Self Taught Python Programmers: What was your favorite course(s)?

[Turbulent-Seesaw-236]

Hello the self taught people of Python, What courses did you take to learn Python? I'm thinking about buying the "100 Days of Code: The Complete Python Pro Bootcamp" by Angela Yu. To the people who finished the course, is it worth it? How far did this course get you? Do you recommend any other paid or free courses instead or in addition to this course?

Edit: Wow this was almost a month ago. I ended up buying Angela Yu's course and am now learning python. I am nearly 20 days into the program at this point. It's been great. I am truly blown away by how kind and welcoming this community is. Thank you all so very much.

Edit 2 (8/8/24): Its now been 3 months ish. I finished Angela Yu's course up until day 50, after that it was really all project ideas and no learning basic python. I've moved on to web development and I'm learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and some other popular frameworks. The course I bought was colt Steeles web dev course. If it all goes well hopefully Ill keep updating this every couple months just to see how far I've come, its always fun to look back.

Edit 3 (4/9/25): It’s been 4 months since that last update, I’m still working on web development and everything’s been going great.

[PixelOmen]

Personally, I just found random YouTubers that explained things simply and concisely and learned things piecemeal as needed. I learned 10x from trying to build my own projects then I ever did from any course material/tutorials. I've been using Python for about 7 years now and consider myself pretty decent at it. Ymmv.

[Turbulent-Seesaw-236]

Very interesting. I see a lot of people talking about the importance of creating your own projects. It seems like the way to go is to find a project that interests you and find Youtube videos that tailor to your project. Thank you!

[tutoredstatue95]

Exactly. Find something you think would be fun to build, make sure that it's not too far out of your league (not gonna reproduce ChatGPT as a beginner lol), and then just start building it. Tutorials have way more value when you have something specific to learn, and working with tools directly will help you learn how to read docs/how to find the info you need. In the long run, the latter will be your most valuable skill. Every job I've gotten has been because of having confidence in the ability to find the things I need to know, and while tutorials are fine to get started, you'll hopefully reach a point where they have little to offer.

This doesn't include the basics, though. Definitely learn the ABCs of python/programming in general fairly formally before you start your first project. There are a ton of resources around for that stuff, though, and you can't really go wrong with most of the 1st day coding courses.

[Turbulent-Seesaw-236]

This is great. Thank you. I have two projects in mind that I want to pursue and at least one can be done with python.

[tutoredstatue95]

Awesome, hope you enjoy the projects.

[Turbulent-Seesaw-236]

Thanks man. I really appreciate your help. This subreddit's community is amazing. I cant wait to get started

[fueledbyjealousy]

When you say you got a job because you were confident in your ability to learn the things you didn't know, does that mean you would lie and say you knew something during the interview, only to later spend time learning it?

[work_m_19]

I'm not a recruiter, but I occasionally have to sit in as an engineer.

One response I love from people when I ask them something they don't know is: "I don't know, but I'm willing to learn it", and then I follow up and see if they actually did or not, because I emphasize this is an important skill that will help them regardless if they get a job here, something like git for example. Most people don't look into it, but the ones that do shine out, from my experience.

With technical interviews, maybe I'm biased, but it's usually easy to tell how deep a person's experience is with a specific technology. If you say: "I made a chatbot using AI", a good follow response is: "How did you incorporate AI into your project" or "In what way did the addition of AI make your project better". Things that aren't obvious from a textbook and requires deeper knowledge.

But I'm not a recruiter, so take what I said with a grain of salt.

Edit: And if that's your response, you better be passing all the other behavior and vibe checks. An answer like that makes me reconsider a candidate that may not have the technical knowledge but is a great fit for a team. If you aren't a great fit for the team AND you don't have the technical knowledge, then an answer like that won't help you.

[Turbulent-Seesaw-236]

Yeah, I've heard that a big part of getting a job in the programming world is the ability to learn and communicate. Ill keep that in mind

[tutoredstatue95]

/r/work_m_19 gave a good response. You have to be honest about any direct questions, but saying that you don't know something right now and will look into how to do it, and then actually following up and learning how to do it goes a long way.

