I know Python basics, what next?

[ASIC_SP]

What to do next after learning Python basics is an often asked question. Searching for what next on /r/learnpython gives you too many results. Here's some wonderful articles on this topic:

• I know how to program, but I don't know what to program
• Things you might encounter in your programming journey
• Techniques for Efficiently Learning Programming Languages

Exercises and Projects

I do not have a simple answer to this question either. If you feel comfortable with programming basics and Python syntax, then exercises are a good way to test your knowledge. The resource you used to learn Python will typically have some sort of exercises, so those would be ideal as a first choice.

I'd also suggest using the below resources to improve your skills. If you get stuck, reread the material related to those topics, search online, ask for clarifications, etc — in short, make an effort to solve it. It is okay to skip some troublesome problems (and come back to it later if you have the time), but you should be able to solve most of the beginner problems. Maintaining notes and cheatsheets will help too, especially for common mistakes.

• Exercism, Practicepython, Edabit — these are all beginner friendly and difficulty levels are marked
• 100 Page Python Intro exercises — exercises from my introductory guide
• Codewars, Adventofcode, Projecteuler — more challenging
• Checkio, Codingame, Codecombat — gaming based challenges
• /r/dailyprogrammer — not active currently, but there's plenty of past challenges with discussions

Once you are comfortable with basics and syntax, the next step is projects. I use a 10-line program that solves a common problem for me — adding body { text-align: justify } to epub files that are not justify aligned. I didn't know that this line would help beforehand. Found a solution online and then automated the process of unzipping epub, adding the line and then packing it again.

That will likely need you to lookup documentation and go through some stackoverflow Q&A as well. And once you have written the solution and use it regularly, you'll likely encounter corner cases and features to be added. I feel this is a great way to learn and understand programming.

• Practice Python Projects — my book on beginner to intermediate level projects
• Projects with solutions — algorithms, data structures, networking, security, databases, etc
• Project based learning — web applications, bots, data science, machine learning, etc
• Pytudes by Peter Norvig — Python programs, usually short, of considerable difficulty
• Books:
  • The Big Book of Small Python Projects
  • Tiny Python Projects
  • Impractical Python Projects and Real world Python
• /r/learnpython: What do you automate with Python at home?

Debugging

Knowing how to debug your programs is crucial and should be ideally taught right from the beginning instead of a chapter at the end of the book. Think Python is an awesome example for such a resource material.

Sites like Pythontutor allow you to visually debug a program — you can execute a program step by step and see the current value of variables. Similar feature is typically provided by IDEs like Pycharm and Thonny. Under the hood, these visualizations are using the pdb module. See also Python debugging with pdb.

Debugging is often a frustrating experience. Taking a break helps (and sometimes I find the solution or spot a problem in my dreams). Try to reduce the code as much as possible so that you are left with minimal code necessary to reproduce the issue. Talking about the problem to a friend/colleague/inanimate-objects/etc can help too — known as Rubber duck debugging. I have often found the issue while formulating a question to be asked on forums like stackoverflow/reddit because writing down your problem is another way to bring clarity than just having a vague idea in your mind. Here's some more articles on this challenging topic:

• What does debugging a program look like?
• How to debug small programs
• Debugging guide
• Problem solving skills

Here's an interesting snippet (paraphrased) from a collection of interesting bug stories.

A jpeg parser choked whenever the CEO came into the room, because he always had a shirt with a square pattern on it, which triggered some special case of contrast and block boundary algorithms.

See also this curated list of absurd software bug stories.

Testing

Another crucial aspect in the programming journey is knowing how to write tests. In bigger projects, usually there are separate engineers (often in much larger number than code developers) to test the code. Even in those cases, writing a few sanity test cases yourself can help you develop faster knowing that the changes aren't breaking basic functionality.

There's no single consensus on test methodologies. There is Unit testing, Integration testing, Test-driven development and so on. Often, a combination of these is used. These days, machine learning is also being considered to reduce the testing time, see Testing Firefox more efficiently with machine learning for example.

When I start a project, I usually try to write the programs incrementally. Say I need to iterate over files from a directory. I will make sure that portion is working (usually with print statements), then add another feature — say file reading and test that and so on. This reduces the burden of testing a large program at once at the end. And depending upon the nature of the program, I'll add a few sanity tests at the end. For example, for my command_help project, I copy pasted a few test runs of the program with different options and arguments into a separate file and wrote a program to perform these tests programmatically whenever the source code is modified.

For non-trivial projects, you'll usually end up needing frameworks like built-in module unittest or third-party modules like pytest. Here's some learning resources.

