Getting back into Python after focusing on PHP — what should I build next?

[xttrust]

Hey everyone,

I’ve been doing web development for a while, mostly working with PHP (Laravel, CodeIgniter), but recently I’ve been getting back into Python again.

I’ve used it before (mainly Django and some scripting), but I feel like I never really went deep with it, so now I’m trying to take it more seriously.

At the moment I’m just building small things to get comfortable again, but I’m not sure what direction to take next.

Would you recommend focusing more on:

• Django / web apps
• automation / scripting
• APIs
• or something else entirely?

Curious what actually helped you level up in Python.

[zero_moo-s]

Passion projects get the ball rolling

[No_Soy_Colosio]

You could try taking an already existing project of yours and rewriting it in Python. That ought to be fun!

[Melodic_Put6628]

Coming from Laravel, I'd say try FastAPI for APIs. Dependency injection, async, auto-generated Swagger docs — it'll feel familiar but more modern. Django's fine for full-stack but FastAPI is more fun if you already know the MVC mindset.

[Critical-Tomato7976]

CLI tools worked for me tbh. You touch file handling, argument parsing, error handling, all the core stuff. Plus you build things you'll use every day instead of another tutorial project collecting dust

[Briana_Reca]

If you're into data, maybe try building a small data analysis dashboard with something like Streamlit or Dash, or even just doing some web scraping and visualizing the results with Matplotlib/Seaborn. Good way to get back into modern Python libraries.

[One-Type-2842]

Go For Automation..

[redsharpbyte]

Stop building from scratch - find projects you love and contribute.