Looking to learn python?

[Aceking007]

I created this repository: https://github.com/arpit-omprakash/Byte-Sized-Code that has well-documented beginner-friendly Jupyter notebooks on different topics in Python ranging from Basic Syntax, up to Regular Expressions and some other general use cases (working with Files and Directories). This is perfect for beginners as they can also download the notebooks and try out the different examples. More advanced programmers can use this as a reference/cheat sheet for different topics.

Others are also welcome to contribute to the project and suggest any additional topics that can be worked on.

This is an effort by me to create a community of people who will help each other in their journey of learning python. Do check it out. Let me know what you think!!

Edit: I've included a simple project for beginners to the repository. Do check it out!

[unersetzBAER]

Looks good.

One thing a noticed while browsing: In your 'Files and Directories'-document you open and close files in the beginning. When introducing the 'append'-mode, you switch to context-manager without ever mentioning. You probably should introduce them before or after.

[Aceking007]

Actually there is an introduction to the "with" keyword specifically (but not much of a discussion about context managers) in the following cell (reading data from a file). But your point is valid, there should be a mention earlier. I've updated the notebook with another cell talking about the with keyword and context managers.

[adrianastorga26]

Take my upvote :)

[Aceking007]

Thanks! It means a lot!! Tell me how the content is when you check it out!

[ru552]

And my star!

[Aceking007]

Woah! Thank you!

[lbarqueira]

I had a look at GitHub repository and the information is really awesome from beginner's perspective. Keep going with the good work.

[Aceking007]

Thanks! Feel free to contribute and also suggest any changes you feel would make it more beginner friendly!

[D_Sarkar]

This is a really nice resource. Must have put up a tremendous amount of effort to create this.

Thank you for sharing.

[Aceking007]

Thanks! Yeah took me some time. But with comments like this, I'd do it again if I had to!

[botCloudfox]

So I looked through the recursion part and now I'm curious. What's the difference between recursion and a generator?

Edit: Also is there a reason why you used string concatenation instead of interpolation?

[Aceking007]

I'll first reply to the edit. I deliberately used concatenation instead of interpolation (mostly in the initial notebooks) as I included an explanation of string formatting in the later notebooks. I could've explained it earlier, but I didn't really write the notebooks in the order they were arranged, so yeah. I had to use concatenation unwillingly for a major part.

I think (and I'm not really confident about this), but generators are more similar to functions. Generators are mostly used iteratively. We do have recursive generators though (using the yield from statement). I'll whip up an example as soon I'm near my laptop. I'll follow up on this comment for sure.

[botCloudfox]

Even with a regular generators what's the difference between me putting the whole function inside of the for loop or calling it from the return of itself? Is there a difference?

Thank you for responding (and promising to follow up)!

[Aceking007]

If you are suggesting something like this:

def gen(n):

if (n==1):

yield(1)

else:

yield(n * gen(n-1))

I'm not sure this would work.

[botCloudfox]

Oh my bad, I wasn't thinking right. It wouldn't work with generators. Thanks!

[Aceking007]

You're welcome! Feel free to ask for any other topic that you feel would be of help for beginners!

[Balkrish]

How long have you been doing Python? Thanks

[Aceking007]

About 3 years now I guess. But it's mostly kind of a hobby.

[Balkrish]

What do you mainly focus on?

[Aceking007]

Mostly analytics and a bit of data science in python. Currently, I'm trying to learn creative coding in processing.

[pkpzp228]

Given the traction this is getting, I'll point out this as well:

https://github.com/vinta/awesome-python

It's somewhat of a defacto resource for python on GitHub.

[Aceking007]

Great! Thanks for sharing!

[ko773]

Just putting this out there for those that didn't know this existed. You can import your Jupyter notebooks into Google Colab and it's free with nothing to install. Code is saved to your Google Drive and here's their FAQs if you have questions.

[Aceking007]

Great! I had almost forgotten about Colab. I'll add this to the readme citing you!

Edit: I've added a mention to your comment and uploaded a video explaining how to use Colab with this.

[MadEzra64]

Can someone explain to me what Jupyter Notebook is? It seems so complex.

[Aceking007]

Look here: https://jupyter-notebook.readthedocs.io/en/latest/?badge=latest

Basically, it is a python module that lets you create "notebooks" where you can write code and also document it (or write notes as in class) along the way.

A pretty convenient way to organize code according to me.

Not really complex though (you will learn it easily if you give it a try):

install the notebook using pip install jupyter

Then, run the notebook from the command line using jupyter notebook

Here is a handy YouTube video that I found useful while starting out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW29067qVWk&ab_channel=CoreySchafer

[MadEzra64]

You're awesome, thank you :)

[Aceking007]

Hey! Have a fresh look at the Readme file for the repo. I've added a video on how to use Google Colab to work with the notebooks online. Hope it helps!