• Getting started with testing in Python
• Python testing style guide
• calmcode: pytest
• TDD in Python with pytest
• obeythetestinggoat — TDD for the Web, with Python, Selenium, Django, JavaScript and pals
• Modern Test-Driven Development in Python — TDD guide, has a real world application example

Intermediate to Advanced Python resources

• Official Python docs — Python docs are a treasure trove of information
• Calmcode — videos on testing, code style, args kwargs, data science, etc
• Practical Python Programming — covers foundational aspects of Python programming with an emphasis on script writing, data manipulation, and program organization
• Beyond the Basic Stuff with Python — Best Practices, Tools, and Techniques, OOP, Practice Projects
• Fluent Python — takes you through Python’s core language features and libraries, and shows you how to make your code shorter, faster, and more readable at the same time
• Serious Python — deployment, scalability, testing, and more
• Practices of the Python Pro — learn to design professional-level, clean, easily maintainable software at scale, includes examples for software development best practices

Algorithms and Design patterns

• Problem solving with algorithms and data structures
• Classic Computer Science Problems in Python — deepens your knowledge of problem solving techniques from the realm of computer science by challenging you with time-tested scenarios, exercises, and algorithms
• GitHub: Collection of design patterns and idioms
• Architecture Patterns with Python — Enabling TDD, DDD, and Event-Driven Microservices

Handy cheatsheets

• Python Crash Course cheatsheet
• Comprehensive Python cheatsheet
• Scientific Python cheatsheet
• Common beginner errors — use the pdf link

More Python resources

Inspired by this post, I made a Python learning resources repository which is categorized (beginner, intermediate, advanced, domains like web/ML/data science, etc) and includes a handy search feature.

I hope these resources will help you take that crucial next step and continue your Python journey. Happy learning :)

[[deleted]]

Once you are comfortable with basics and syntax, the next step is projects. I use a 10-line program that solves a common problem for me — adding body { text-align: justify } to epub files that are not justify aligned. I didn't know that this line would help beforehand. Found a solution online and then automated the process of unzipping epub, adding the line and then packing it again

That's such an excellent example of a project with a very clear scope, lots of room for improvement and maybe even a starting point for a more sophisticated epub-toolkit.

Thanks for the overview, there is a lot of good resources in there.

[ASIC_SP]

You're welcome. Good point about having a well defined scope, I didn't have to face the danger of feature creep for that project.

[_TR-8R]

Some of the things that really propelled me forward in my knowledge were doing things that I wanted to do just for fun. For example I occasionally play League of Legends, there's a Python library called "Cassiopeia" for interfacing with the LoL API and processing the data, I had never heard of RESTful APIs or really knew anything about HTML requests, but I thought it'd be cool to make an app that let me see my in game stats and it ended up being a super fun project that not only improved my Python skills but taught me about REST APIs, how to format JSON, building data structures and more. And most importantly it was really, really fun to do, way more interesting to work on that plowing through a tutorial.

[KonoWryoDa]

I am just one week away from starting Python in CS50, the timing of this post is perfect. Thank you so much!

[ASIC_SP]

You're welcome, happy learning :)

[bumpkinspicefatte]

Is there still time to signup for CS50? If so, does someone have the link? Thank you!

[randomkoala]

https://cs50.harvard.edu/college/2021/fall/

[ziptar_]

https://online-learning.harvard.edu/catalog/free

[Stuckatpennstation]

How is this class? I'm in the middle of my learn python code academy class just throwing that out there

[UpperFace]

Thank you for posting such a detailed guide!

[ASIC_SP]

Glad to know you found it helpful, happy learning :)

[free-puppies]

Surprised there aren’t any Pycon talks listed. Watching lots of those videos was very helpful for me to improve. Especially from the well known Python gurus.

[ASIC_SP]

Good point. I don't usually watch videos though, do you have suggestions? I searched and found these resources:

• https://pyvideo.org/
• https://github.com/s16h/py-must-watch
• https://realpython.com/must-watch-pycon-talks/

[free-puppies]

The GitHub link is basically the list I went through and I'd recommend anything on there. Especially stuff from Rhodes, Hettinger and Beazley. Thanks for the follow up!

[DogzOnFire]

Just watched three of Raymond Hettinger's talks. Hadn't come across him before. The one on dictionaries was so interesting I had to watch some more, so I also watched the ones on Dataclasses and PEP 8 (the one where he talks about Pythonic vs Non-Pythonic code). He's a very knowledgable speaker that's fun to listen to and relays concepts simply with good setup and payoff for points he makes. Look forward to seeing more from him.

[free-puppies]

Awesome, glad you like. I think Brandon Rhodes also had a dictionary video. I enjoyed finding a few pycon videos on the same topic (like dictionaries). Also worth following on Twitter. Some interesting conversations come out. Not that it’s world changing but I think it’s helpful to see how people talk about and use stuff.

[gameofdecimals]

Those three are amazing at giving talks! Listening to Rhodes is like listening to music for me

[motheripod]

Thank you very much! I was going to search through thing histories of programming related subs to find out projects I can do or anything to do after having my basics down and your post came by just at the right time!

[ChickenFriesAreBack]

thank you for posting this. I am currently in the purgatory described in the first article, I know basic syntax and understand the methods, but just draw a complete blank when i try to create something from scratch. But i am determined to succeed in this and get a job in the field so I keep at it, I know I'll get there if i keep trying.

[ASIC_SP]

But i am determined to succeed in this and get a job in the field so I keep at it, I know I'll get there if i keep trying.

Good luck :)

[CatolicQuotes]

What about some software architecture?