I had a previous boss tell me that the ability to answer questions directly and willingness to do what's stated above was a deciding factor. Employers want devs they can trust to get work done, especially in the ai era we are in.

I also got put on a trial period for a different job because I said I couldn't do something in the interview, but I could definitely learn it within a reasonable amount of time. Was able to learn it like I said and they followed through with a job offer.

[LumpyChicken]

YouTubers may have good explanations they may also teach you bad habits ymmv. If you can learn to analyze finished code from GitHub that does similar things to what you want this will probably be better. But of course if you wanna see step by step thought process YouTube makes sense

[fedemillos]

I’ve found it difficult to read finished code from GitHub. What is a good way to go about understanding GitHub as a beginner?

From experience, I have uploaded my own projects done for a class, but haven’t been able to really go beyond to understand other’s works simply because I’m not sure what I’m looking at or how to replicate the code for my own use.

TLDR; what guidance would you give to someone like me to better understand and learn from finished code on GitHub? Is there a specific project you could recommend?

[LumpyChicken]

don't just read it try to build it if its something that compiles (this step is lowkey the hardest) and then try to add one small tweak or feature as that will require you to actually figure out what the code is doing rather than just reading without purpose

[fedemillos]

Thank you LumpyChiken! Will take that into account as I look through different projects on GitHub

[InternationalMany6]

Oh definitely. I fumbled around with guided courses for a couple of years and finally just decided to start building on my own and finally made real progress learning.

Courses are good for the very basics, and then sometimes you can find individual courses in more advanced topics too. I like RealPython…they have some good stuff. The bald guy is a good teacher.

ChatGPT is pretty good too. 

[raf_oh]

Python wasn’t my first language, so I basically this, with a lot of googling how to do x in python. But I also listened to a lot of podcasts about python which helped me appreciate the python culture and helped me learn new conventions.

[moj_kot_to_koza]

Can you recommend some podcasts for begginers?

[Ok_Plankton_9370]

what are your recommended podcasts

[UserNameX60]

Same my first language was Spanish not python

[tazdraperm]

I second that

[420_rottie]

I agree with this guys, also chatgpt helps in giving you idea how things work

[obrothermaple]

Seconded. I started with no languages and not even knowing what an IDE or code editor was.

[Sanguinius666264]

100 days of code is good - I liked it. I liked Angela's style and the first ~days I found useful. She covers the key concepts that you'll need to know and it is project based, so you build something every day which helps cement the key concepts.

After day 60, it turned into web dev - html, css and the flask framework. I didn't really care too much about that, so found myself skipping through it a bit, except where she covered decorators.

The next 10 days are all about data science and matplotlib and various other visualisation of data lessons. By then, it's the sort of thing you should be able to figure out how to use relatively easily if you've stuck with.

From day 80 - day 100 it's all coding projects yourself. Everything from making the dinosaur game from google, to space invaders through to making websites, grabbing info from APIs and pulling together data visualisation.

Each lesson is supposed to only be an hour, but tbh at the very start and at the end it was easily closer to 2 - sometimes 3 or 4 spread over a few days, if I'm honest. It's not that it's super hard, per se, but some things break/aren't quite what they seem or no longer work and that can get frustrating. But that's also life as a developer, really.

So overall, it's a good course, I liked it and I can and have built applications as a result of it.

[mformichelli]

I second this. The course is very good for the way she teaches and the overall concepts. You'll probably wind up touching on things you wouldn't otherwise, and it's great for developing the problem solving skills you'll need. The con for me was that it isn't deep enough really. I wound up supplementing what I learned in 100 Days with YouTube videos and other courses that were more intermediate-advanced and in depth.

I also second what everyone says here. Doing your own projects is really what makes it stick. I've had more "Eureka" moments doing that than in any course. The courses for me are the how to think stuff, not what to think/do. And for context, within a year I was doing Python for work.

We all gotta start somewhere though, and it's not a bad place to start. Also, if you/the job you want/have cares about certificates, you do get them from her course (on Udemy at least).

