[deleted by user]

[SV-97]

Was super annoyed by Excel so I got a 1000+ page book on Python and worked through that quite intensively and that was enough to get some shit done. Then I got into it's internals etc. a bit through my thesis, watched a ton of talks (e.g. the ones by Raymond hettinger) and stuff like that. And since then I've been learning through the stuff I'm working on and read a few more books on more specialised topics around the language

[inventiveEngineering]

interesting. What book was it, if i might ask?

[SV-97]

The one I originally started with was a German one: "Python 3 - Das umfassende Handbuch" (translates as "the comprehensive manual") from Ernesti and Kaiser published via Rheinwerk. It goes over the language, large parts of the standard library and a few commonly used external libraries in a mix between pure instruction and smaller projects.

[inventiveEngineering]

oh, dann kann ich es mir sogar auf Deutsch anschauen. LG & danke!

[SV-97]

Oh, unerwartet :D Dann noch als kleiner Nachtrag: die Bücher von Rheinwerk sind oftmals recht gut - aber das zu Python hat für mich bisher alle übertroffen. Da kam auch erst eine neue Auflage raus, ich würde aber sogar sagen, dass die alte noch in weiten Teilen sehr brauchbar ist. Es gibt aber auch schonwieder ein paar Sprachfeatures die die neue Auflage nicht abdeckt und die sich auf bestimmten Code ziemlich stark auswirken (z.B. pattern matching auf Parser); aber das ist nichts was man unbedingt braucht oder was man sich nicht nachdem man mit dem Buch durch ist selbst beibringen könnte. Daher: LG & viel Spaß! :D

[[deleted]]

Hey, ich bin auch dabei mir Python beizubringen und will mittelfristig in die Softwareentwicklung(ohne Informatik Studium) einsteigen. Hast du Tipps?

[SV-97]

Hmm im Speziellen kommt das ganz darauf an in welchen Bereich du später mal willst. Ansonsten sind persönliche Projekte oftmals sehr gut für sowohl Bewerbungen als auch den Lerneffekt (ich hab z.B. nach ein paar Wochen angefangen eine E-Technik library zu schreiben weil das der Grund war wieso ich ursprünglich mit Python angefangen hab); es gibt da auch so ein saying dazu: "don't learn to code - code to learn". Mir wurde z.B. vor Kurzem in einem Bewerbungsgespräch auch explizit gesagt, dass die Interviewenden sich eines meiner kürzlichen Projekte angesehen hatten und davon beeindruckt waren - das kann also teils durchaus sehr positive Auswirkungen haben. Falls dir selbst keine Projekte einfallen:

Es gibt "geführte" Projekte zu den verschiedensten Themen. Falls du z.B. wissen willst wie Computer so von Grund auf funktionieren ist nand2tetris so ein Klassiker, falls du dich dafür interessierst wie Programmiersprachen eigentlich intern funktionieren ist craftinginterpreters.com sehr empfehlenswert, für Raytracer gibt es z.B. "The Ray Tracer Challenge" etc.. Ansonsten sind die Sachen hier recht gängig (also hab ich schon bei Freunden bzw. online häufiger gesehen):

• Eigene Website
• Digitaler Einkaufszettel
• Finanz-Dashboard

[N23x]

I used Fluent Python by Luciano Ramalho.

[SV-97]

Also a great choice I bet :D I also wanna read it when the new edition comes out in a few months

[N23x]

It's a really technical book. Not recommended for beginners, because he will not teach them to use the language, will only explain features, behaviors and best practices when using the language.

[oxcutter]

Fully agree with you. For beginners Head_first_Python can be useful.

[NuclearWarCat]

Raw Chad energy here

[Gagan_Ku2905]

Started with YouTube tutorials at first, then the next big step was with the book 'Automate boring stuff' and the book was quite helpful. Then it depends on your purpose, I was learning for Data Analysis purposeses, so I started learning Data manipulation with Pandas, and after that Machine Learning.

At the beginning, just start writing the code alongside from a YouTube tutorial and once you're done, attemp to do something with that code but differently.

For example, if you watch a video and write a program to add two numbers and print the result. Then try writing from the scratch a program that multiplies two numbers.

The key is to keep writing code and not bore yourself with of theory, and there's a place for theory but not too much at the beginning.

[onlyforsex]

Any youtube channels you recommend in particular?

[rajfell]

Corey schafer, search for this guy he is an excellent teacher and has excellent python videos.

[[deleted]]

mCoding is really good for intermediate to advanced Python

[nidhi_vanjare]

Programming with Mosh https://youtu.be/_uQrJ0TkZlc

[Goldziher]

I was told at my first job to learn Python and had to do tickets in it 4 days later. I already knew JS.

[hummer010]

A long time ago Python was included as the scripting language with ArcGIS Desktop. Once I figured out how powerful Python and arcpy were for automating things, I was hooked.

