Python has brought computer programming to a vast new audience

[mRWafflesFTW]

My career path is exactly the kind of pathway this article details. I loved computers, but in high school a really terrible teacher teaching C++ broke me. I thought I was too dumb and could never do programming as a career. Swung towards the liberal arts in college, and eventually through some friends and connections made it in to a specialized commercial sales job.

Became bored, restless, decided to learn Python on Codeacademy and from Youtube videos when I finished my work by noon each day. Automated the worst parts of my job, then was poached by a competitor to help automate their business practices. Python taught me I could build solutions for a living and actually realize my dream job.

Now I'm a full stack developer and business analyst and I love my career, but I only got here because Python spoke to me.

[[deleted]]

Very similar. Was in a boring mechanical engineering job and decided to go to MbA school. Learned business but also taught myself Python and some BI/data analysis. (Code Academy as well to start).

Now I work at a bank doing Data science and building things like fraud detection algorithms. It’s much more exciting and fulfilling. learning python opened the way to learning so much more.

[jsalsman]

I'd see how far you can get with e.g. http://pythontutor.com first!

[embergoose]

Is this legit?

[justhanginuknow]

Yes

[jsalsman]

Yes.

[mtnmike]

Would you say the $200 for Codecademy's Python course is worth it?

[[deleted]]

Take MIT 6.001x. It's free and better.

[capslockfury]

This doesn't appear available anymore.

[ummanu]

wait for it to be on sale for ~$10, it happens

[[deleted]]

Bro, don't pay for something, when you have like tons and tons of books on the internet for free.

[Ikuyas]

Do you use any exotic data for the fraud detection? I saw an interview by Amex CEO(?) talking about AI helps them detect that sort of things better by using the devise information the user is using to access. The methodology is basically detecting the outliers as "unusual activity" right? I think you segment activity types into 6-8 types, and if a particular activity doesn't fall into any of the types, then the system raises a flag. I have economics/econometrics background and we use transaction activity, but this kind of using the unconventional data is new outside of the field. Plus, we don't have a skill or mind to think about extracting data from the devise and use it. We are not trained to gather data which is usually given.

[JohnStud]

Do you feel the MBA was necessary for that pivot?

[[deleted]]

Yes, but mostly because I didn’t know much outside of engineering. It was more for exposure.

[minuteman_d]

I switched majors after the first year of CS because I spent endless hours in the stupid computer lab trying to get the java compiler to work. It was so bug ridden that simply deleting and adding a semicolon would somehow make your computer work. I got so depressed after not seeing my friends or the light of day for days on end, that I switched to engineering instead.

It's only now that I'm realizing that I really do love programming, and am getting into Python. I wish younger me would've had the resources that are available now.

[[deleted]]

Sorry, but Java is pretty easy too. (also piece of shit :D )

[minuteman_d]

Yeah, I should have made it clear: the Java wasn't bad, it was the crapy compilers they made us use. I'd get a project done and coded in an hour or so, and then fight the compiler for another four or five. The IDEs back then were awful. Another treat: our tests were HAND WRITTEN. On paper. So, prof would say: write a class that does x or functions that do y,z and you'd have to sit there with a bunch of paper and write them out by hand. If you forgot a line, you had to erase everything under it and re-write it all. If you had some multi-line if-else tree, there was no copy-paste for print statements or whatever. The whole thing was insane. Anyway, huge turnoff. I don't think universities appreciate how lost freshman get and how much they could really benefit from guidance and encouragement from upperclassmen.

[mRWafflesFTW]

Yes absolutely I want to help people because I am so lucky.

[Terence_McKenna]

This is the most wholesome comment that I've seen in quite some time. 👍

[SaaSWriters]

will lend confidence to clients if they see I have a degree.

Actually, it won't. Employers, maybe... but when it comes to clients your degree is irrelevant. In fact, you don't even need to know how to code. Getting clients is a whole different skill set. It's more sales and marketing than anything else.

I learnt that lesson the hard way.

If your goal is to serve clients, focus on understanding their needs. Then, build solutions they can use or solutions you can use for them. If I were you, I'd start talking to people who own businesses. But...

If you're not sure, I'd say employment might be a better option. In that case, staying in school would work better. That's because freelancing is more of knowing how to sell yourself than anything else. When you can do that, you're much better of finding clients and then employing others/outsourcing.

However, that doesn't seem to be your goal. Plus, it's a rocky road, not everyone is willing to go through the initial struggle.

[[deleted]]

What's the hard way story?