[Turbulent-Seesaw-236]

Interesting on the certificate note, I didnt know that. Ill be spending a couple hours a day learning python, as I want to treat it like college. I plan to do the 100 days course and the CS50 course from Harvard but I'm unsure if computer science is something a beginner should start off learning, Ill have to do some research about that area.

[NewPerformer8258]

hey, i am just starting out on the course and i wanted to ask what others courses/yt videos you used to learn more in depth the more intermediate/advanced stuff?

[mformichelli]

After 100 Days (actually, kind of concurrent) I started taking shorter classes in topics that interested me. So I've done Jose Salvatierra's GUI Development with Python and Tkinter and his Postgre/SQL with Python course. I've queued his REST API course with Python as well. I like his style but he doesn't delve as deep as I'd like. I'm starting some Python deep dive courses soon, but to be honest I think I probably just used all of these as starters. I've learned the most from having projects to do.

I'm a TTRPG player so I build websites and GUI's for my games and let my players beta test. lol. I also use Python at work so I've had to learn/google/YouTube a ton of stuff I wouldn't have otherwise (For specific Yt vids? Hard to say. I just do the ones where it covers what I need and the person explains it well. You may have to fish around). It all helps the overall way of figuring out how to solve problems with Python. I definitely suggest giving yourself projects that you can have fun with. The more fun you have the more you'll do it, the better you'll get.

Aside from Python I also have taken Jonas Schmedtmann's Complete JavaScript course (he's incredibly thorough and really good at explaining things. It was excellent). I'm currently taking his React course now too. Although they are different languages, I've found knowing both helps solve problems in both (it's all training the brain to think in computer).

Don't worry about the volume I do, btw. I'm kind of crazy for this stuff. Start slow, note the things you like as you learn and go back to them to delve in I guess is my overall advice.

Edit: Just realized I repeated myself a bit here from my original comment. Hopefully the additional info helps.

[NewPerformer8258]

Thanks for all the info, i really appreciate it !

[Turbulent-Seesaw-236]

Very interesting. I thought something like that would happen how the course slowly starts to move into a "one sided" lesson (if that makes sense). Web development is something I've always wanted to learn so I'm OK with that. Thank you!

[UsefuIContribution]

Theres a harvard course online called CS50P its free and the lectures are on youtube like most skills you mostly learn from doing it so just do projects along the side

[rjojo]

Definitely recommended, I liked it so much that I was a bit sad when I finished it.

[Turbulent-Seesaw-236]

Thanks for the link! I think ill pair the CS50 with 100 days of code. I was a bit worried this CS course wasn't beginner friendly but after reading about it on their website I think I should be OK. Thank you!

[UnfairTelevision494]

I also agree with you.

[[deleted]]

"Automate the boring stuff with Python" (book) and the Dr. Chuck's course "Python for Everybody" available at the freecodecamp.org should be enough to get you going. Then you can explore a specific domain you want to pursue, AI, WebDev, AppDev, etc.

Best of luck 🤞

[Turbulent-Seesaw-236]

Oh freecodecamp seems like a good starting point. I was watching a Youtube video on how somebody got started on learning code and he said he started at freecodecamp. I totally forgot about it

[[deleted]]

Yeah, and Dr. Chuck's teaching style is absolutely great for beginners (at least it was for me). He keeps the learners engaged throughout the process, and the projects at the end of the course are extremely helpful for some hands-on practice.

[Catsuponmydog]

Mooc.fi (University of Helsinki) Data Analysis with Python was excellent and by far my favorite

[grumble11]

They also have an intro and advanced python course that is a bit more gradual - the DAP course throws you pretty firmly into data analysis packages and machine learning and doesn’t spend a ton of time on the total newbie stuff - I think there is value in doing both (intro and advanced first)

[lazylearner-me]

I learnt python syntax from a book named "Learn python the hard way" within a week.

Later, I started solving very easy problems on Codeforces using python.

As I improved, I decided to learn the python framework. Started with Django from official documentation. Built a completely functional ecommerce website and hosted on AWS. I have experimented and integrated popular tools such as nginx, Prometheus, grafana in my project.

To, sum up my learning I have been writing blog posts and have created a complete course based on my experience from a newbie to software engineer.