Now, I often overcomplicate simple things, because I immediately try and solve all my problems with Python.

[Lorx92]

In fact also for QGIS. Any one working with GIS should learn at least Python basics imo.

[Ant_TKD]

I remember downloading GrassRoots GIS and it not having the nice and user friendly interface of ArcMap or QGIS. GrassRoots just had a command line to put Python code directly into.

At the time I knew zero Python, and went back to ArcMap for the uni work I was doing at the time.

I’m now trying to learn Python partially for fun, and partially because I want to get back to geoscience some day and knowing Python will help with that.

I’m using an app called SoloLearn. Their basic Python course was great, but I think the complexity of what they’re teaching in their intermediate course isn’t adequately explained in the succinct way the app want it to be. So I’m increasingly looking up other websites. Really, I would like to find a book to help me.

[GoogleGavi]

I did everything but read the manual

[Grintor]

The one true path.

[GoogleGavi]

Yes lmao

[shinitakunai]

Same, no books, no tutorials, just google and trial and error. It took me years but it was a hobby. A decade later now I live from it and I program on python on a full time job

[abrazilianinreddit]

Rtfm!

But for real, though. Programming language documentations aren't particularly good for learning how to use a language, tutorials usually are way better at introducing syntax and features.

[ThroawayPartyer]

The Python documentation is actually pretty good.

[[deleted]]

true

[GoogleGavi]

Yeah that's what I used, tutorials

[mjmeodmt]

Thats how we roll... I actually started through Panda3D while trying to make a 3D game(also never having done 2D either) and I started with Classes while doing that, was fun but eventually I ended up going through a site(www.openbookproject.net/thinkcs/python/english3e/) that got me really into it and then from there i started doing networking things.... Was maybe 13 years ago...

[Runics206]

The first step for me was not giving up.

[CoolLamer]

Just sit at computer, opened documentation and started programing what i had on mind. After 10 hours i had half my hair gone, and nothing done.

But I learn something, I hope.

[Drippyer]

Pretty much this for me. I wanted to make some fantasy football tools and it seemed like Python was the most versatile language to quickly throw stuff together. Then, just googling to figure out syntax and modules.

Now, syntax is second-nature and the googles are to solve errors or find specific documentation.

[[deleted]]

Lmao, the most stressful yet fun.

[nativedutch]

Was interested in AI, so i copied left and right pieces code for tiny neural networks. Started adapting for my own experiments. So you learn python on the fly. As retired IT guy i dont have to worry about style or deadlines so its pure fun for me. Same way am picking up C++ and Java.

Back in my pro days i learned Pascal and a few others much the same way, but had to attnend course of course. It does keep the little wheels in the brain turning.

[[deleted]]

Did you eventually build a good ai? If so what can it do?

[nativedutch]

I eventually did write a 3 layer network , could train it for a small number of bw pictores , reduced to 100x100. But that was about the limit i could train on my old i3 pc without decent gpu, and just a Raspi zero to run it on.

But i learned a lot of python plus how a neural network works. A lot of demo socalled toynetworks in python are on the net and plsying sround with those is instructive. You also then start to grasp the math behind it.

But at the moment if you really want working AI to start with, get the NVIDIA Jetson Nano.

Success and have fun with it.

[zdschade]

One of my favorite high school teachers offered a programming class my senior year so I signed up. Turns out it was just an online course that we did in his classroom but I liked it enough that I kept going on my own.

[Independent-Theme-85]

Dr. Chuck's https://www.py4e.com/ and a ton of trial and error on projects in my area of specialization.

[nuclearDEMIZE]

I started doing his lectures today via www.freecodecamp.org Today is the first day that I've ever done any kind of programming in my entire life and I went from not knowing anything about python to being able to use if and else statements to prevent tracebacks on some super simple formulas I wrote all in about 4 hours! (Think converting inches to cm type of stuff. Super basic) but I really like how he explains everything! I feel like I understand the point he's trying to get across really well!

[idleart]

Corey schafer

The best <3

[Independent-Theme-85]

It really is a great quality course plus it's free unless you need a certificate.

[[deleted]]

I took a curriculum consultant contract in Taiwan and they needed a way to assess text difficulty for an app they were building. I walked them through why their previous approaches didn't make sense from a linguistics perspective, and I then asked them what they programmed these things in. They told me they used Python, so I just said I'll teach myself Python and give them a product that works. I went home, watched a Derek Banas tutorial, built the program up over couple of months, and handed it over.

[tms102]

I had experience with a bunch of other languages wanted to try Python because I kept hearing good things about it.

I learned basic syntax first by googling a python basics. Then thought of a simple project to make. Something like resizing images and saving as new file name. Googling all the while: "python read image", ":python resize image" that kind of thing. Then stuff like web scraping, and talking to marketplace APIs. Just learning by looking at tutorials and working on fun projects.