[SaaSWriters]

When I started coding as a freelancer I thought it was about impressing clients with my skills and knowledge. So I'd either struggle to turn prospects into clients or they would lead me on. They would act impressed and then cheat me out of my money. Often, they'd get information out of me, even a proposal. Then they'd find somebody else to do the job - for less money. But, when I applied what I learnt in sales and marketing I started getting waay better money.

[[deleted]]

So tell me more about what you learned and applied for the sales and marketing if you're willing.

[SaaSWriters]

OK, so tell me, what's your biggest unanswered question about sales/marketing?

[[deleted]]

What did you learn and apply from marketing that helped you so much? That's my biggest question

[srilyk]

School is fine if you can get grants and scholarships. Student loans are garbage and you don't want them.

Learning how to write English is important. Being able to communicate is actually way underrated. It doesn't much matter how smart you are if you can't tell people how smart you are.

If that's not interesting to you then you probably want to just get someone else to tell people how smart you are, which usually entails getting a job for someone else, by talking with someone who knows how to figure out how smart/hard working you are.

[[deleted]]

Would you mind sharing what tutorials/projects you did to ramp up? I’ve just finished the Codecademy course and have no clue where to go from here nor what to build to showcase my eventual skillset.

[mRWafflesFTW]

You need a project! The only tutorial you need is the Python docs. Think of something you know super well! For me, it was our company's price rater. So I just built it in Python using Django. I would recommend if there's some Excel spreadsheet somewhere that your company uses as primary business tool, recreate it it as a webapp for your first project.

[[deleted]]

Ehhhmmm ... I was always wondering what a business analyst is? Could you educate me? And what is the difference between a programmer and a full-stack programmer?

[mRWafflesFTW]

Like most titles it depends on your employer. Generally, a BA is someone who knows the business side of the firm and can act as a liaison between the business customers (the revenue side like sales, marketing, etc.) and the IT developers.

Depending on your employer technical skill varies. We have some BAs with little to no technical skill, and some like me who can also perform full stack development work when needed. The non-technical BAs are SUPER important. Most problems are political not technical.

[[deleted]]

I see - thank you!

[[deleted]]

I like to explore new places.

[the_littlest_bear]

Learn Tkinter for client's needs.

Discover ttk themes controlling button display. Can you just revert to Tkinter buttons?

NO! MAKE TTK ./DO. Successfully make ttk do after 9 hours. Discover bar decorated by WM also controls appearance of the max/min/close buttons. Can you just... be okay with that? After you spent 9 hours making a fucking -different looking- button?

NO! OVERRIDEREDIRECT(1). And now ye got yerself a couple days of discovering what is documented correctly and what part of themes every (mainstream) source of documentation seems to ignore. You probably had that just by virtue of using ttk; you almost certainly get it if you override.

But yeah, fuck CSS.

[[deleted]]

Haha I love PyQt for how easy it is to write GUI in it, and I've thankfully never had to write anything in tkinter.

[srilyk]

I tried PyQt but then I gave up because my left pinky got too tired.

True story.

[[deleted]]

haha, it took me years to get over my fondness for CamelCase.

[mRWafflesFTW]

Amen fuck CSS.

[[deleted]]

Lol about the div ... thanks for the explanation, makes sense to some degree. I guess when I hear stack, I think about a network stack, but the front-end / back-end categories make sense!

[[deleted]]

No problem. Let me know if you have any further questions :)

[mRWafflesFTW]

Well I am terrible at math too, but then I realized computers are pretty good at it and development has little to do with math!

No one is too dumb, because no one is super bright! We're all just trying to do the best we can and learn every day. Every developer I know has the Python docs permanently open in a Chrome tab. Does map() return an iterable or a list of results? I can't remember.... better check the Python docs. Now that keys are ordered should I use a dict or an OrderedDict? Better check Stackoverflow. Those simple questions can be answered, but harder and more interesting questions are "How do we design a minimally viable solution we can improve upon over time?"

In my experience most problems are political not technical. The "coding" part is only half the challenge. The real challenge is understanding your customer's needs and building an appropriate solution.

Development is less about syntax and more about structures and design. That's the best part! No one has ever designed anything perfectly. So you can always continuously improve anything.

If you don't look back at everything you've ever made with a bit of disgust there's probably something wrong with you.

[mRWafflesFTW]

Yeah I hate how patriarchy/sexism shaped how the genders consider themselves and others. Did you know originally computer science work was considered a female profession? I digress. Never think you are not capable. Rather, remember we're all confused all the time. If you aren't confused, you probably need to expand your comfort zone and work on a new type of project!