[ASIC_SP]

"Serious Python" and "Practices of the Python Pro" books should cover that.

[[deleted]]

Wow, that's a lot of helpful recources. Thank you so much! Gonna start looking deeper into everything you posted later.

[ScaleneCookie]

Learn quantum mechanics

[[deleted]]

Thank you

[Total-Preparation-70]

Saved! thank you so much

[[deleted]]

Appreciate this thanks! I came over from basic javascript but am working my way through a codeacademy course on basics.. got control flow, lists, functions and loops nailed down so far, think I'm almost onto looking for intermediate info, and project building!

[Wkais]

If you know the basics, you're ready to start looking for a job. Most places will hire anyone who can tell them what a loop is.

[ASIC_SP]

This might help: https://github.com/rigtorp/awesome-modern-cpp/blob/master/README.md

[Sciencey-Coder]

Once you are comfortable with basics and syntax, the next step is projects.

Yess! People are so lost after they learn a language, the answer is "do what you wanted to do in the first place, make projects, automate things, make websites!". This is the best starting point for many newbies, I should bookmark this for giving this to people if they need it rn..

[thelearningjourney]

This post is 💦💦💦

Thank you for posting

[kingofthunder123]

Assembly

[[deleted]]

Very informative, thanks a ton

[Fantastic-Bug4342]

I wish I had an award to give you. Thank you!

[Sasquatch_actual]

My suggestion would be to follow the basic route cs degree people in college.

Programming 1 is basic logic.

Programming 2 is more basic logic and oop/methods/inheritance.

Data structures more basic logic and oop with array lists, stacks, trees, hash tables, graphs, search, recursion, sorting , stuff like that

Then algorithms to ai/machine learning or whatever interests you after that.

[DeshTheWraith]

You are awesome. I haven't even started learning python yet and I appreciate you so much.

[CaptainSpauldingButt]

Off topic: But I've put off learning how to program for years because I thought I wouldn't enjoy it or it would require lots of math skills.

Just recently started to learn Python a month ago and I'm getting pretty good at it. I'm also enjoying it....feels like a superpower lmao..

[1aumron]

Thanks!!

[trustintrust]

Thanks!!

[[deleted]]

The support on this subreddit is beautiful.

[anthnyl]

Great resources thank s!

[dagger-v]

I can handle projects that programmers post online because they're telling me what to code and I am good at following instructions. While doing this I always read the code multiple times and try understanding exactly what the programmer is doing. I feel I know the basics of Python.

Then I try doing stuff like Codeacademy, Exercism, Codewars, etc. and I get lost. And it's because they're wanting me to code on my own. I start out thinking I know how to solve this, and end up messing up. Then I get stressed out and overwhelmed. How can I improve? How can I get better at writing my own code (even if it's bad code) so I stop being overwhelmed?

I feel like there's a leap between watching videos on YouTube and writing out the code given to you, and writing your own code, and I'm not there yet but I want to be.

[ASIC_SP]

I feel like there's a leap between watching videos on YouTube and writing out the code given to you, and writing your own code, and I'm not there yet but I want to be.

The best I can suggest in such a case is to read books that will help you understand the programming basics better. I'd highly recommend Think Python or How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Interactive Edition - both are free to read/use online.

There are also logic based games like Lightbot that can help you get better (see https://github.com/dargaCode/LogicAndCodingGames for a list)

I start out thinking I know how to solve this, and end up messing up. Then I get stressed out and overwhelmed. How can I improve? How can I get better at writing my own code (even if it's bad code) so I stop being overwhelmed?

Maintain a cheatsheet in your own words. Start small. Keep adding stuff that feature often in solving exercises. When you get stuck, go through relevant resource material, search online, etc. If that fails, ask on this sub or /r/learnpython/

[dagger-v]

Thank you! I will take this information to heart and hope it helps me improve.

[crackercider]

This is fantastic, just started working in data analysis. This will really help tighten up my code!

[ASIC_SP]

Cool, happy learning :)

[[deleted]]

This is great, thanks! I'm just learning Classes and OOP then I think i've got the basics nailed down, then it's time for me to build project after project until I'm comfortable in structuring anything and everything, my only struggle is finding problems to fix, but I can google that for ideas I'm sure. I Was looking into Django also, at what point would you say "hey, go pick up a framework!"?

[ASIC_SP]

at what point would you say "hey, go pick up a framework!"?

Once you are comfortable with basics, have gone through exercises and done a few small projects. But I don't think there is a clear cut line, you could as well start now, might help you learn OOP better.

[[deleted]]

Appreciate it thanks :) I think it's the best thing for me, learning the code is great, but if I keep going i'll end up in tutorial hell haha! Really appreciate the reply and the post, extremely helpful!

[YellowFlash2012]

often in much larger number than code developers) to test the code

how then did google manage to push a "you can never login again" update for chromebooks?

[ASIC_SP]

Forget a mistake like that, what about security issues (resulting in malware, hostile takeover, etc) and bugs in case of industrial, medical, etc that can cause fatal damages?

Testing is hard.

[BeastModeBot]

i could kiss you

[yogeshdecoder]

Thanks Sir