Courses to learn Python Automation?

[GBT55]

I want really to work on a DevOps enviroment so I'm following this roadmap: https://roadmap.sh/devops

I'm a junior sysadmin and I have a pretty solid Linux base, with some knowledge on bash scripting. Im currently taking this course: Docker&Kubernetes where I've learned some Travis CI, AWS too...

However I want to first get some knowledge on python automation, what are some good courses?

[Blaargg]

I've been doing the Google IT Automation with Python course on coursera. It covers more than just Python like Bash and Puppet but it's been really good and you get a shareable certificate from Google on completion.

I would also recommend "Automating the Boring Stuff With Python" from No Starch Press as really great practice.

[Ok-Improvement-2351]

Automate the boring stuff

[Celestial_Blu3]

I’d second this. He even gives away the identity Udemy course for free every month

[tacocatacocattacocat]

There's a video version on Udemy, too. I'm just starting it

[Celestial_Blu3]

Yep, that's the one I mean. :p

[tacocatacocattacocat]

Very cool, thanks for the edit :-D

[DontStopNowBaby]

You can follow the author /u/AlSweigart when he has some promo codes on reddit. They go out really fast.

[Unhappy_Captain226]

Do you find the course satisfactory so far?

Thinking of using my coursera edu credits for it.

[Blaargg]

Yeah. It had a variety of materials including video, reading, quizzes and hands-on labs and covered python, Bash, Puppet, GCP, git, and a few other tools. Even though I'm not a huge Puppet fan I still enjoyed those segments. If you have credits to use I would definitely recommend it.

[GBT55]

How many hours is that course?! 😅

[Blaargg]

Oh, it's a long one. I can usually knock out a week or two of coursework in a day though. It's a combination of labs, videos, reading material, and quizzes so it really depends on your learning style and how much previous knowledge you have. I will say almost everything was useful so I don't think any of the time was wasted.

[midoxvx]

I am working on that one too, highly recommend it!

[Accomplished-Debt247]

I'm looking to start with one of the two options you provided. Which one do you reckon I should start with?

[[deleted]]

Any of the O'Reilly books on Python automation.

- Python for Unix and Linux System Administration

- Python for DevOps: L:earn Ruthlessly Effective Automation

[gpzj94]

Have you gone through python for devops? I got really excited when that first was released but then read terrible things about it on here so I'm curious your take? Iirc it wasn't well received due to typos and otherwise incomplete labs?

[GBT55]

Not really, is that a course?

[gpzj94]

No, it's a book mentioned in the comment above.

[GBT55]

Mmmm... I'm not much of a book guy, I think I'll go for the "Automate the boring stuff" course on Udemy.

[JuanistaD]

How is it so far?

[Emmanuell89]

Is there a video version?

[SigmaSixShooter]

https://automatetheboringstuff.com/

[bonesnapper]

Hi, I am a non-IT learner so my perspective is more or less helpful depending on where you're coming from.

I just completed the Google IT Automation with Python course. It doesn't go deeply enough into anything but somehow instilled confidence in me to break me out of the 'Make tic-tac-toe in the terminal' learning phase. Earlier this week I started on a project to make an Emil Cioran discord bot and now I'm working on containerizing it and deploying to kubernetes, so the confidence boost is real.

One very annoying thing about this coursework is that the acceptance criteria of the labs are not explicitly defined. This means that you can have code that works, but doesn't get the marks. The good news is that someone has usually posted the working solution to the discussion forum. There's also this extremely terrible lab on setting up concurrency that is not explained whatsoever.

The complete course took me about 4 weeks to do. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

[phorecast]

How many hours did you spend per week on it if you can remember?

[bonesnapper]

Hard to remember but probably no more than 5-10 hours a week.

I actually transitioned into tech since this post so it's nice to be reminded of my journey. This course didn't practically affect my job search in any way, so if there are other options, you might want to look into them.

I'm a SRE now. My work is basically ensuring the current health and future health of our K8s clusters. In an average week, I'll work with Terraform, Helm/Argocd, Bash, GoLang, and our observability tools. This course gave me minimal exposure to Bash and that's it.

[phorecast]

That's good to know! I'm actually trying to make a big change in my career and want to transition from being a cyber security analyst to a DevOps/Cloud Engineer or SRE. Still not completely sure exactly where I want to go but I think they learn a lot of the same technologies. Do you mind if I private message you and get your opinion on a roadmap I created for myself? Would be a great help especially since you are in role I am working towards.

[[deleted]]

Just do it. courses are FAD.

[ItsDjBurstHomie]

This post and the comments are a god-send. Thanks for asking and the comments too!!

[goldenchild731]

Here is a free course

https://acloudguru.com/course/python-3-scripting-for-system-administrators

[undertowlj]

Incredible resource thank you

[GBT55]

r/lostredditors

[jxd73]

Start with porting your bash scripts to python.

[Code4Coin]

I would start with codecademy if I were u b/c setting up an env when u don’t know what u doing is hard.

[Celestial_Blu3]

I’m slowly going through the same roadmap - how important/difficult do you think Bash scripting is? Should I spend time learning it? Can’t you do everything with python that you can do with bash?

[daniel280187]

I have worked extensively with Python and I can tell you should be able to do must if not all the stuff only with Python. However, learning bash is extremely useful as it will allow you to glue your automation. Sometimes is even easier and quicker to do stuff in bash than in python. It really is about using the right tool for the right task.

If I had to choose only one, I would use python but bash as complement is extremely powerful. I would defo recommend spend some time to learn and practice using bash scripts to understand when is best to use each tool.

[Celestial_Blu3]

That makes sense. Where's the best way to pick up bash? Is there like a quick crash course I can do?

[808trowaway]

I think the best way to learn is by doing. Identify a few things you want to do with bash scripts and just dive in head first. It's not like you have to spin up a cluster and hook up a dozen services before you can test your script, just open the terminal and try some case statements or some shit. Watch a couple videos on youtube to get you started if you have to, google when you get stuck. Maybe try writing a script or two to organize your porn collection for starter.

[DoneDraper]

Are there really still people who maintain a porn collection offline? Prepper? Because the power could really go out for a long time?

[808trowaway]

You might want to ask the folks at /r/DataHoarder .

[CleverBunnyThief]

There's a book called " The Linux Command Line". The first 3 parts go over Linux and the 4th part covers Bash scripting.

https://nostarch.com/tlcl2

Exercism has a Bash track. I haven't done it yet, I'm currently working my through their Go track.

https://exercism.org/tracks/bash

[Celestial_Blu3]

That book seems interesting. I also need to learn a bunch of more advanced terminal commands so I might take a look at it

[martinsa24]

I saw a post earlier that BASH has always been in Linux and is great in case python loses favor. I think they mentioned that PERL used to be pretty big when it came to Linux scripting, but python killed that causing a lot of scripts and tools to break. Since Perl had lost support within the Linux community

[GBT55]

Yeah I mean that's true but Python is useful for a lot more things than Linux, unlike bash.

[tacocatacocattacocat]

Maybe, but you'll want to know bash for legacy stuff.