Is it a good practice to create a list of definitions for all symbols and words in a programming language?
- by MrDaniel
After arriving at this point in Learning Python The Hard Way I am wondering if this is a good practice to create a list of symbols and define what they do as noted in bold below, for every programming language. This seems reasonable, and might be very useful to have when jumping between programming languages?
Is this something that programmers do or is it just a waste of effort?
Exercise 22: What Do You Know So Far?
There won't be any code in this exercise or the next one, so there's no WYSS or Extra Credit either. In fact, this exercise is like one giant Extra Credit. I'm going to have you do a form of review what you have learned so far.
First, go back through every exercise you have done so far and write down every word and symbol (another name for 'character') that you have used. Make sure your list of symbols is complete.
Next to each word or symbol, write its name and what it does. If you can't find a name for a symbol in this book, then look for it online. If you do not know what a word or symbol does, then go read about it again and try using it in some code.
You may run into a few things you just can't find out or know, so just keep those on the list and be ready to look them up when you find them.
Once you have your list, spend a few days rewriting the list and double checking that it's correct. This may get boring but push through and really nail it down.
Once you have memorized the list and what they do, then you should step it up by writing out tables of symbols, their names, and what they do from memory. When you hit some you can't recall from memory, go back and memorize them again.
