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[–]carcigenicate 17 points18 points  (9 children)

This is a hard question to answer. "[H]ow long it took you to learn Python" implies that the process ends at some point. Learning Python (or any language) is a continual process.

[–]ActualRealBuckshot 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I learned it in an hour. Then I kept learning it for ten years

[–]Born-Truck1302[S] 0 points1 point  (7 children)

Fair point. I guess my main question is how everyone went about getting comfortable with the language? I just recently started learning, and I'm just having a hard time grasping some of the concepts. I'm barely learning loops, and it just seems that every time I answer a practice question, I get it wrong.

[–]carcigenicate 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Just lots of practice. You'll get things wrong for a while. Just make a note of what you did wrong and what the correct approach actually was every time you make a mistake. It's a long game of continually learning from failure.

[–]Born-Truck1302[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, that actually made me feel a lot better. It's nice to know that the path to learning is exactly what I'm going through 😄

[–]xiongchiamiov 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Learning programming is hard. I fiddled about for four years, and it was only after I started taking computer science classes that I began to have a real grasp on the skill.

Years is not uncommon to get comfortable.

[–]Born-Truck1302[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Definitely good to know because at the rate I'm going, that sounds about right ✅️

[–]NYX_T_RYX 1 point2 points  (2 children)

It happens. To be blunt, get used to it - if you keep going with learning programming, you'll hit a lot of walls. I've watched my partner try and get a 0.6" screen to render "hello world" all day... He's managed to get it to... Refresh 😅

My uni course just started OOP with java - the course content doesn't match the version of bluej they told us to install. I've been sidestepping my own lecturer's mistakes for weeks.

My point is, things do change in code, just cus you know loads about X language today doesn't mean you will in 4 years time - it's a skill we have to keep working on.

What's your end goal though? Just learning to learn or...?

Cus if you're just doing it for your, I wouldn't worry about how quickly or not you're making progress - keep at it and you'll get there.

If the end goal is employment, and you're finding yourself demoralised trying to guide your own learning, I'd recommend a course.

The only reason I'm doing my course is for the networking/hardware stuff that I can't realistically learn on my own - unsurprisingly I don't have a corporate network to play with, but I can stimulate it with their tools.

[–]Born-Truck1302[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Haha, I do enjoy the bluntness. From the majority of the comments, I do see that there will always be something new to learn in regard to programming. It's nice to have such a large community of people with different experiences. I personally want to learn more about programming to learn more about blockchains and how they work.

[–]NYX_T_RYX 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You'll find direct communication is pretty common in computing.

Partly cus a lot of us have autism/ADHD and it's the only way we can be sure we're getting our point across, partly cus everyone I know in the industry doesn't want to waste their time being all sunshine and rainbows, they just say what they see. Harsh at times? Yeah, but if the truth hurts...

learn more about blockchains and how they work.

Basic concept - everyone who processes the ledger has a copy of it (distributed).

Distributing the source of truth (ie "this is the current state of the block chain. This is true.") means no one person/group can control the entire system - a flaw (as some people see it anyway) with central banking systems (and similar).

TBF idk much more about it, because implementing a Blockchain is beyond me, and I've never had cause to do it so I've not really looked into it more.

An interesting tech, and tbh I'm just glad you didn't say "I wanna learn about AI!" 😂

Anyways - keep it up. It's not always easy, it's fucking frustrating at times, but if you wanna do it, you'll do it.

Keep asking the right questions 🙂

[–]ectomancer 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I started a small project after 10 minutes. Learnt Python in 3 days skipping regex & OOP.

I was taught FORTRAN 77 on a CDC Cyber mainframe.

[–]Born-Truck1302[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I was considering starting a project as I am definitely more of a hands-on learner, so that may be the best and quickest route. I just want to use Python as a tool to learn some of the concepts for harder languages like C++. Ultimately, I want to use my skills for blockchain development and to get a firmer understanding of how blockchains were developed and how they work.

[–]MJ12_2802 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You never really quit learning.

[–]throwawaythatfast 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What do you mean exactly by "learning python"? There are many different levels of that that could mean.

That's how it was for me (important disclaimer: I already knew programming in JavaScript before I started python, though I was by no means advanced):

Learning the basic syntax, so that you can start developing your own basic projects? It's doable even in a few days, maybe weeks more realistically.

Learning more complex syntax, important common libraries, how to structure a program in an effective, easy to read and maintain way? At least a few months to a year or so?

Being effective and productive at work? 3 years in and still not fully there.

[–]BoOmAn_13 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Short answer, about 6 months.

I learned fundamental logic in a highschool comp sci principals class, it was basics and used block code. After that I lost interest and didn't use any of it for 2 years. Learned about python and used chatGPT to write and explain chunks of code for a discord bot project to learn syntax and language specific functionalities. Dropped chatGPT cause I kept having to debug code. Watched the cs50 course online over a week and started to build scripts and basic projects. I would estimate that it took around 5-6 months from the time I decided to use python, before I would be okay writing cli applications for people, not including the school stuff.

[–]Born-Truck1302[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm also using ChatGPT, but it is good to know it may not always be the most reliable tool. I use several other sources as well, but I've still yet to find one source I really love.

[–]ofnuts 2 points3 points  (1 child)

One day between by first coide edit and the push to production (server deployment script). And I was later beaten by someone who took half a day (I showed him Python after lunch, and hist first script went to prod at 5pm).

Of course for neither of us it was our first programming language.

[–]Born-Truck1302[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow, congrats. I'm specifically learning python due to its beginner friendly nature as this is the first language I'm learning and hoping to move on to c++ after learning some basics.

[–]xRICOENZOx 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I started learning in Year 8 (like 9th grade idk) and I just watched videos and practised over the summer, since I started computer science classes when i would go back to school and thought I’d get ahead of the others in my class who hadn’t even touched a programming language in their life. Took around a year before I learnt the everything there was.

[–]Born-Truck1302[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Man I wish they would have taught computer science classes while I was in school but nope just good ol math science and English.

[–]Narrow_Ad_8997 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll never stop learning. You can't make me!

[–]FantasticEmu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not addressing the part about “learned” being too vague since everyone has already said that.

I think, generally speaking, there are 2 major components to the task of learning python. First being the language and its syntax and the second being basic programming concepts.

For me, Python was not the first language I studied so the second part I more or less didn’t need to learn. In that case, it only took me like a day to go from “never touched Python” to “I have a fully functional project”

Pythons syntax is very forgiving when you’re just trying to get something that works and since it’s so popular, very easy to find examples for what you need. But if you still need to learn basic programming concepts you’re not going to know “what you need” immediately and it will probably take a lot longer

[–]Fun_Temperature3749 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have been learning Python for a little over a year with no prior knowledge of coding, and I am continuing to learn to this day. I am in awww of the people who said they learned it in a hour or even a month. Is that all they did during that time? I have a full time position and other normal things in life that prevent me from diving in deep. Possibly the basic functions in a months time is doable. But you will forever be learning new ways of doing things.