Can someone recommend an application or utility package that I might use as an example for learning reasonable programming practices?
I'm looking for something with a graphical interface (GUI) and I'd like to start with something that is mostly python. Since I want an example, I also want something that is reasonably well done and complete (code style, modularity, documentation, packaging, etc) implementation.

Those learning to paint, often copy the great masters. Musicians study the works of known impresarios. I seek to do the same thing to learn contemporary desktop application and utility programming.
By way of explanation, I know that I could take any of the binutils command line (CLI) applications to use as example code. There are so many GUI parts to a modern desktop Linux distribution, I have no idea where to begin to find a suitable example package.

I'm also looking for templates for so-called "blueprint" documents. Clearly, I want to learn to write something so that I can create my own application/utility. While I'm learning, I want to prepare suitable "blueprint" documents that describe what I'm trying to do.

My chosen platform is Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop environment. I'd prefer to focus on python at this stage or my learning effort.

Thanks in advance,
~~~ 0;-Dan

Hi.

Ruby is my favorite to learn. Then Smalltalk and Squeak\Etoys or Robocode, Eclips?

Have fun.

Add: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=523857
http://lifehacker.com/top-10-ways-to...ode-1684250889

Thanks for these recommendations for programming skills that seem to make sense.
However, I'm looking for applications or utilities. I want to fetch the package sources -- read the code, learn the style and design details, etc -- and use that package to guide the creation of my own package that does its own thing.

~~~ 0;-Dan

These are both interesting and useful articles, but I'm not looking to learn to code. I've been writing code since the 1960's in one language or another -- lots of C/C++ after early works in COBOL and Fortran (blech).

See my previous comments for clarification of what I'm trying to accomplish.

~~~ 0;-Dan

I am not sure if Python is ideal for GUI programming.

Why don't you look for a web application/framework that uses WSGI? This would force you to learn about web servers, and your Python requirement is satisfied.

Many system tools are written in Python, e.g. large parts of libvirt or yum. Make them better.

And look what I just found: https://wiki.python.org/moin/CodingP...ogrammingIdeas. Also centered on WSGI.

Let us know what you eventually settle on.