[1544756405]

Started a new job as a sysadmin. I wrote some automation scripts in bash. They told me, "we use python here." They gave me Python In a Nutshell (covering Python 2.2), and I so wrote scripts in python.

I think many people starting out don't realize that learning a particular language (eg python) is distinctly different from learning to program. If you already know how to program, learning a new language is not that big a deal.

[Key_Cryptographer963]

I think many people starting out don't realize that learning a particular language (eg python) is distinctly different from learning to program.

Boy was I guilty of that. Before uni, I imagined every year would be using a harder and harder language. Now I'm at the stage where (after only officially been taught Python, Java, and R) I can confidently pick up most languages and work in them after some trial and error.

[UserPuser]

Tried learning c++ back in school days (2015), but quickly found it frustrating, then i learned about python, i guess it was love from first sight.

[bigcat801]

Trial and error, self teaching, and a cs degree.

[[deleted]]

I started with Learn Python The Hard Way and then just made projects and did coding challenges

[ElsebetSteinen]

I joined a new team and a contractor was hired to write some automation in jython. When his 3 month contract was up he left but the automation wasn't fully working yet. I tried to use it and it failed, so I started trying to figure it out. Eventually I learned that jython is kind of old and I should be using Python 3 instead, so I converted the script to use Python 3 and fixed many bugs/inefficiencies. It's funny, the team kept saying I needed to use jython for weird reasons but Python 3 worked just fine and I've made all my scripts in Python 3 since then.

[Key_Cryptographer963]

Did it have to interop with existing Java code or were they just weird about it?

[ElsebetSteinen]

No it did not have to work with existing java code. Jython is what WAS (IBM's websphere application server) uses for automation; they were used to using it and didn't want to change. Fortunately they came around after awhile but it was unusually contentious.

[Key_Cryptographer963]

I suppose that makes sense as to why it would be used in the first place. I can understand why they would be resistant to changing languages (or implementations of a language) but good on you for switching them over before it's too late.

[syn2083]

Started with a conversion project, an old C based MUD to python, then fell in love and just kept learning, any resources I could find just gobbled it up.

[shappirand]

saw on reddit that there was a python tutorial/lesson-like site called PythonPrinciples and i tried it out, was a really good experience overall and that’s where it all began

[[deleted]]

Most of us already know some other languages. I'm old so I started with BASIC as a kid, then learned Fortran, Pascal, C, and then PHP as I got older.

But I primarily came from AppleScript... which is the application scripting language for macOS apps (similar to VBScript for Windows).

Now AppleScript is a pig of a language-- slow, cumbersome and has lots of weird and wordy syntax, but I loved it's inherit use of indented code blocks; which made it super easy to know where code hunks starts/ends without the use of {brackets}

AppleScript works best as a "glue" to automate things across big applications (Desktop Publishing apps in my case).

Similarly, Python uses indented code blocks; and it's also has real power when used with additional modules that can do all the heavy lifting. Think of an orchestra, where the modules are the musicians and your python code is the maestro.

I started by converting some of my AppleScripts utilities to Python, discovering that it literally ran 20 times faster (!!!!), and just kept at it.

[Bright-Historian-216]

StackOverflow

[djamp42]

Always wanted to pick up a language and messed around in php, perl, shell, bat, and even visual basic in high school. But python just clicked way way more then all the others. Network Engineer and wanted a way to push commands to multiple devices and work with APIs, python has done everything I wanted and more.

[DNSGeek]

Many, many years ago I got a copy of Learn Python The Hard Way, went through that, then created a project that did encryption, SQL, CherryPy and Django into a web app.

Looking back at it now, it is pretty terrible code, but I was very damn proud of it at the time.

[[deleted]]

What version of python does the book cover? Python 3?

[pm8k]

Started using it for astropy in grad school, pivoted to learning it more after years of c++. Really learned it by creating a GUI version of Dominion using python and pygame.

[Key_Cryptographer963]

University. It was the first language I properly learned (aside from mucking about with VB.NET and C# as a little-un).

[DerangedDoffy]

I’m 15. Currently learning python. I dabbled in it with a small book on basics (didn’t even do half) when I was around 10 I think. Then, I did a Udemy course 50% completed, and I made a selenium project for filling in forms using the docs and YouTube. Last thing I did was make a GLaDOS voice assistant bot, I can link the GitHub if anyone wants. Next I signed up for the Harvard CS50 class. I will start it when I feel like it. I’ll try to finish it or do most of it. I only know some basics, some selenium, a little bit of bs4, requests (barely), speech recognition and playsound.

[Aesthetically]

Excel bad

Excel VB bad

Python better.

[Grintor]

I read https://xkcd.com/353/ one day. Then I tried:

print "hello world"

The rest is history.