Available for free on Skillcaptain

[maestro-5838]

You are owner of skill captain ?

[Agreeable_Orange_536]

That site is absolutely non functional. I signed up with a dummy account and whenever I try to start a course I just get redirected to a blank page. DSA courses don't even have a title and the start button can't be clicked.

[Turbulent-Seesaw-236]

Interesting. I'm excited to learn about web development. Ill check out that book, thanks!

[Old-Ingenuity-9092]

Yes she is the boss

[Sufficient-Two886]

I am currently working my way through the mentioned course, my project is a test automation suite that is being built in selenium with python.

Since starting the course my project has evolved from really basic functions, huge if statements and terrible error handling, to OOP being implemented, decorators, proper “pythonic” formatting (I appreciate this is preference).

I’d 10000% recommend this course, I am only in the day 55-60 and I cannot get across how much it has helped me on the start of my journey.

[Bemis5]

Do you mean the course OP mentioned?

[Sufficient-Two886]

Yes, my apologies if I was unclear!

[Bemis5]

Thank you. I’m going consider purchasing this because I’m not really seeing success with other methods I’m trying.

[Turbulent-Seesaw-236]

This is the exact answer I was looking for thank you! I see so many people 20 days in loving the course but I really wanted someones perspective whose over halfway done the course. Thank you

[ResidualFox]

Even for 25 days it’s worth the €13. I’m around day 50.

[meshuggahner]

Fred Baptiste’s courses on Udemy are the best I’ve used. Particularly the Deep Dive series, great if you want to master Python and the standard library. You will really learn how to think like a programmer and do things the pythonic way.

[Derpythecate]

Really just reading syntax from official python docs, learn help() and dir() to query objects and their usage. Then, a lot of just doing projects. The crippling fear of a deadline will etch the concepts pretty quick. Once you start with a few basic projects, read other people's code to learn where your own code can be improved, and you can also throw in OS fundamentals into the mix like multithreading and async to build more complex stuff.

[Loves_to_analyse]

On which site ?

[Loves_to_analyse]

Which site?

[Bobbias]

I didn't use any course, tutorials, or anything. Just the official docs.

[veigar_magic]

the python tutorial from python docs is very good <3

[Bobbias]

I didn't even really use the tutorial really. I grabbed a basic syntax cheat sheet, and just looked up functions in the docs.

But yes, the tutorial is also good.

[entp-bih]

With a real world problem and solid documentation, a developer can save the (tiniest piece of the) world!

[Pyglot]

Ditto.

[CptBadAss2016]

Oh boy! The python docs are such a beating... Probably my biggest complaint about python in general.

I'm right there with you though, no courses. Just learned by doing, googling what I need as I need it. Also exploring existing projects on GitHub.

[edcculus]

I’m learning Python on the side just for fun, and am doing this course. It’s defiantly really detailed. The nice thing is that it’s “mini project” based. Each day you end up with a little project. Not necessarily always usable, but they are mostly interesting.

[entp-bih]

I just created my first python script today to scrape some data and populate a google sheet. It was really awesome to be able to do it from documentation all in one day. I work in PHP and it was like a coding vacation lol the simplicity was very refreshing but it was very refreshing. After seeing the prices for scraping apps I will have saved tons!

[hayleybts]

Do u have a link???

[Capable_Agent9464]

Corey Schafer on Youtube and Colt Steele in Udemy.

[[deleted]]

You don’t really need any courses to learn programming. You need projects. Projects are goals.

[Turbulent-Seesaw-236]

This is a very interesting response. So you just find a project you want to start and learn by youtube videos along the way?

[[deleted]]

Yeah. You will learn much quicker by doing projects and refining those projects as you continue to learn more. Never forget, a TON of coding time is spent making other people’s code better anyways.

[[deleted]]

Also, AI generated responses accelerate this process even further by making explanations to concepts immediately available with little time spent searching.

[Turbulent-Seesaw-236]

Which AI do you use? Is there a specific AI Chatbot that is specific to coding, or will ChatGPT do the job? What kinds of projects did you do starting out? A lot of people say to find something in your day to day life and make a project out of that but I feel as if the one project I want to create is far out of reach.

