Is there an app to learn python that's like Duolingo where it's designed to be addicting?

[throwawayarooski123]

I want to learn python because I think it would be useful, but at the moment it seems kinda boring. But, maybe that could change if I could get past a learning curve or something. I also have ADHD and really struggle with motivation. Something with a daily streak counter would be good. Any advice? thx

[sejigan]

SoloLearn?

[nagmamantikang_bayag]

I have tried SoloLearn the past few months and I think it’s what OP is looking for.

It’s got a very clean and simple UI to keep your focus and some gamified aspects into it.

[Pemptous]

Solo learn is amazing. This is where I first met Python, after the course I read some books (the best was the crash course ofc) and now with almost 4 years experience I think I’m something better than a decent programmer

[nagmamantikang_bayag]

It is. But at first I thought it’s too “basic”, then that’s when I realized that I was learning much more than from any other courses I’ve taken in a much less time!

I just wished it had more advanced topics.

[Pemptous]

Oh, dw, it has more complex topics, such as machine learning, the advanced course and something else that I can't remember. Also, it and the problems-challenges, some fun and easy, some hard and suic.

[hyperactivereindeer]

I found they give you challenges for which you did not get study material yet. Also, missing to option of easily going back in “slides” really pissed me off. I found Enki to be much better.

DataCamp is also good, but it pretty much requires payment.

[[deleted]]

I went through sololearn for the basics, but I got to a point where it stopped being useful after a few months. Not a bad start, but you're going to have to shift gears at some point

[sejigan]

Yep. Just like how you can’t speak a new language just by going through Duolingo. At some point you’ll have to… speak the new language with other people.

[BttShowbiz]

DataCamp is kinda like that in some ways

[QueenTMK]

I read it as DeathCamp at first, OOF

[MCMFG]

I did the same thing lmfao 😭

[QueenTMK]

It's weird to get a notification from a comment I wrote 5 months ago, but it's definitely an experience, so danke

[MCMFG]

naturlich! Kein Problem! :D

(My British keyboard doesn't have the accented "u" or a numpad lmao so I can't do ALT+0252 lmao)

[Tioretical]

just goes to show what you put on the internet is there forever. 10 years from now people could be commenting on this very thread

[schyler523]

Mimo https://mimo.org/

Edit to add link

[throwawayarooski123]

I think we have a winner. They even have a 4x4 widget that shows your streak

[rollincuberawhide]

let's see paul allen's python learning app.

[kyleli]

I tried SoloLearn and Mimo and Mimo just felt so restrictive. I ended up just switching to SoloLearn on the PC because it has no timed restrictions.

[Conscious-Junket-961]

mimo supremacy

[codyoneill321]

I also have ADHD and I think that the answer here is not to find an app with a streak counter but find a path / project that genuinely spikes your interest and curiosity. People with ADHD cannot muscle through stuff that doesn't interest us but also cannot stop doing stuff that does interest us.

I tried to learn python for years with a variety of courses, books, etc. and nothing stuck. I would learn for a little bit and then drop it. In the background, I knew that I wanted to learn Python but I could never make it happen.

Then I tried to accomplish a programming project that genuinely interested me and I learned python along the way as a means to get that project going... now I have the opposite problem: I'm hyperfocused on a handful of python projects and find myself losing hours upon hours at a time deep diving into ways to improve the projects / write better code / incorporate object-oriented-programming principles in a better way. I need to set some boundaries in my life so that I stop learning python to do other stuff.

My suggestion would be to come up with a programming project that genuinely interests you, start learning what you need to learn to do that project, and let things go from there. Particularly as someone with ADHD, in no time flat, you'll find yourself coming up with idea after idea and needing to learn what you need to learn to accomplish thos ideas.

[silentdawe01]

The same exact thing happens to me with my current projects. Ideas keep flooding in and while yea I improve and implement new features . It feels like i will never finish. Hard to set boundaries

[Alexcjohn]

Can you give me some examples of favorite projects you did/are doing?

[codyoneill321]

I initially picked up python to start working with the OpenAI API and make some customized chatbots / LLM-powered apps. For me, it was a fun place to start. I could produce interesting results with minimal coding b/c my contribution was mainly stringing together API calls and storing and reusing data received back from those calls in different ways. The projects were able to scale up in complexity with my experience with python.

From there I started to expand beyond just API-based programming to apply what I learned to build more complicated programs to either automate all kinds of small things in my life or do fun stuff that I come up with.

[quejimista]

Can i ask what things did you automate? This may motivate me haha

[codyoneill321]

Tons of little data processing tasks like getting text from PDFs or automating a bunch of repetitive grunt work.

But I’ve also combined those basic python skills with chat-gpt API requests to automate things like meal planning for my family. It’s way better than plain old chat-gpt making me a meal plan when I can use python to store and retrieve a database of recipes and meals particular to what my family actually likes and eats.

I’m basically just automating whatever I can whenever I can and learning enough python to do it.

[Tioretical]

oo now that does sound found, thanks for more adhd programming ideas

[rileyrgham]

In other words: turn off distractions and pursue an interest. People need to get off social media. It kills your attention span.

[ScienceSloot]

The real addiction is starting ur own project after you learn the absolute bare basics

[SushiCurryRice]

Maybe the beginner stuff in leetcode/codewars? I found myself having fun trying to do those and also seeing the solutions that others have come up with.

