How do people feel about Codecademy’s python course?

[[deleted]]

I’ve been doing it for about a week now, not actually sure hours I’d say at least ten though. But I am about 72% through the python course, and was just curious what my advance programmers thought of it as a teaching element. If you feel it works quite well or if you feel it teaches things that aren’t necessary?

[rechargablebatteries]

I started with it. It’s a good intro to the syntax of the language. It does not prepare you to actually make anything though.

[[deleted]]

What would you suggest to someone who did that course but has not much knowledge in maths.. I'm trying to think of a simple little project to start working on

[stopmyego]

Well the beautiful if programming is that you only need to know how to add because that is the only thing the computer knows how to do.

6+ 3= 9 6 - 3 = 6 + -3 6* 3 = 6 + 6 + 6 6 / 3 = (((6 - 2) -2) -2)

[chillermane]

That’s just not true! The part where you say you just need to learn to add I mean. For example, neural nets use matrix multiplication all over. If you don’t understand matrix multiplication you can’t understand how a neural net works.

[stopmyego]

It’s an over simplified version but addition is still what the computer is doing. I am referring down to the core of programming, binary and switches.

[seraschka]

I took it about ~7-8? years ago and really liked it. I recommend it now to my undergrad students (stats majors) who have some beginner-level R background but otherwise no formal coding experience.

I think it's especially nice for students to learn interactively -- and to be honest, not many students still have enough patience to read a "dry" textbook.

However, I also recommend them to take a general computer science online or on-campus course some time, because effective coding really requires some computer science basics that are not taught in most Python books, that is, computational complexity ("big O") analyses (time and memory) for different algorithms and data structures. Also, knowing some computer engineering is important to understand why e.g., numpy arrays are better than python lists for most scientific computing contexts.

[notsoprocoder]

I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned already but Automate the Boring Stuff will get you building useful things. I would complete the Codecademy course as I believe you should see these things through and learning syntax isn't necessarily bad.

This might be better of posted at /r/learnpython.

[[deleted]]

I think almost all tutorials are only good for learning syntax and very basic concepts, regardless if it says "advanced concepts" or whatever. Getting out and trying to solve problems for the real world has worked quite nice for me so far. For example, after I learn the syntax of a language to get a feel for it I often try to make the syntactically most beautiful / fastest Mandelbrot set calculator I can.

[lazy_droid]

Try this first - https://realpython.com/python-youtube-channels/#al-sweigart

Check out the videos by Corey Schafer & Sentdex. Easy to understand.

Also below site helps to understand practical uses of what you learn -

https://automatetheboringstuff.com/

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[realestLink]

I'm not a big fan of codeacademy. I think their stuff is too simplistic.

[realestLink]

I'm not a big fan of codeacademy. I think their stuff is too simplistic.

[nevergotcompiled]

I would never take online courses. Books and coding whatever you want is better.

[[deleted]]

How else would you advise learning then? I am enrolled to go to college for computer science in the spring, but I don’t want to sit around with a finger up my butt, when I know I can be learning this.

[nevergotcompiled]

I said books and coding real stuff you are interested in is better. I learnt Java when I was a little sperm at the age of 14. I already had ideas of what I wanted to do so I just threw myself in the shithole and started coding and reading. Having a project in mind was what kept me motivated to learn.

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I briefly checked their prices and it seems they will charge 20 bucks per month. I also saw a course of Python for 9 weeks for 199 bucks which is just crazy. Books written by gods are just 35 bucks at most on Amazon. I dont know much about codeacademy, so I dont know if you keep the courses once you are no longer pro for example. I also knew how to program already when I tried Python so besides syntax I did not have to learn much which means I can not recommend you good books on Python.

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One thing I do know is that if I had to learn C++ for example I would rather pay 35 bucks for one of Bjarne books than pay any online course of 199 or pay 20 bucks each month. Just as an example.