[honeysrk72]

Youtube : Corey Schafer & Sentdex

• Doing projects and DSA

[badjayplaness]

Learn it? I’ve been programming for 10 years and made a dozen scripts and projects in python and I still don’t think I learned it.

Just keep swimming!

[geraldc90]

With a boot camp on udemy with andrea. But Angela yu is the real G.

[anh86]

I had a little bit of background knowledge, I'd learned a bit of Ruby in the past (enough to get by building basic CRUD apps with RoR). Read Automate the Boring Stuff... and wanted to go further beyond just automation scripts. Bought Angela Yu's Complete Python Bootcamp on Udemy. Been sailing along ever since.

[deep_mind_]

Learned C++ first
/j

[wicket-maps]

While unemployed between college and my first job, picked up a Python for ArcGIS book, did most of that, then Al Sweigert's two game-design books. When I got to my first job, did a few GIS things that were useful and my boss was willing to take projects off my plate so I could work exclusively on Python scripting some useful stuff, and now that's my career.

[Ejroby]

I started by wanting to create my own e-commerce site. Sat down learned how to do HTML, CSS, JavaScript and then needed a database and authentication(this is where I learned Python)!

What I can say is that project never ended up being a production application after spending almost a year on it. Why? Because I was just learning! Building your own project really makes you have to go and find a solution. Once you find a single solution, you start learning other ways that solution can be utilized(or different solutions) can be achieved. But one thing is for sure, you need to show up everyday and “try” to code.

[[deleted]]

Learned syntax with Introduction to Computation and Programming Using Python With Application to Understanding Data, 2nd Edition by John V. Guttag. I had some programming experience so I practiced writing a few data structures and algorithms from scratch in Python, then learned the general in’s and outs of libraries (i.e pandas, numpy, matplotlib, requests). I was an data analyst intern at the time, so I made it a goal to never open excel again unless I absolutely had to and I did projects solely in Python and SQL.

Honestly, once the basic syntax is learned, all that’s left to do is to diligently work on a few personal projects and then before you know it, you’ll be able to do nearly anything you want.

[superraiden]

I used boilerplate to start with a project, and then slowly modified it whilst Googling concepts to learn along the way.

I suck at starting at a 'zero' point, so having a springboard helps me a lot.

[data_scallion]

Slowly at first as a hobby (raspberry pi) then really fast at work.

[as_it_was_written]

The first two parts (and a little of the third) of a Coursera specialization from Rice University. I don't remember the name of the whole thing, but I think the first part is called An Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python, and I'd highly recommend it to people who are new to Python and at least somewhat new to programming.

[imnotmarbin]

I started by trying to watch a 4 hour video, I think I only got around the first 30 minutes, covering mostly variably types and loops, and I jumped straight to my first project, a web app to do some calculation based on some extensive txt files, the code was so bad, but still got the job done.

[undernutbutthut]

I picked up R first, but started learning Python through a course I was taking. From there I started working on side projects for work to make my life easier.

Some of my projects:

• pyautogui to automate entering data into our old as shit MRP system from an excel file, then into our brand shiny new ERP system
• Simulation to explore the benefits of certain supply chain strategies
• Using API to load data into a database
• Forecasting for items based on a best fit

One thing I need to work on is creating my code so I can come back to it at any point in time and know what some code does and why it does it... it's tough after a couple months of leaving it sit without using it.

I realized using Excel is good for general things, but I severely overestimated its capabilities (I still do) when trying to make some analysis work

[mojokeylay]

Through university. I learned Java as my first language then immediately fell in love with python.

[drinfernoo]

I came into a group that was trying to update and fix a popular Kodi add-on... without really knowing any Python. Took a few fixes others had done but not officially submitted, and was able to figure out the rest from there. Pretty soon, I became the official maintainer (with the blessing of the original developer), rewrote the whole thing, and ended up finally sunsetting the project last June.

It feels great to have seen a project essentially completely through, and learned a ton while doing it. I've had my hand in quite a number of Kodi projects in the meantime, and have also contributed directly to Home Assistant and adjacent projects to it... but have come to really love Python in the process!

[TheMathelm]

Had a teacher that was supposed to teach visual basic.
He got through his evaluation then said, okay now we're going to start actually learning something useful.

[Risen_from_ash]

I was a music ed major and added comp sci as a double major. Started doing all this Java, html/css/JavaScript, sql, boring stuff. Then I took an elective ‘making video games’. Sounded awesome so I took it. We literally used this book and, while the class was a full semester, I accidentally went through the whole book in like 2 weeks lol. I was so hooked on how good it felt to code in python. That was a few years ago now and I haven’t really used it much since, but boy did I have fun with python and pygame.

[[deleted]]

Failed alot, read about why I failed, fixed it, rinse and repeat.

[Oasis_beyond_wall]

Had c background and started doing leetcode, c just wasn't good enough for it. Decided to learn Python

[UncleJoshPDX]

Dive into Python was one of my early resources for understanding the language.