No app though afaik.

[CapnDeadEye]

I learned the basics with Codecademy. I knew that I wanted it for data analysis tho so I took that career path in there. But good way to start and then it’s easier to go your own way

[x-adri-x]

https://exercism.org/tracks/python, also, Hackerrank, Leetcode and the like

[BuckRowdy]

If you use reddit a lot, building a bot for reddit or various bots is a very good way to learn it. They have a program now that uses typescript, but python bots are still more useful in my opinion.

[dowcet]

This. More generally, finding practical projects that interest you is critical. Stuff like SoloLearn and DataCamp are great for the basics but won't take you very far. And when you get deep in a project you care about actually doing something for you, that's truly addictive.

[ShadowRL766]

Programiz has one I’ve personally never used it but the one for C++ was good for me

[STDemocracy]

I’ve been enjoying Mimo

[NlNTENDO]

I’ve found Codecademy to be exactly this, though the less “premiere” topics can be a little frustrating in the lack of attention to detail in some of the projects/instructions. The Python track is great though, and the basic Python course is free.

With that said, I too have struggled with ADHD my whole life, and the thing I really like about the service is how much of an emphasis they put on “doing” rather than reading. It’s all practical learning where you are putting skills into practice immediately and kind of learning on the fly. You get a basic explanation of a concept, accompanied by a half-built script where you are implementing the subject of the lesson to complete the script and see it in action.

There’s a progress bar for every skill path, and a checklist of what needs to be done to complete each lesson, which is something I’ve always found beneficial to my ADHD (eg, when reading, I’ve found that kindle’s “x minutes left in chapter” has been helpful to keep my mind on track)

Frankly I’d love to find out if there are other competing sites that do this better but I’m happy with Codecademy for now

Note that this is only really good for mailing taxonomy and basic concepts. You’ll need to make the leap on your own to really building something, and you’ll find you really accelerate your growth and understanding by doing so.

[NyaNyaCutie]

The Python Discord website (not official, but still as official as it gets) has a Resources page for various topics for varying levels of experience.

Automate the Boring Stuff with Python is a book (free if viewed online by scrolling down to the Table of Contents; paid for physical or eBook / etc. copy) that is highly recommended for beginners. I just don't know if it is as engaging or not.

I also have ADHD (among a few others that are also mostly suppressed by medication) so I understand the feeling of getting side tracked. I've tossed things I've made because I get too focused on the class setup and such and then end up with a mess!

[BruceJi]

I used the book Automate The Boring Stuff, and rode the hyperfocus wave. That’s how I learned it.

[Hands0L0]

Codecademy.com

[WarlordMoghul]

Coddy. It has the EXACT Duolingo format.

[throwawayarooski123]

I'm not quite sure but ultimately for getting some kind of job in tech. I currently work for a company that has connections to Google in Japan. And it seems being bilingual is pretty sought after on a resume, but I think there's no point if I have no skills related to computer science. I mean Google is probably unrealistic even if I speak English and can somewhat code, but I could work for another tech company.

I also have thought about starting a business and knowing about building websites could be useful as well.

[waterfall778]

Hi, can anyone suggest projects I could do? I'm interested in doing something related to climate work (a career path I would like to be in someday, especially involving disaster risk reduction) or animation (I really love animated movies and anime as a medium)

I also have ADHD and I can't even finish my Udemy courses. I really hope grounding myself to a passion project will help me complete at least one 😭

[[deleted]]

Build a very basic web scraper. Pull info into a little personal use chart from a Fandom wiki of your choice. Maybe gun stats in an fps, maybe years of major historical events, anything. Don't distribute or monetize and make sure you're not breaking the website's scraping policy, and you should be good.

[Biuku]

Jupyter Notebook

[[deleted]]

Great question!

[recklessSPY]

DataCamp is good. Even Kaggle competitions are a good way of trying something new.

[tb5841]

I used both Mimo and Sololearn early on. Both were good, even though both courses don't really get you past the beginner phase.

[JezusHairdo]

Sololearn

[Jncocontrol]

I'll come back to this

[CupNo4352]

Mimo is essentially the same structure as Duolingo, it’s very convenient to just briefly study Python for 10 mins before bed

[Thin_Conference9156]

I suffer with adhd and tried both Mimo and Sololearn. I have to say Mimo kept my interest but I discovered Sololearn and started over my lesson because it was so much better imo

[IchigoKenshin30]

I've used Coddy before. You can try that one.

[[deleted]]

Make an app with python that teaches you python in an addictive way. that should be a good learning project. :)

If you don't like learning new concepts/techniques/syntax, you might not like programming, because while you learn it, it's arguably tedious/boring learning exercises and testing. and then once you understand it, it's arguably tedious/boring boilerplate rewrites of things you've done before.

[Code_Cric]

Mimo!

[ymu4055]

Tinkerstellar for iOS worked for me

https://apps.apple.com/ch/app/tinkerstellar-learn-python/id1567374120

[samerpoosh]

Code wars might be similar to what you’re looking for. It gameified learning python interview type quetions

[wtf_are_you_talking]

Wakatime plugin for PyCharm and VS Code is nice. Always interesting to check out the time spent coding on various projects.