know 2018 may be busier than I thought.