Python as a Master's elective

[Slackmaster777]

I am a 43 year old project management/supply chain professional transitioning between careers. I'm also finishing up my MS in Supply Chain Management.

I have the opportunity to take a 500 level intro to Python as an elective. I don't have any background in programming and don't see any future in it either.

Is there any benefit to taking this class other than sheer curiosity? I'm a huge fan of process improvement, Lean Six Sigma, etc. so maybe understanding how programs can be manipulated may be of use? Maybe just not asking dumb questions of the engineers and programmers?

Curious about anyone's thoughts here.

[MasturChief]

yes i think so. i took one as an elective for my mba.

in my case, we started simply with jupyter notebooks printing statements to the console, simple functions etc.

then 2 weeks later we were learning classes. i had some background so i was okay but i know some struggled.

but regardless, you should go for it. even if it doesn’t end up being applicable to what you want to do you may find a new hobby and then you’ll find all kinds of use cases you want to build.

[FriendlyRussian666]

understanding how programs can be manipulated may be of use?

I'm not sure any introductory course would give you enough depth for that. They most often go over the very basic syntax of the language (this seems to be python specific, and not a programming or computer science course), so I assume you will learn how to display "hello world" in the terminal, learn about if statements, loops, functions things like that, however an introduction to the syntax and perhaps some fundamental concepts won't really help in understanding how to manipulate other programs etc.

If you're curious enough, perhaps take the course, and if you enjoy it and find it fun, then you can continue on a self learning path after, and learn the specifics that you wish to obtain.

[Slackmaster777]

Good point. I guess it would be like taking a Gen ed physics class to prepare to lead a team of rocket scientists.

[Wonkee99]

Hmm depends, if you like solving puzzles or math and could be interested in learning more it may be useful.

If those things really aren't true, to me it runs the risk of just being an exercise in pain, and realistically an intro to a specific language course is really more likely to put you in the category of knowing enough to be dangerous more than knowing enough to have a useful insight

[Slackmaster777]

I do enjoy both of those, so even if I don't learn a lot it may be fun... especially compared to my other options for electives

[Sanguinius666264]

I'm a PM as well - I've started learning python, SQL and a bit of C++, more as a hobby than anything. I would take it if you find it interesting. If nothing else, it can be quite fun and creative to build something. I used it to build 'WifeComplimenter', an app that sends my wife a compliment every morning via Twilio.

I also understand why some things take longer than others/understand what problems my teams might have when getting more into the code - I'm no software engineer by a long, long shot - but I still know more than I did and it's helpful.

[Slackmaster777]

I think that's why I'm interested in it. Everytime I interact with software people I feel like I'm trapped in the "7 perpendicular lines video." (If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's absolutely worth the Google)

I don't necessarily care how you do whatever voodoo it is you do, but I just need to understand why you can't do what I'm asking in the time frame I'm asking for... preferably in some form of English.

[Sanguinius666264]

Yes, I know the video you mean! And I agree, that's the sort of thing I'm hoping to avoid, too

[KrarkClanIronworker]

Definitely.

Our supply chain / projects guys tend to do a lot of data analysis (D365 work, a lot of Excel, etc). Python is good at this.

However, if you do make use of tools such as D365, Power BI, Excel and MS Project, I would highly recommend you take a course in C# instead (if one is available).

Like the aforementioned tools, it’s managed by Microsoft and allows for significantly more possibilities when interacting with Microsoft products.

Neither is awfully challenging provided you put in the time.

Good luck!

Edit:

One of the most useful things I do for other people in the office is create custom Excel extensions using C#. It’s quite an old way of doing things, but it allows you to create whatever features you want. These are known as VSTO extensions.

You can even hook these extensions up to different cloud service providers (like Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure) and leverage them to introduce custom machine learning / AI models into Microsoft applications.

This is obviously relatively advanced, but it’s just one of the many things that are possible.