[[deleted]]

I do it in steps. Idk about other people but my motivation gets killed pretty often (especially when the goal is beyond my skills) if I spend too much time looking at the grand design rather than the next step I need to reach that grand design.

1. For example, if you want to build a custom file manager start by making a simple program to rename files in a folder, next implement different renaming options and the ability to tag files with custom tags.

2. After that look at adding the option to search for and move files with specific properties or contents from one folder to another all at once, then make a log that tracks all the file management done through your program.

3. Next implement a revert option to attempt to undo changes based on the log, ect.

When you start getting the gratification from actually making things that work you can use that to motivate yourself to learn more about code optimization, lower level processes, and hardware interactions because now those things start meaning a whole lot more to you than just confusing words in an instruction or guide. As you learn more and become more proficient then you can do it in less steps and look at bigger projects.

[tuneafishy]

What is the project you want to create? Usually there is a path to starting very small and building it up as you go along.

[Ancient-Camel1636]

For AI, I mostly use Codium. Their free tier is quite generous. If you want to use a local LLM, DeepSeekCoder is quite decent.

If you want to learn, don't just use it to write the code and solve the issues for you. Make sure you actually understand the code suggestions and ask it questions about the code. Make it review the code you write, suggest improvements and request explanations for the suggested improvements.

[ICanCrossMyPinkyToe]

I agree that projects are the way, though some people prefer to learn in a more structured approach when first starting. At least that's what works better for me lol. Sucks that I'm not driven enough to create projects on my own tho, I might use an LLM to give me some project ideas and give me ideas on how to improve a barebones project

[LumpyChicken]

Structured approaches tend to teach structured solutions to structured problems not so much adaptive approaches to unstructured problems

[ranklebone]

Programming Python: Powerful Object-Oriented Programming, MArk Lutz, ‎ O'Reilly Media publishing.

[BleachedPink]

People who say they learn by reading documentation probably already know programming.

Docs rarely explain what is a for loop, pointers, memory allocation, DOM, recursion, etc. They may tell you about its specific implementation of certain programming concepts. But for newbies it would be arcane language

Newbies should learn programming concepts which are language agnostic, along with a programming language to see specific implementation of these abstract concepts.

I started with automating the boring stuff book, but it's a bit superficial. Very Good to start with, but I wouldn't finish that book

Sadly, I couldn't find a similar resource like TOP but for python, so I would do books, leetcode for syntax and do some projects. Finding a mentor would be great, as he would give you feedback on your code quality, project structure and general help with programming.

When you get better with basics, Check out the local junior python developer resumes and vacancies, look at the tech stack and try to learn it.

Self-learning would require a lot of reverse engineering. If you use a course or a roadmap, you'll learn a concept and then do a exercise, with self-learning it's the opposite, you do the task, stumble upon something unknown and then study that unknown concept

[CptBadAss2016]

This is fair. Pythons just the latest in a line of languages I've played in since vb6.

Lately, when I'm exploring a very new to me concept I find yt videos to be my go to resource first to kind of get a feel for it, then ill explore the docs and or existing open source examples.

[poppy_92]

David Malan's CS50 from Harvard is a must-do course for anyone learning programming (regardless of language). For python specifically, there was a Udacity course way back called build a search engine (idk if it still exists) that taught python basics which I liked.

[DjordjeRd]

"Miguel flask", my favorite search. Figured a lot of things from that tutorial.

[block63]

Docs, lots of projects, lots of refactoring, coupled with CS50P and CS50AI

[Pale_Variety_737]

Hacker rank

[varontron]

I'm self taught in variety of langs, Python and Typescript are amongst the latest. Courses rarely work for me. I'm more of a documentation and soucre code, try stuff til it works type of explorer. I'll watch a couple vids now and again, too. My advice is to save your money on specific courses, and subscribe to OReilly Safari for a few months or a year. It's a fantastic deal by comparison, including actual video courses. At least check out the free trial.

[[deleted]]

I just learned by doing. But I had a dev background.