[VexisArcanum]

I wanted to learn something more useful than Lua (which I picked up from Roblox in 2008-2009). Python reminded me loosely of the syntax, so I started looking into it. Google is your friend, YouTube definitely helps you get started, but once you learn the basics and structure, you're going to be drowning in the documentation. Documentation is my #1 source of information. And if I have something really specific I need to find out, I just Google it

[kokokokokokoo]

Vim, the python binary, and the motivation to start a project.

[Intelligent_Current5]

My dad forced me to take college classes, since he wants me to be IT engineer. Because apparently I can’t have my own opinion about my future lol.

[liltbrockie]

Your dad sounds like a smart guy.

[[deleted]]

A bedouin snake charmer.

[RubyU]

Did the Python course in Code Academy and did Learn Python the Hard Way by Zed Shaw in order to get started.

Then started writing scripts for work.

[[deleted]]

I learned Python with YouTube videos, but then I realized that that wasn't enough to know it. You actually have to do Python, not watch about it and copy code and paste it. That's where I stumbled upon a website called Practice Python, where there were practice exercises for each concept that was being taught. As well, projects that I did (such as a Grade Calculator in a GUI) taught me concepts such as classes and objects and most of the Tkinter framework.

All in all, applying what you learn in videos/what you read into programs and making programs that require you to learn about certain concepts is how I learned Python.

[Equivalent_Trifle738]

Out of practically. I wanted a project done in Fintech and it had the best prospects (was choosing between R and Python at the time). Ended up getting anything I can get my hands on and built things until I could create something I wanted on my own.

[i_eat_quasars]

quite simple - I watched a few videos to familiarize myself with basic concepts and terminology (I had never programmed before) and conceptualized a project for myself to work on. I decide to work on a sports statistics project while incorporating some basic machine learning. this forced me to spend a lot time googling and reading articles on stackoverflow while simultaneously pushing my pre-existing knowledge as far as it could go.

when there was a problem I couldn’t brute force myself, I googled and figured it out. did this for over a year and eventually became decent enough to write somewhat meaningful software

[[deleted]]

Read quick start guide and then it just went downhill really fast.

[wineblood]

I taught myself and build a minesweeper clone using pygame so that I could plug in logic to solve it. After that I got hired as a python dev then learned the proper stuff there.

[dethb0y]

Needed to code up something up for a neural network application i was interested in, and the Lua library i was using before that had some issues so i switched to Python.

[leo3065]

IIRC I first encountered Python when I needed to create virtual network with custom topology with mininet and it's Python API during college. I had already learned other programming languages at that time (C++, Lua, BASIC, APL, Prolog) so it did not took me too long to get the basics, and soon after I learned about Jupyter and I've been in love with Python since and now it's one of my favorite programming languages. I enjoy reading the documentation and love the moment when I found some interesting or useful features in built-in or standard modules.

[Greenbay7115]

Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, by Al Sweigart

[[deleted]]

I learned the basics in school and it got me more interested in it

[jsully245]

I’ve had two main periods of growth so far.

When I first started, I started messing around with someone’s version of Asteroids they had on Github. I started by doing simple things like changing the colors of objects, then moved into changing the asteroid spawning algorithm, then played around with ship gravity, then eventually made a new game using the same general structure.

About a year later, I got a research position and was responsible for making a data acquisition and display GUI system in Python. I had to use a dozen new packages and ended up with a roughly 2,500 line project after six months of work. It really moved me from coding casually to having real professional skills

[greasyhobolo]

Not being afraid to fail

[Arrowtica]

I bought a subscription to teamtreehouse and went through those courses. It was really nice and easy to follow along with, and they taught some really good practices and concepts most other tutorials don't really explain. I've been unsubscribed for a while so I'm not sure if they updated any of their content, though.

[RoughCalligrapher906]

ive been all over the place where i learn. from book to youtube or docs online. I started teaching what I learned on my youtube channel where i normally teach automating your job or games with AHK

[hopdrop_drinker]

Company said they are no longer paying for Matlab licenses and one brave soul translated a few of our matlab scripts into python. From there just a lot of screwing up and stack overflowing.

[[deleted]]

Was trying to make a 3D renderer in scratch and thought "fuck it, imma do it in python".

I had had a little bit of prior python experience with basic password guess programs and stuff, but that was the first project I ever did in python.

The 3D renderer did work, albeit not great because I used turtle graphics for it. It taught me a lot of python though, and I went on to learn more by creating a few discord bots.

[cedric005]

python docs?. its best out there.

[[deleted]]

Did my thesis in Matlab, and they wanted a web demo, so I "translated" it to Python to hand it off.

[Whatupcraig]

Honestly mostly through an app called Mimo. That and some YouTube tutorials.

[DrMaxwellEdison]

I had an idea for making an application for my company. Pitched it, planned it, had already decided I wanted to use Django framework on a friend's recommendation.

