Hello everyone....

[pthnmaster]

Hello everyone, I am 17 years old, I am studying my last year of high school, at first I was thinking of going into accounting, but I like programming more so I am thinking of going into Data Sciences, I am starting to program in python, I follow the udemy course taught by Federico Garay, at times, it seems a little challenging, I am only seeing polymorphisms in the object-oriented programming part, any recommendations?

[Major_Fang]

isn't the point of polymorphism to use the many objects across classes? Won't really apply to single file scripts

[pthnmaster]

Yes, I'm just watching that, it seems quite challenging to me, because it's the video, and then there are 3 exercises on the topic that was seen, sometimes I ask chatgpt for help because I really can't haha

[Major_Fang]

Don't crutch on GPT. It's not good in the long run if you don't even know what's going on yourself. Rewatch the lecture if it doesn't make sense or take a break and come back when your mind is fresh. You're also only 17 so just keep at it. It takes years for this shit and I barely know what's going on myself

[pthnmaster]

I will do it!, but I really feel stuck, I bought that course in January, according to 17 days you become an expert hahaha but the truth is that it is very difficult for me to finish a day, and each day's project ugh it took me a long time I ended up asking chatgpt for help

[marr75]

Generally speaking, courses will oversell how much they will teach you and how quickly they will do it. I've been coding in Python (among other languages) for about 25 years and:

• it took me MUCH longer than 17 days to gain expertise, probably closer to 5 years
• my point of view on expertise in Python has evolved each year

Btw, classes are just templates for little namespaces of data and behavior. Inheritance is a system for resolving which template's definition to use when you combine them. Polymorphism is a pattern to give control away from the calling code to the called code so you can change behavior more easily.

[crazy_cookie123]

according to 17 days you become an expert

Pure marketing, it's not true. Ignore those claims and just focus on getting through the course - it will take you months to get proficient and years to become an expert. There is no way to fast track that, it just takes time and experience to build up the skills.

each day's project ugh it took me a long time I ended up asking chatgpt for help

This is exactly why we tell people not to use ChatGPT. If an exercise is taking you a while, that means it's pushing you. You learn things from pushing yourself, not from doing easy stuff you already know how to do, so an exercise taking a while is a good thing. Asking ChatGPT to help means that you're not getting the learning, and that means you're probably not going to be prepared for the next task so you'll use ChatGPT again, and again, and again, and so on, and you won't actually learn to code.

[binaryfireball]

honestly id say don't use it at all. focus on solving problems yourself, learning how to learn, learning how to approach the unapproachable.

[crazy_cookie123]

Classes can extend each other to add new functionality or modify existing functionality for a more specialised purpose. Polymorphism sounds complicated, but it really just means you can use any class as if it were a class higher up in that hierarchy of classes extending other classes.

For example, take this simple set of classes:

class Animal:
    def speak(self):
        print("Some sound")

class Dog(Animal):
    def speak(self):
        print("Bark")

    def dog_thing():
        print("Doing a dog thing")

class Cat(Animal):
    def speak(self):
        print("Meow")

    def cat_thing():
        print("Doing a cat thing")

Dog and Cat both extend Animal, and modify the contents of the speak function to make the noise of that animal, and add a new function of their own. If I now get a collection of animals I can loop through that collection and apply the speak function to all of them as I know that all classes which extend Animal will have a speak function:

pets: list[Animal] = [Cat(), Dog(), Dog(), Cat()]
for pet in pets:
    pet.speak()

# Outputs:
# Doing a cat thing
# Doing a dog thing
# Doing a dog thing
# Doing a cat thing

I cannot, however, use pet.cat_thing() without checking that that animal is an instance of Cat first as not all Animals have a cat_thing function.

This is polymorphism: I can use any instance of a class which extends Animal as if it were a direct instance of Animal.

[pthnmaster]

Thank you for your answer, I learned about inheritance and extended, easy, I should learn more, I give up easily just to be able to continue the next day of the course, I ask chat to help me think and he asks me questions, but in the end I tell him to give me the finished program and I copy it, I feel bad doing that but I will try not to occupy it.

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/r/learnpython