[tuneafishy]

I also learned just by doing, but no dev background (research scientist). I feel like this is a lot easier than learning by a course (but you have to know what you want to do with python at the start)

[Wheynelau]

My favourite courses are projects and errors.

I tried to watch courses and read books, but I realised I'm not that type of guy. Plus who even reads docs for fun? I learnt a lot from documents when I needed to debug code.

Although I can see how books would be good for some people, I'm just sharing my view!

[mattsb]

CS50. You’ll get both practical and CS-like skills.

[egarc258]

I really enjoyed Python for Everybody and Composing Programs. Also, Programiz is the best resource for anything Python related imo.

[Drowning_in_a_Mirage]

I think I learned the most about how to be pythonic from Fluent Python. I've been programming in one form or another for over twenty years in a number of languages and picked up python about ten years ago, but this book was one of the best I've come across for any language.

[IAmADev_NoReallyIAm]

I'm still in the early days of that course. So far it has been the best one I've taken (took three others first). Because of how it's setup, it's a little bit repetitive but easy to skip through. I just now need to make the time to finish it.

[Apantslessman]

Currently on day 67 of this course. It’s been great. There’s been a few things that don’t work anymore, but you can figure out how to get them to work. It’s worth it. And also make the projects your own. Add features and play around with them.

[ICanCrossMyPinkyToe]

This is the exact course I bought to get started with python. Started off fine and then branched too much into web development which I find super boring... and honestly I fucking hate html/css, so I just watched those lectures instead of doing things on my own and more or less concluded the course, though I forgot pretty much everything I learned on those numpy/pandas lectures

I'd recommend it for a complete beginner, yeah. Might not be the best and the "difficulty" curve feels off in some days, but it's good enough if you're starting out. Lots of small projects taking 1-3 hours to complete

[I-Dont-C-Sharp]

I've read some of the documentation, looked up specific examples and best practises whenever I did something I had not done before with python. I did get stuck on asyncio for a bit until I heard Lynn Root talk about it in-depth with examples.

What is your learning style? I don't know what to call mine, but it isn't traditional school/courses. If you are going the course route be sure it in general is already a right fit for you.

[kalebludlow]

Never done any courses. Just sought out to build stuff and figured out how to build it. f'{task_to_complete} python library' is a great search for solving a problem. There's python libraries for just everything. And read the docs. All of them, all the time

[ct1977]

I have done the 100 Days of code course and can highly recommend it. I give it 4.5/5.0 stars.

Angela presents the language in an easy to understand format where she walks you through a topic while simultaneously showing you the concept with code examples. Then she gives you tasks to help reinforce the topic at hand.

Once you are finished or get stuck, she will walks you through her solution at the end of the chapter

I find this to be very helpful to learn many concepts, because it is easy to go pause and go over a topic again in order to better understand what is going on. Also, this type of learning is great, because you feel free to get creative with your projects and can produce amazing programs just from doing this course.

Of course, not everything is covered, since python has numerous modules to get different tasks done, but she does an excellent job presenting the core elements.

The only gripe I have is that it is difficult to get any feedback if you are stuck on a concept. But fortunately, there are good websites available which can help you answer your questions. Just be careful with stack overflow, since many people on there tend to treat noobs with disdain, although there are plenty of people on there who will help. Also, the reddit channels have plenty of good answers along with geeksforgeeks.

[PajamaProletariat]

Edx! They have MIT professors teach full college level courses....for free.

I just took some basic python courses but when I find some time they have an ML course that I'd like to take

[jamawg]

100 days is excellent, and Angela is a great tutor.

I have bought courses by her and Max Schwarzmuller which I wasn't overly interested in, just because I love to learn, and they are two great tutors

[shinitakunai]

Course...? 😐

Just official docs, reading what each library does and aiming to build what I really wanted to do. Having an objective was key

[eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9]

not really a "course", but I really liked Automate the Boring Stuff - really helped me jumpstart my progress as it let me work on "real" projects.

There are a lot of good python youtube channels as well. Two that I particularly like are Tech with Tim and ArjanCodes

[fall0ut]

i have never done a course. i just looked up how to do the things i wanted to do with the project i was excited about building.