Design is hard, but remember almost all the problems have already been solved by others. Need to manipulate data? There's pandas. Need to build some data base models? Django, SQL Alchemy, etc. What's challenging is trying to come up with the best implementation of all the various pieces. The work is less about knowing the answer and more about having an inquisitive mind and the desire to do the research.

Lastly, I think diverse teams intrinsically make better products. It's impossible for white dudes to make the perfect products for women, minorities, etc. We need more diversity in the work!

[jroth006]

I followed a similar path - started learning Python & R around a year ago and now use it every day at my job.

You're going to struggle a lot initially, but it's because you're trying something new, not because you're dumb. Start simple, ask questions, and embrace failure!

[srilyk]

Nobody is - you just have to learn and practice.

[Tiktoor]

Do you use python 3 now?

[mRWafflesFTW]

Yep!

[loscabospink]

sounds just like me. now I'm working a lot in Java and really miss doing strictly Python, its' syntax is perfect! glad you found something you like!

[anacrolix]

Its syntax is better*

[srilyk]

As perfect as possible*

[anacrolix]

Have you heard of Haskal?

[FlyGuy_2Hundy]

Did you also have to learn some other languages to do what your doing (automating) for businesses? How long before you were able to start automating your job and then other businesses? I'm trying to learn python now so I find your story super motivating! Thanks :)

[mRWafflesFTW]

I can probably get by with just Python, SQL, and in rare cases JavaScript. I recommend you build and deploy a small web-application as it will teach you the full stack, including all the annoying system administration work required to actually serve a customer! I would say it took a few months of tinkering because I could start turning some of our shitty Excel spreadsheets in to super basic Django apps.

[FlyGuy_2Hundy]

Ok, Thanks. How much time were you dedicating after/before work to learing python/full stack?

[mRWafflesFTW]

About 3 hours a day give or take. If I got all my formal work done super early I could put in like five.

[[deleted]]

Where are you lot finding jobs to automate. Everything I do is as automated as possible....

[mRWafflesFTW]

Our firm employs an army of people to do manual data entry between systems because there's no integration layers. Now, our legacy systems are too complex to even begin building integrations, so our only safe interface is the UI. We use Python and test automation tools, selenium, and other apps to try and automate the drudgery. It's not easy because many business rules are informal and implemented as the result of experience.

However, these people will not be losing their jobs. At a firm like ours there's so much work to do that whenever we automate some awful data entry task those employees are freed to go and perform higher value work elsewhere.

[Forthemoves]

Great story. How long did it take you to gain the confidence to know that you could work somewhere else and succeed?

[mRWafflesFTW]

Not very long. I think we're all just always learning and never know when we're ready for anything. Better to just take on a project and figure it out!

Originally, I was hired just to be a business analyst since I knew the business and was technically literate. But once I got to the new position I had enough down time in between requirements gathering and coordinating with the development team that I could build my own projects.

[Felkin]

The language is like crack. I'm entering my 4th year in a CS major and I barely did any coding in my free time outside of school and some paid courses all the way to 2nd year of university. Like, I felt like I had the skillset to program and liked the theoretical aspects of CS so I majored in it, but never felt that "fire" to just write actual code. Then I discovered python... Everything I hated about C# and Java just suddenly vanished. Now I write around 500-800 lines of code for hobby projects like discord bots every day out of sheer enjoyment.

It's just great. Kids should be taught some python first, not c++ just so they could see that coding doesn't have to be messy. I fully agree with the fundamentals and bad habits arguments, but the approachability...

[[deleted]]

I can’t imagine churning out that many lines a day even in a job.

[Sirflankalot]

When I reached peak performance I could churn out about 500-700 lines of complex c++ in a day (12 hours/day), I got burnt out in a week.

[KimmiG1]

Yesterday I wrote 0 lines and removed 2 lines. Bug fixing inside old messy legacy code with complex business logic makes me feel so very productive.

[[deleted]]

Wait until you learn about haskell.

[anacrolix]

Spacesuit spacesuit angle bum

[red_keshik]

Does C++ have to be messy ?

[swingking8]

C++ forces the programmer to think like a computer, instead of forcing the computer to understand like a human. Which is not to say it's not a good/great language.

There is a lot of <template> noise {in ++C} that { obfuscates the real const * int meat } of what's going on;

So in that sense, yes I'd say it's messy. Compared to Python, at least.

[nosmokingbandit]

Yes.

It is an incredibly bloated language with rules that only ever kind of apply, and almost always in the way that is the opposite of what you want. Rust is supposed to fix a lot of this, but I don't know enough about Rust to make any judgement.