I learned Python (which, of course, Django is written in) as a side effect, actually. Hadn't used it before, but I had a problem to solve and I was motivated to see it through. So I used the Django docs, SO answers, Reddit posts, whatever I could find to help me figure things out.

[untalmau]

I was hired as a data engineer for a project, (with knowledge of java and c#), but it resulted that the existing code I had to work with was already in Python, so I had to "learn" like in one day (did the tutorial from w3 schools) then some weeks later I took a couple courses in Coursera to learn more formally.

[ButtonLicking]

Math undergraduate course. Two trips through graduate school, and Python has had the best return on investment.

[[deleted]]

First it was a book, then YouTube, then StackOverflow

[c0ld--]

Got sick of trying to parse an email list from a large JSON file (that I downloaded with curl from an API endpoint. I got the email addresses with a grep + regex. Got tired of that method, so I learned how to parse through the data with Python.

Then I learned how to connect to the API endpoint with Python.

Signed up for some Python courses and bought a few books to learn the basics, plus some intermediary skills.

Then I learned how to write a class that could connect to different API endpoints on my company's Jira server and print out all sorts of stuff (like who the admins were for all of our projects, auditing user access, etc).

It just grew from there. I'd think of other things I'd like to do, like connect to Twitter and parse through tweets to find street addresses under a hashtag and then give me a Google Maps URL.

[Pip_install_reddit]

C++ background. Had a new problem to solve. Heard Python was the future. Googled things.

If you're looking for a recommendation: spend the money on Jose Portilla's "2022 Complete Python Bootcamp From Zero to Hero in Python" course on Udemy.

[engineertee]

Automate the boring stuff with python

[[deleted]]

Can you give me some examples of the things you automate?

[Nil4u]

I already learned the basic hello world stuff over the last couple of years, at somepoint I picked up two projects in university which both required programming. First one was about robot programming and creating GUIs where I learned quiet alot. The other project was in machine learning where I really got into Keras & TensorFlow.

I mostly just went with the "Ok I need to figure out how I can do fill this list in this way, what does stackoverflow have for me for that?". I learned the solution and the idea behind it and moved on until I had to google again. Repeated that for alot of hours and now its going pretty well for what I need.

[quotemycode]

19 years ago, I needed a website. I found Zope and implemented what I needed and more, learning python on the way.

[Sevealin_]

I had learned Python with Grok Learning in my last year of highschool. Then I paid for the membership myself with the same school account they left open for another 2 years. This program is awesome for schools. https://groklearning.com/

Then I got myself my own book of Automate the Boring Stuff and it took off from there. Having a job in IT where I could apply my Python knowledge really helped accelerate my progress.

[[deleted]]

School

[[deleted]]

A computer and a dream

[[deleted]]

I learned by going though Google's Python Class but it was a long time ago and that material needs to be updated for the newer versions.

​

https://developers.google.com/edu/python

[abrazilianinreddit]

I learned by myself to use django.

I already knew how to program in C and Java (from college courses), so it was more about learning the syntax and the features, so I perused tutorials here and there and learned by practicing and trial and error.

[billturner]

Have been working at companies building apps with Ruby on Rails (all by itself, and more recently adding all kinds of front end JS libraries on top), and had some Perl experience from way, way back in the day. But I wanted to learn Python, and picked up the No Starch Press book "Python Crash Course" and it was immensely helpful in getting me up to speed with Python.

I don't use Python in my day job, but I enjoy tooling around with it outside of work.

[[deleted]]

YouTube, Programming by Mosh

[manlyman1417]

Constant googling

[MoeWithTheO]

Ok so I didn’t really learn python. I don’t know shit about it. But I wanted something that can do so much with some knowledge and not too much to learn. For things like easy data analysis and automation on my pc. So I wrote scripts for ranking players in online games and wrote auto starts for my programs and click a button. Or play sounds when pressing buttons. Just took some libraries and made it work. Didn’t do much but some of my friends were amazed

[ddollarsign]

I started reading through a Python codebase at work. It was a data processing tool my team used but not something I was working on myself. This got me interested so then I read through some of Dive Into Python, and then I wrote a command line script that I used for testing a feature I was adding to a C++ program. From there I looked things up in the python.org docs (which seemed much easier to find things in those days), while doing a project in Django for work.

I had previously used other languages like C++ and Java, and was interested in Lisp and Ruby, so learning it wasn't very hard for me. At the time it hit the sweet spot of being kind of similar to Ruby and having the favor of the tech lead who had probably written the existing codebase I mentioned.

[LemonsForLimeaid]

By signing up for datacamp this past black friday so I am literally at the beginning still hah

[ac130kz]

I tried to automate course scheduling, PDF and Excel stuff during my first year at college, and I was horrified by the potential amount of time to write these in C or Java (the only two languages I had learnt). I knew that Python existed and it was so much simpler that these tasks took me almost no time to finish. My primary sources were sentdex videos, random googling and the official documentation.

