First Post

The Python Programming community (www.python.org) frequently suggests that people using Python have a blog and post it the aggregator at http://www.planetpython.org/.  I'm a big fan of the planet and read it daily.

This post will not be linked to Planet Python, but I hope to write something worth linking soon.  (Update:  I was mistaken regarding the Planet - it's an all or nothing proposition - all posts are fed to the Planet.  Michael Foord was kind enough to set me up in accordance with Jack Dietrich's instructions in the comments.  I am working on a mini project and hope to have some code up by the second week of September - thanks for your patience, those of you waiting with baited breath).

The title of the blog is a play on words.  I'm a geologist by trade - pyrite is iron sulfide, or fools' gold.  Ideally, I would have all kinds of great software testing experience (I don't).  

Still, my goal as someone who writes scripts and, occasionally, programs, is to produce clean, maintainable code.  Python's development community puts a huge emphasis on this, so it's a good fit.  

Hopefully my posts will reflect at a minimum that I'm trying to write clean code.  When I fail, or make something more complicated than it needs to be, I'll be relying on my readers (assuming there are a few) to correct me.  "Teach me clean coding", as it were.

Thanks for stopping by.