User:Theopolisme/help/Matty.007

I've created this page for us to discuss the creation of your new bot. First of all, the best way (at least IMHO) to get started is by writing an clear, detailed feature description of everything the bot will need to do. That way, you won't be left scratching your head 10 hours later and realizing that the 10,000 lines of code you wrote were all unnecessary. :)  Theopolisme ( talk )  15:18, 8 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Any blue linked articles in the subcategories at requested articles will be removed. Mat  ty  .  007  15:23, 8 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Yep! Okay, now for the million dollar question: do you know any programming languages already? I do my bot work almost exclusively in Python, but if you already know another, you could code in that.  Theopolisme ( talk )  15:25, 8 July 2013 (UTC)


 * No. Do I need to know any, or is it intuitive? Mat  ty  .  007  15:30, 8 July 2013 (UTC)


 * You're definitely going to have to learn a programming language to be able to write bots on Wikipedia--there is no "drag and drop" bot creation (although, hmm, that might be an interesting task for me to work on at some point...but I digress). With that said, I suggest that you learn Python. I'm a bit biased, sure, but a large number of bots on Wikipedia are written in the language, plus it's fairly intuitive (compared to some of the other languages). Here's a great reference for learning Python--it's free, interactive, and quite well done (I wish I had it when I was learning!): . Let me know if you have any questions as you learn the basics of the language...once you're comfortable with it, we can get into how to interface with the MediaWiki API (which powers Wikipedia).  Theopolisme ( talk )  15:42, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
 * anonymous watching as a curious party as to how you mentor someone on writing a bot that has no programming experience... 16:14, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't get this bit... Thanks, Mat  ty  .  007  18:05, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I had to get rid of the "Print" bit which was before the thing, for some reason... Mat  ty  .  007  18:09, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

What? Could you send me your code for that, please? This is how it should have looked:  Theopolisme ( talk )  18:14, 8 July 2013 (UTC)


 * NOTE: mw:Extension talk:SyntaxHighlight GeSHi (anonymous ) 18:36, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Managed to get through that bit. Now it's this bit... Mat  ty  .  007  18:17, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Did you read the instructions and the hint?  Theopolisme ( talk )  18:19, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I have got to: (stuck on how to work out tax)

Hey Mat, you have to follow the instructions in the tutorials -- in other words, hit save and submit after you define meal. Then go on to the next mini-lesson, which will explain how to handle tax.  Theopolisme ( talk )  19:57, 8 July 2013 (UTC)