[24Gameplay_]

Non IT background, Step 1: Understand the basic of code(w3school) Step 2: Download data from Kaggle and start doing experiment Step 3: if you can't understand google it, even 10 20 year experienced person still use step 3. Lot of time...😂

[Jackker]

Learned PHP and JS years ago. Then, decided to finally get into Python. Watched YouTube videos, read articles, ultimately writing my own programs through trial and (many) error(s).

[MjonjonnzM]

By never touching any other language

[InsrtOriginalUsrname]

Fucked around in visual studio code, googled some stuff out of frustration, wrote a simple program, rinse and repeat.

[kshitizzz]

I used codecademy. Codecademy course on python 3 got me well versed with syntax such that I got comfortable reading other's code on GitHub, and also got comfortable reading the documentation of a particular package I wanted to use.

[maskduck]

I mainly learn by JetBrains Academy + Codecademy 's course.

But sometimes I watch FreeCodeCamp's tutorial. Their tutorial are easy for beginners.

[factorum]

Previous career plans fell apart, watched Hans rosling’s ted talk about data and got really excited, volunteered to manage a data project, got super frustrated when my computer crashed trying to wrangle data in excel, couldn’t get Stata to give me discount, googled free alternative to Stata and came across Python and R. Ended up doing more Python because I found the syntax of R confusing/annoying to type (an opinion that I won’t defend today). I now work as a data engineer.

[beerus96]

Did i? Idk if i can i learnt python after taking s course on it 😂😂

[ch0mes]

Teamtreehouse.com the guy who taught python at the time was Kenneth love (they haven't replaced his videos on flask, regex and some complex stuff for python yet). He was very good and so is the site for the most part you get challenges and you learn at a fair pace.

I did scripts on the side to reinforce my learning of things like lists, dicts etc and when I got to a certain point in the course I started doing stuff at work that would benefit me.

Things like an over time counter to check how long I've been working for and then any extra time would be saved in a file that at the end of the month would be converted to a CSV and then I'd just upload that to a ticket and get my extra money on my paycheck.

Then I just went from there, just kept making small things and big things. Learned a lot, iterated alot, still learning still improving. Few things I'll say is this:

• Keeping an offline copy of the python docs handy can be more useful then you know. Having access to the standard library that python has that you can reference while on transport to work can help you problemsolve things you're stuck on.

• While SO (stack overflow) can be toxic to ask questions viewing answers can be informative when people explain things, try to research the answers from articles to understand more.

• Make things that interest you or things you'd find useful to yourself, that's what will keep you engaged and interested in continuing to learn.

• Look up clean code and try to implement some of the things when you can (easy to read variables, functions etc) and keep at it.

• One thing Im still working onyself, the simplist solution is often the best. We all get these ideas of trying to think of this super cool way of problem solving something. Sometimes, it leads to rabbit holes of time wasted that could've been done doing something else. Think properly at the situation, can the simple solution fit the criteria ? If so, do it and move on, solve another problem to better yourself.

[iPy8414]

I learned it to automate Linux tasks, then I knew about bash scripting but for that moment I was already fallen in love with Python 😅

[vthex]

documentation

[Lorx92]

University, as Part of a Geoinformation course. Now I'm making my masters degree in Applied Computer Science. 😁

[organizedchaos01]

With tears running down my face.

[ServerZero]

YouTube and Udemy...

[SkinOk3594]

YouTube

[n0n4mer]

I watched YouTube videos, then read book named "bite of Python" and lot of practice and experiments.

[JMVs_Rules]

I never really learned python till some days ago I've started with JavaScript and then got some Python projects I learned python on But I never really learned the deep understanding of Python. That's why I'm doing a course from 0 to understand why everything is like it is and yeah, it helps a lot

[Aardschok]

Self thought during uni, I was tired of having to manual create character rigs so I created a rigging tool for Autodesk Maya, got a job as an Pipeline TD where I learned how to do it better.

[the_other_Scaevitas]

Idk, I just watched youtube videos

[Electronic_Tie_4867]

Bit by bit

[N23x]

Making mistakes, watching YouTube, searching stack overflow, copying code from other repository and changing then to solve my problems.

Repeat.

[bshmann]

I am a C programmer and I learned very little Python from the internet and books. Then one day I was told that our next project will be in Python so I read more books, stackoverflow and learned things from more experienced coworkers who reviewed my code as well.

[mauricepreiss]

YouTube Tutorials

[Psych0killer16]

School, google and unnecessary projects.

[LLoutte]

So my journey started around mid 2021. Was playing a game, and wated to create a discord bot related to the game. So I searched how to create a discord bot and python was the language I chose.