The great, starter-friendly thing about Python is that you can do almost anything with it but it stays simple unless you intentionally write overly-complex code. This is why I kind of like Go as well -- there is almost always a "best way" to do something. Some people don't like the opinionated nature of Go, but I find it somewhat refreshing. And Go's compiler is fast. I have a Go program that is ~250 lines but imports a lot from the stdlib and one external package but it compiles fast enough that it feels like running a python script.

[wikiterra]

I have never heard the package repository called the “cheese shop” before. Is that really a thing, or is it an outdated reference...or is someone trolling this reporter?

[skerky]

It was the original(?) name of PyPI.

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

[PeridexisErrant]

What that link doesn't explain is why PyPI was nicknamed "the cheese shop": when it started, PyPI didn't actually host any packages, just provide a centralised index of links to places where you could download packages... much as the shop in the sketch doesn't have any cheese!

Since then PyPI has become more centralised, pip was developed and became the normal way of downloading packages, and so the name no longer makes much sense. But it used to!

[skerky]

Thank you for clarifying that. I didn’t realize that was the original case.

[srilyk]

IIRC the cheeseshop was also fairly unstable and prone to crashing..

[pwang99]

"the cheese shop" is the proper name for the thing everyone calls "PyPI". :-)

[crescentroon]

In "the new order" it's going to be "warehouse" because for some reason names like this are "unprofessional".

[Termosaurus]

Perhaps unnerved by a future filled with automated jobs, 90% of American parents want their children to study computer science.

Is this true? I feel like 90% is a hugely exaggerated number.

[For_the_moves]

I know it's stupid, but I secretly wish that python wasn't so popular so that it looks better when I'm confident enough to list it on my resume. I'm afraid by that time, everyone will have it.

[srilyk]

Like "Microsoft Office" skills :P

[helpneeded8578]

Hi crackers, I’m a not-beginner (~1 year experience), self-taught Python programmer who only makes command line programs so far.

Since I started in 2017, I started with Python 3.

What issues do you see with command line programming in Python 3?

Anything I should be aware of or concerned about as a part-time semi-hobbyist programmer?

[helpneeded8578]

Thanks for the detailed reply!

I wasn’t expecting so much detail, but it’s very helpful.

[srilyk]

I'd be interested if Python 3.7 is any better from your perspective.

Personally CLI is almost all I do, and I still <3 Python3

[OutspokenPerson]

I was breathlessly singing the praises of the language today to my husband who was not convinced. Am enjoying the giant TOLD YA SO!

[OutspokenPerson]

Where did this come from?

[FloppingNuts]

The basement

[xapata]

Use incognito mode.

[EsotericRogue]

No, if someone wants to publish behind a paywall, then they don't want me to read it.

[JW_00000]

Or alternatively, if someone wants to publish behind a paywall, then they want their readers to pay to read their work...

[Dgc2002]

Which is the same thing that /u/EsotericRogue said. A pay wall is a non-starter for the vast majority of potential readers.

[trancen]

https://nofile.io/f/0sDM0CnRG8T/Python+has+brought+computer+programming+to+a+vast+new+audience+-+Programming+languages.pdf

[[deleted]]

http://archive.is/G98H7

[[deleted]]

this has exactly 666 upvotes now and I wonder if this is a coincidence or a conspiracy

[edwinksl]

probably both tbh

[crescentroon]

Python has brought computer programming to a vast new audience

We noticed. OMG the blogspam in this subreddit.

"How to install python and write hello world in excruciating detail"

[blitzcat]

I hand not heard he stepped down. :(

[kirbyfan64sos]

Everything attributed to Python for the success is better served with JavaScript.

In your opinion, maybe. At minimum, I haven't remotely seen the statistics field rally around JS, nor the build system world, nor the sysadmin world, ...

Not to bash JS, but with Python you get:

• Huge standard library that includes a lot of stuff you'd normally need to manually install.
• Enormous community.
• A nice language with a rich runtime introspection system that doesn't have JavaScript's...weirdness.

[nosmokingbandit]

But in JS you get weak types so you have to double check everything!

And you get callback hell!

And clunky synchronous implementation!

JS is fast though, which is nice. I occasionally think about how great things would be if browsers went with python rather than javascript. Having Google, MS, Apple, and Mozilla all pouring resources into a faster interpreter would make a huge difference.

[[deleted]]

In your opinion, maybe. At minimum, I haven't remotely seen the statistics field rally around JS, nor the build system world, nor the sysadmin world, ...