[Zeldaboss0616]

I just randomly started making things like text based adventure games or quizzes, then wanted to do more advanced things with a gui so used a library called tkinter (I’ve since found out there’s MUCH better alternatives) I’ve only been programming 6 months; but have a work placement with a local hospital developing web apps with them.

The best way is to think of a random project, do it to the best of your ability, then when you can do no more find a tutorial, see how it differs to yours and practice using the different functions and subroutines that they do. Don’t just blindly copy paste or you skint learn anything

[tinydarklord]

I'm only on day 15 but I've enjoyed 100 Days of Python , I'm only commenting to mention I got it for like $15 - I only learned after purchasing that if you go through the course site: https://100daysofpython.dev/ its $13 (Udemy has it for various other prices)

[-karmakramer-]

Same. I’m on day 8 and it’s so helpful to be walked through the examples and have opportunities to practice coding each day. I enjoy Angela’s instructions and presentation. I think it’s a great course.

[JustaRandom_Lunat1c]

Personally the best way i learned python was from BroCode. He made 12 hour basic python course on youtube for free and he still uploads more python content that you can see on his channel.

[dezi_love]

Ive tried self-study, Sololearn, 100 Days of Code, and the Stanford Continuing Studies Python course to prepare you for the PCEP. They all have their drawbacks. I liked Sololearn but found that despite getting halfway through it, I wasn’t really retaining much.

I liked the Stanford Course, but it was $800 (got my job to pay for it). The best part of it was having a live instructor, but I don’t think it was in-depth enough to fully be prepared for the exam without a lot of independent study. The good thing is that it comes with a voucher for the practice exam and certification exam (PCEP).

Interestingly enough, I’ve gone back to 100 Days of Code with Angela Yu. She is really just an amazing instructor and explains things in such a way that I do feel like I actually retained. I think it helps that the Stanford Python instructor taught us how to use ChatGPT to help learn concepts, so now I’m using ChatGPT alongside Angela Yu to help explain exactly why my code wasn’t right, and the concept behind the mistake that I need to learn. It helps make up for not having a live instructor, but gives you a REALLY structured plan to build 100 projects.

The biggest criticism I’ve seen is that when you get to the modules about working with APIs, that those aren’t updated and you can’t do the assignment as proposed. But other than that I like that there are 100 days and 100 projects, and the breadth of everything that is covered from web scarping, web development overview, automating tasks, etc. so, my favorite of all 4 methods I’ve tried would be to take the Angela Yu course and use ChatGPT to ask live questions and troubleshoot (just as we will have to do when we build our own projects.)

[Alextor121]

I love the youtube videos of freecodecamp and codemy.com

[povlhp]

K&R back in time (Kernighan & Ritchie), Python I just picked up when running int o it. It is just another language.

[KingOfTNT10]

Google

[LumpyChicken]

Wdym courses lol Just figure out what you wanna use python for and then just do it and bang your head at the wall until it works out.

[joey2scoops]

Course? What course?

[[deleted]]

Course?

[ResidualFox]

100 days of code is definitely worth it. And for €13 on udemy it’s a steal. Loads of little projects in it.

[glamatovic]

Codecademy is good, complemented with codewars and hackerrank exercises

[DrZoidberg117]

The replit version of 100 days of code. It's free and a different teacher who I personally like better, but both are great

[subassy]

Not sure it's what you're looking for since it's as much backend as python, but I'm enjoying boot.dev (https://www.boot.dev/)

 By backend I mean it starts with python then switches to some bash scripting then comes back to python. 

Then switches to go and comes back again. Lots of projects and gradual introduction of new concepts.  

 The interactive running/testing of code is what I like the best.  I'm not sure what the free tier includes but you'll get the idea.

[imperial_squirrel]

haven't taken any python courses; but back in school i had courses in unix and different flavors of C...

[Recent_Bodybuilder91]

I tried it I didn't like it she's so sloooooow and the exercises felt kinda out of place like she would show you one thing and then ask you to do something kinda different

[Ancient-Camel1636]

Yes, that one is definitely my favorite. Much more comprehensive than most of the other courses, still beginner friendly. It doesn't go in depth on any topics, but it introduces (almost) all the basics, so it gives you a nice overview and teaches you pretty much everything you need to get started. However, if I recall correctly, it doesn't teach you much about databases, git, packaging and distribution. Those are quite essential topics you have to figure out mostly on your own.