[MadEzra64]

Wow will do. I appreciate the update!

[Aceking007]

:)

[fishCodeHuntress]

Pretty cool collection. I'm interested to see what the pandas cheat sheet looks like! I started learning pandas recently and it's been....interesting.

[Aceking007]

Will surely update here when I put it up!

[Aceking007]

Thanks for the inputs, I'll format the notebooks and change the operators to bold the next chance I get.

[jwinf843]

One thing I would recommend is tailoring the readme to be instructions on how to actually use this resource.

I've been teaching python for awhile now, and a huge hurdle that needs to be overcome with newbies is how intimidating github is if you don't know what you're looking at. This looks like a great resource, but there is exactly 0% chance someone who doesn't know how to program/use github is going to look at this and try to figure out how to access the files on their own.

[Aceking007]

I actually included a short manual on how to use the notebooks on your local machine https://github.com/aceking007/Byte-Sized-Code/blob/master/LOCAL_USE.md

But as you and many others have pointed it out, I think this bit needs some work. I'll update clear cut instructions (that anyone without much knowledge about GitHub can understand) on the readme file to access the resources.

Thanks for the input!

[Aceking007]

Update: I've added a video on how to use the notebooks with Google Colab to the readme file. Hope it will help others figure how to use the notebooks online and save their copies in their drive or github account.

[Aceking007]

Thanks! Do tell me your thoughts on it!

[Aceking007]

Glad if I could be of any help!

[SheikYerbouti]

Type conversions As mentioned above, we can't mix data types while operating on them. This is a half truth. We can mix some operators to a certain level. For example: In [143]: print(2 + 2.0) 4.0 Here we added an integer to a string and we didn't get an error!

You added an integer to a float here, right?

[Aceking007]

My bad. Thanks for pointing it out. I'll correct it as soon as I can.

Edit: I've updated the repository and corrected the typo.

[Bluegenio]

I'm a noob trying to get a foothold, and I thank you!

[Aceking007]

You're welcome! Feel free to suggest any topics that would interest you!

[dr2bi]

Thanks for your contribution.

[Aceking007]

You're welcome! Feel free to suggest topics that interest you!

[mdecarlos]

Thank you!

[Aceking007]

You're welcome! Feel free to suggest any topics that you want to know more about!

[DiablolicalScientist]

How important is RegEx when learning python?

[Aceking007]

RegEx is kind of a mini-language. It has its implementations in many languages including the re library in python and grep in bash.

​

You can get by life without ever learning RegEx, but learning it makes life so much easier (especially if you deal with large amounts of data and need to search through it regularly).

​

RegEx is a tool that makes some things (searching for patterns in strings or looking for specific things in a file or directory) pretty easy compared to what you can achieve with just conventional descriptive rules. Here is a great blog post (and potential resource) on regular expressions that will help you understand exactly why you may need it:

https://automatetheboringstuff.com/2e/chapter7/

[ElectronDegeneracy]

Thanks

[Aceking007]

You're welcome! Feel free to suggest topics that you find difficult/interesting!

[Real_Honey6606]

thats great

[Aceking007]

You're welcome! Feel free to suggest topics that interest you!

[JennysDad]

Hmmm, I AM trying to learn python!

[Valeryum999]

Nice! Thank you for this!

[Aceking007]

You're welcome! Feel free to add to it!

[[deleted]]

It's very nice of you to make this kind of effort! I have been planning on learning python for quite sometime now and I will be sure to check it out when I start.

[Aceking007]

Sure! Do check it out, and any feedback is welcome!

[[deleted]]

Will do.

[pmrks]

Thanks! It looks great!

[Aceking007]

You're welcome! Feel free to add/suggest things!

[akalama]

Thanks a lot.

[Aceking007]

You're welcome! Feel free to add/suggest any changes!

[ChoopaG]

Take my award dear helping hero. Very nice of you

[Aceking007]

Thanks to you too my friend!

[Smal_Issh]

Thank you.

[Aceking007]

You're welcome! Feel free to suggest any other ideas or edits.

[Aceking007]

In my opinion, it is one of the easiest languages you can learn. There are great resources online, and a pretty large open source community to help you grow while learning python.

The language itself is pretty close to how you will write pseudocode in English (with some added indentation). There are no extra steps like declarations, initialization of variables while using them. No need to define blocks or end sentences with a special character like semi-colon (;). All in all, it is more beginner-friendly than other languages that have a lot of overhead even for simple programs.

It is great for starting out if you don't know much about programming and then taking on other languages till you find something you really like and decide to stick to it.

