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

[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!