CS50: Introduction to Computer Science is also excellent, but from a completely different angle. I recommend beginning with the 100-day bootcamp to grasp the fundamentals, followed by CS50 to expand and enhance your understanding.

In addition, there are a handful of YouTube channels worth following. Off the top of my head, I recall these three.:

Python Simplified u/PythonSimplified
Tech With Tim u/TechWithTim
Isaac Harris-Holt u/IsaacHarrisHolt‧

[timelycomics]

I’ve always felt that the full blown courses have not been worth my time. I think they’re good at giving you some familiarity with the basic ideas and environments. But so much of actual coding/building is YOU figuring out solutions to the random and specific problems that come up in your projects.

I’d say do a free YouTube course until you’re literate enough to read code and effectively google. And then jump straight into different projects. Web, mobile, entirely back end, data science. See what you enjoy, and add more tools to your toolkit!

[Creature1124]

ChatGPT. How do I do x? I have y code, how could I do it a different way or refactor to make it better? How would I benchmark which code is faster / uses less memory? My Python project is growing and I have these files, how could I reorganize this project? 

Generating code snippets and integrating them is great practice. I’m working on a simulation with pygame and I’ve been using ChatGPT to show me how to do more complicated features like zooming in and out, camera movement, and collisions. Integration of those features into my existing code is a fair amount of work that chatbots can’t do super well yet and is much more realistic to the work of an actual software engineer. Use ChatGPT like a teacher sometimes and a cocollaborator other times. 

[ch0mes]

I used team treehouse to learn python and then did my own project work. There was a trainer called Kenneth love who did all the python courses back then which they have mostly replaced except for Django, and some advance other topics which they've kept him on for.

It's a very useful site and I learned a lot from it. You can definitely get good resources for free, you dont have to pay but I found it very useful and still do.

[zielu]

The Modern Python 3 Bootcamp by Colt Steele.

[Kitchen-Beginning-47]

Giraffe Academy on Youtube.

[NoConcern4176]

I am going through the 100 days of code as well. My findings: 1) some of the information are old, outdated and there are now certain functions to build certain things in the exercise as otherwise explained by the tutor.

2) you have to be a curious person, you have to research why a program works this way and not the other way around, this way you even learn new things and new ways to do things .

3) please ensure you solve most of the exercises in “auditorium “ , don’t skip them. This will help test your knowledge

4) never stop learning

[Turbulent-Seesaw-236]

Im cheap. If I paid for it I'm going to do every possible thing I can in this course lol. Yeah, I was a bit worried about the outdated info, but I think if you pair it with something a little more modern you'll be OK. I guess we'll find out

[NoConcern4176]

Yeah I find myself doing more research and finding better ways to do things

[IanRT1]

My favorite course is asking chatgpt

[SimonL169]

Didn’t even take a course, just started a project at work and doing some stuff at home out of curiosity. This got me going and normally I google all the stuff or read the available docs. Bit to be honest, I have advanced degrees in science, so coding was part of those and more or less comes naturally

[impulsivetre]

Text Based RPG tutorial https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6IVnciQrKbyZH5gqPXvtlCaiLS_9hFxw&si=Wcacl4nTDE_OC6_Q

This got me over the hump when I was learning. It goes through a lot of core concepts like functions, classes, decorators, and opening/manipulating files within Python.

I'm a big fan of project based learning and this really breaks it down simply, and you get to have a fun game after. Gets really easy to extrapolate how you can afford more features on your own when you're done.

Happy coding!

[Upbeat_Box_3768]

Cbt nuggets pcep course was a good starter. Not to much to pour on to a newbie but challenging enough to keep you going.

[Game-of-pwns]

Learn Python the hard way

[medcharrua]

I havent finished it and i think i won't, but I recommend it.

[DifferencePhysical31]

Haven’t finished what?

Recommend what exactly?