a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by user92
user92  ·  4109 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Why everybody wants a slice of Raspberry Pi

You won't break anything with beginner programming. In fact, you usually won't actually break anything with any programming.





speeding_snail  ·  4108 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Depends on which programming language you are using. I started out with C/C+ + and I have had to restart my PC many a time because of memory leaks. I don't think that messing some stuff up is hard in C. However, as long as one keeps away from vital parts of the OS, nothing will go wrong with the basic stuff.

harryjames, you can also set up a virtual machine on your PC. That way you can break all you want in the OS and learn a bit about the underlying OS. If you want to start out with programming and later move on to a pi (which is great fun btw), I recommend creating a virtual machine with something like Linux Mint or Debian since these linux distros are similar to Raspbian (the default RPi OS).

harryjames  ·  4108 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thanks for the advice! Unfortunatlely my pc isn't usable, and hasn't been turned on in a few years. Will maybe give it a chance to redeem itself.

speeding_snail  ·  4108 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Maybe just run linux directly on the PC then? Just for the heck of it :P

harryjames  ·  4109 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I ruined an Xbox original trying to connect it to my phone, then dropped my new one. I can break... anything.

kleinbl00  ·  4109 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I suspect that so long as you steer clear of the GPI header for a while you're likely to be fine. It's only once you get into control voltages that smoke can be let out in programming.

dublinben  ·  4109 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You can run your python in a virtual machine or live instance of Linux.

user92  ·  4109 days ago  ·  link  ·  

If you're at the point where you're using Python to interface your X-Box and phone, you're past the beginner stage and all bets are off.