Ideas for simple programs to write in Python please

ecneicS

I currently have little experience in programming and would like to improve my skills. The most complex program I've made so far has been a definite integral calculator that uses either right handed or left handed riemann sums to approximate the definite integral (although it fails to be accurate where functions tend off to infinite). I was wondering if anyone had any good ideas for some programs that are around my skill level. Thanks!

n1person

I will just list two very important skills to have for any sort of scientific use of python:

Write a program that can read in data from a file and do some operation with it, and print it out to a file. (very useful skill!)

Get matplotlib and make pretty graphs with Python

wisvuze

you could look up the "huffman tree algorithm" and write a file compressor program for relatively small programs. I did this as an assignment for one of my classes with python, it was fun.

flemmyd

ProjectEruler.net ?

evankiefl

I put that in my address bar and nothing came up. What is it?

micromass

He means http://projecteuler.net/

wisvuze

projecteuler can be fun, but this is awesome: http://www.pythonchallenge.com ! ( the project euler link reminded me of this site, it gets progressively harder )
there's a harder version out there somewhere, that is less dependent on using python specifically ( for example, one exercise in pythonchallenge.com requires you to know about the Ord() function in python ), but I don't remember the name :(