by Jeffrey Graf

Created on: March 20, 2010

There are many reasons that people are becomming interested in computer programming. The digital media world is becomming such an integral part of life, that people are taking new interest in finding out how thing work, and even becomming involved in active development themselves. In the last Academy Awards,  many of the traditional media studios are increasingly being challenged by studios that make  advantageous use of computer graphic (cg) technology. Where as cg technology was once a children's and science fiction tool, with the advent of "Avatar", computer technology may permeate, for better or worse, all aspects of an artist's performance. An understanding of technology is not just for geeks anymore. It is becoming a ticket of entry for all aspects of media oriented businesses, ranging from NASA simulations to  studio movies.

So then I am going to orient my thoughts toward someone who is interested in interacting with "newly trendy" graphics modeling software. One such program,  "blender" is an open source 3D modeling program. By open source, we mean thatthe program is implemented in the C programming language, and that the source code to the actual application can be downloaded and modified or enhanced.  End users typically do not get involved with C, or systems programming though. For that, blender has a "Python programming language" interface.

Open source is as much a philosophy as a technology. When looking for a place to start, it is tempting to purchase a commercial product. I am afraid to say, and happy to say, that unless you have a specific need in mind, there is no need to purchase anything. You may download "GNU licensed" programming tools and begin working. The advantages are many. You will eventually want to change programming platform for one reason or another, and you can usually find GNU tools for all commonly used platforms, and in fact quite a few new platforms. You will need upgrades and updates as they come, and you will not want to pay for them, particularly if you don't use your programming for a while. Also, you may want to share your work and you want to make sure there are no copyright encumbrances.

For the purpose of trying to present the best way to start programming, I am going to do a brief comparison between the C programming language and the Python programming language. C is what is called a "compiler" when you write a C program, you edit a text based "source" file and then use the

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