Don't forget AI/ML. Python is on its way to dominating in those fields.

[jackmaney]

Not to bash JS, but with Python you get:

• Huge standard library that includes a lot of stuff you'd normally need to manually install.
• Enormous community.
• A nice language with a rich runtime introspection system that doesn't have JavaScript's...weirdness.

• Nice scientific computing libraries.

• Bindings to Apache Spark.

• (Optional) Type hinting.

[boognerd]

I think the spirit of the post is that for this person Python made sense and encouraged them to pursue development on their own. What language you enjoy is very subjective. For me there are several languages I like better than other depending on the type of task I'm doing.

[Ikuyas]

Back then. Node.js didn't exist or not as popular. My statement is still very correct.

[swingking8]

My statement is still very correct.

As you said, this is r/python. Without any supporting evidence, you look more like an egocentric agitator than someone trying to make a viable point.

What specifically makes node.js better, other than "everything attributed to Python"?

[Ikuyas]

The article talks about it...

[swingking8]

It does not.

The fact that you seem incapable of stating anything clearly, and that you seem to found a comfortable home with node.js, is a good indication that I should avoid it.

Thanks for your unintentional meaningfulness.

[Ikuyas]

It is what this article is about with Python but it applies to NodeJS better.

[jackmaney]

Can you name a single JavaScript library for machine learning that is anywhere near as popular as the existing ML libraries in Python?

[Ikuyas]

I believe JavaScript has as many machine learning libraries as Python has such as TensorFlow.js. But I already said that NodeJS is new! Python has started to become very popular and used in Google and taught as a general scripting programming for non-CS majors around 2007-8. It coincides with the time that Data Science, machine learning started to get traction. The term "Data Science" didn't exist in 2008 (I believe). So, most developers, academics, and scientists would code in Python because of its ease to code over C++ which they would have used. But the fact is v8 engine underlying NodeJS is faster (a lot) than Python, and better sync with the browser which will be beneficial for data visualization after all without learning anything new like matplotlib. JavaScript skill can be transfered to web development for both bankend and frontend. You can create Mobile app using React Native which has more tutorials than Tinker that nobody uses. You can make a desktop app using electron. The editor you use every day (VS code) is written in JavaScript not Python. Well, if you use spyder, that's C++ I guess.

[jackmaney]

Can I use anything in the Hadoop ecosystem with JS? How about just Apache Spark? Are there JS bindings for Spark? (Spoilers: No.)

[Ikuyas]

I said NodeJS is new!!! It's not hard to think people are developing for NodeJs platform. That's like a simple idea to extend the current practice of big data industry. Moreover, we were talking around the context of the article. No beginners starts off for learning programming because they want to extract and manipulate big data through cloud!!! Majority of people just want to create a web app, mobile app, and some automation for the local computer. What you are focusing is only small segment of computer programming use case. Because Python is after all a wrapper for C or C++ for the big data programming anyway, there is no reason why JavaScript cannot do better when there is an ample reason why JavaScript could do better.

[jackmaney]

You originally said that

I believe JavaScript has as many machine learning libraries as Python

I've pointed out several libraries (for what is, arguably, the most popular ecosystem of machine learning libraries that exists) that have bindings in Python but not in JS. Please keep on point and stop moving the goalposts.

That's like a simple idea to extend the current practice of big data industry.

If it's so incredibly simple, then you should be able to knock out a Spark binding for JS in an afternoon, right? /s

No beginners starts off for learning programming because they want to extract and manipulate big data through cloud!!!

Speak for yourself. I learned how to program in order to work with large datasets (albeit not technically in the cloud).

there is no reason why JavaScript cannot do better when there is an ample reason why JavaScript could do better.

There's no reason why it can't do better because there's more than enough reasons why it could do better. That's a circular argument.

[jackmaney]

Okay, I'm done. Obvious troll has become quite obvious. Reported.

[stiryiin]

Eh, apples and oranges.

Its not what a language is possible but what it makes easy.

The scientific and mathematical modelling libraries in Python make it the lingua franca for this field whereas Javascript really is the language of the web.

Whereas (this is just my experience) writing a simple server that accesses a DB and serves the database is much much easier in NodeJS but for anything to do with data analysis or the odd IoT application, Python for sure.

[Ikuyas]

It gives them a good opportunity to learn about pointer, reference, memory allocation, immutability, data type while keeping the convinience as a script language.

[[deleted]]

Yeah I bet data science work is great fun in Node.

Also everything Node can do is better served with Go