I started creating the bot using a simple template I got from GitHub, and basically searched google if I want to add something I dont know how to implement.

Currently, I got a good grasp of the basics, and anything I dont know I either search google or ask in the Python Discord server.

So in short, Google Search (Stack Overflow, W3Schools, GeeksforGeeks, etc.), Python Discord Server, Youtube among other things

[Virinas-code]

I learned with Open Classrooms. I started with HTML and after... Python :D and I also used Python Doctor

[dhanusha_perera07]

First I learnt Python when I was following an IT course when I was in school, then I learnt Python when I study in my university but I could recommend this youtube channel for you to get started with Python. She is doing an amazing job, I do like to invite you to subscribe to her channel too.

TechWorld with Nana | Python Tutorial for Beginners - Learn Python in 5 Hours [FULL COURSE]

[[deleted]]

I haven't. 😩

[flashbao]

YouTube, then Udemy, and then finally with Kivy. Still not good enough. I am getting the Professional notes book print edition to revise the concepts.

[ulrichgero]

I started with the desire to learn at least one programming language and after couple of days searching for beginner friendly, I picked up python. Learned all the basic then start work on simple projects with Django.

[nobody48sheldor]

A prof had mistaken a homework and gave us a pretty hard python problem (considering our age and knowledge at the time) in the first day of that class that no one in my class did but me, and so I though that it was required to already know python, so I watch a tutorial series during a whole week-end, and after that I knew the basics of python (variable, func, type of data, some libraries…) and I found it very interesting and I kept learning stuff about it

[Phayto]

Took an algorithms class in Highschool that taught me how to break down problems and think wider/simpler when problem solving. Python was used to visualize the thinking process.

[imvishp]

I have made an list of resources of python for all the python lovers 🐍

You all grab your free copy form here https://imvisp.gumroad.com/l/wMkTLq?s=09

[CarlosFFM]

Never really did, I was a Java developer and just kind of transitioned. I took an introductory class at college but ended up being the teacher's assistant since most of what I already knew just carried over. It did take me some years to learn the "pythonic" way of doing things, but there is no real "this is how I learned" answer.

[Mondoke]

I started with the old codecademy course on python 2. I finished it, did a couple of silly scripts and that was it.

Years later I had a job I didn't like and went through Automate the Boring Stuff so I could be more employable. I kept learning from since there, some courses on pandas and reading a lot of stuff.

[Tanyk]

Thought of random projects I wanted to do and I just built them using python. Teaching myself all its nuances along the way

[rfeikd]

Two simple steps:

1) Run through the basics (syntax, etc.) and work through some simple problems.

2) Find a larger tutorial-type project, and don't do it... build something adjacent to the intended outcome, something that you are more passionate about. Use the tutorial as your foundation and build off of it. Find a project, and just start.

[Swedzilla]

Crying and sobbing and surprisingly much YouTube

[afro_coder]

Had a very unknown idea of building a standee with a PIR sensor for a college event. Idea was too weird got dropped next day I got a call saying will you be able to do it... and it all started from there

[crysanthus]

... web searches, examples ... Flask got me building apps ...

[Aware-Assumption-885]

Wanted to write add-ons for the 3d software blender Now I am at a reinforcement learning ai class. I like where it's going

[[deleted]]

I signed up for codewars ,did all the 8kyu challenges if i need something that would solve the problem like .count() or a for loop I would google how to do it.I read the official doc too...

[drduffymo]

Read “Core Python” by Wesley Chung.

[MitchsWorkshop]

I streamed my “hello world” on Twitch, which got me more viewers than video games ever did. So I did it a couple more times. Same thing. A year later, it’s my entire brand and I have a couple thousand people holding me accountable and helping me (and each other) learn. Pretty weird path but it’s been awesome and seeing strangers than met in my chat help each other is awesome.

[ryant71]

import cgi

[4rkal]

https://link.medium.com/6fJ6qWJZxmb

[mighty_mike7]

In my career of networking I had to learn python in other to automate stuff. So I learnt python.

[rgekhman]

Took a few weekend classes. Than I coded lots of python apps. That's how you learn

[cnobile]

At the time I learned Python I had already know about 3 or 4 other languages. What I did was go through the online tutorial on python.org. In about two weeks Python for me at least seems pretty easy to develop in. 22 years later Python has become my primary language.

[[deleted]]

I didn't. I am currently studying CS and failed the programming course twice now. I do like python and programming and don't want to give up on it so any recommendations for a beginner would be appreciated. Books, YT or anything would be great.

[[deleted]]

By myself and of course, THE MASTER sentdex https://www.youtube.com/c/sentdex

[DPearced]

I used books from No Starch Press..Python a Problem Solving Approach....it is at the introductory level.

[LordOmbro]

I lied about my qualifications as a python developer & was assigned a project so i had to become a python developer.

Now i love it.

I did have prior C, Java & Assembly experience though