I have a rather large mp3 collection (about 20k songs) that I have been collecting over many years.  In my house I listen to them off of my PC. I have not found a player that I like.  So, I'd like to try making my own player. 

I took quite a few programming classes when I was in college 20 years ago and took two semester of introductory Java so I have some base knowledge, but I was hoping for some advice on what language now-a-days is easiest to set-up and how to get started with it.  

I am guessing Python and read through this

https://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide

 is that as good as place as any to start?

Thanks -

i've dabbled a bit in python (learned Fortran thru school). I've found it's pretty easy to read/use. i know it's much more capable/powerful than what i've used it for.

I think Python is a good choice.  Do you run windows, linux or mac?  Do you want to have a GUI interface or command line? 

Windows 

GUI if possible

If you've done Java before, Python should be easy to pick up. There are numerous GUI options. I've heard Tkinter recommended. It's not a bad idea to start with the functionality first and add the GUI later. If you want a more guided approach to GUI and event driven programming in python check out https://www.coursera.org/course/interactivepython1

Sweet - thanks Korrun - 

This is a big project.  Even though I consider myself a pretty good python programmer, this would take me quite a while to do.

I'd think about breaking it down into pieces.  For example, these might be some things to get working, and then combine together:

Write a python program to play a specific hard coded mp3 file from your harddrive.

I'm assuming you want to end up with a stand alone executable.  Maybe you want http://www.py2exe.org/ ; (I have never used this before).

Here's how to use py2exe with tkinter: http://pythoncentral.io/py2exe-python-to-exe-introduction/

You are going to need an editor to use.  I use eclipse, which I don't really like all that much.  Here's a list of possible editors:

https://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonEditors

You are going to need to use some sort of module/library to read your mp3 files and send them out to an audio device. Maybe start here:

https://wiki.python.org/moin/Audio

Also

It looks like there are several existing mp3 players already in python.  You may want to take a look at those, either to get ideas from, or if you find one close to what you want, to modify:

https://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonInMusic

Also you are probably going to want to store your mp3 information in mysql or postgresql or some kind of sql database, so you'll need to pick one of those, and write some simple application to make sure you know how that works.

good luck!

Oh boy -- long term project for sure but I've been wanting to do it and if I never start it'll never get done.  Thanks Ozy - I'm all for modifying something existing so thanks for pointing me in that direction.

Also, not to dissuade you, but I'm curious if you've tried media monkey.  Mine says I've got over 42k songs, and it seems to work ok for me. 

I did use media monkey for awhile.  It worked fine.  I want some very specific options and abilities on how I create, store and play from playlists.

ok - no worries, I don't do anything advanced with it.  Can't wait to see what you come up with.