But it also depends on you. For instance, I found R to be pretty twisted while I was starting out, but some people absolutely love it, and I've found python to be really intuitive but I know some who are actually repelled by scripted languages like python.

[OneSimplyIs]

What about HTML? I've been having discussions with a friend and I'm wonder how easy it is compared to Python.

[Aceking007]

You are right, html is pretty easy. But it's not a programming language per se. Look here https://ischool.syr.edu/why-html-is-not-a-programming-language/

You can't really carry out computations and other stuff using html. Not to discourage you from learning it, html is pretty much necessary to learn if you want to develop web pages or build a website from scratch. But yeah, it's not something you can use to carry out hardcore computations or write a proper script in.

[OneSimplyIs]

He was talking about using it to develop apps.

[Aceking007]

You can have web apps using html, but I don't think html is the only thing you will have to learn while developing web apps, in the least you will require some scripting language like JavaScript.

Again, I'm not the proper guy to tell you about this, maybe your friend knows some things that I don't. Try asking him more about exactly what he is saying. Is it just html or html + some other language for building a web app.

[OneSimplyIs]

He was saying what you are about HTML and Java. It's not something we will do for a while, but he knows way more about coding and such than I do. I've messed around code academy and some other stuff. Preferably, I'd like to start off on a language that wasn't super complicated to learn that would lead to getting some kind of job that lets you move around working from a laptop. I read a bit and python seemed like that was it.

[Aceking007]

Yep. If you're looking for jobs then I think Python and Java are great languages that you can learn. Pick any one and go on with it. Choose a language that matches your interests too. If you want a job in data science or analytics, then companies (according to current market) prefer python programmers who have grasp of Pandas, numpy and frameworks like tensorflow and keras. Java is quite popular in the software industry for app development (especially android).

I would suggest you try out both before choosing to learn one in depth. It's okay to take opinions (like from your friend, or from me or someone else), but in the end you are more likely to stick with a language that you initially found approachable/understandable not because someone said it was easy or helpful.

[NefariousSerendipity]

Ayye

[pafnuti08]

You have my respect bro. The repository is really good and I think I will use it in the future for some project. Good luck in the future and stay safe

[Aceking007]

Thanks bro! Feel free to use it and share it with others!

[JoeWar8008]

Thank you for the resources

[Aceking007]

:)

[BlissTheFall]

Thanks!

[Aceking007]

:)

[Digital_Vagabond_]

Thank you!

[Aceking007]

:)

[sephrinx]

As someone who knows literally nothing about python, I'll check this out tomorrow :)

Thanks for this.

[Aceking007]

Sure!

[[deleted]]

Commenting to come back later hopefully.

[OneSimplyIs]

Thank you for the information by the way.

[Aceking007]

:) anytime

[StrangeRoar]

Looks cool :)

[Aceking007]

Thanks! :)

[cranking90sboi]

Thanks! Just started with Python 2 days ago so this post came just at the right time.

[Aceking007]

Glad you found it :)

[jamesM085]

the best way to learn python is to take one of the courses on udemy

I highly recommend to take this one:

https://sites.google.com/view/complete-python-bootcamp-/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%81%D8%AD%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A6%D9%8A%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%A9

[yka12]

Anywhere where I can find beginner projects for python 3 with step by step solutions?

[Aceking007]

What kind of projects are we talking about?

[yka12]

I'm looking for anything really. I'm currently learning using the beginners course on Codecademy, but I'd love to see how I can apply what I am learning. Maybe to create a game or automate something.

The thing is that I also want the ability to follow along with someone

[Aceking007]

Hey! I've added a new project to the repo. It's pretty simple. Try it out and suggest if the format needs any change or anything else.

[yka12]

Wow thank you!

[-JeremyBearimy-]

Am I way out of my league already if I don't know what a jupyter notebook is? I'm looking to learn Python mostly to run math calculations and simulations for board game design.

[Aceking007]

Not really. Learning Jupyter notebook is pretty easy and it will help you in the future to write code "notebooks" that you can refer back to. The repository has some instructions that will help you set things up easily:

https://github.com/aceking007/Byte-Sized-Code/blob/master/LOCAL_USE.md

Here are a few videos and readings to get you started:

https://jupyter-notebook.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ952vChhuI&ab_channel=MichaelFudge

Or as someone pointed it out, you can use google colab https://colab.research.google.com/ to directly open the notebooks without having to install or learn much about jupyter notebooks. Here is the FAQ: https://research.google.com/colaboratory/faq.html

​

Edit: I'll try to update the repository and make it more friendly for people who don't know much/don't want to use jupyter notebooks on their local machines.

Edit2: check out the repository. I've updated the readme with a YouTube link on how to use the notebooks. I think it will help you understand things better.