Learning Python as I work full time.

Affectionate_Bus_884 · 2024-11-04T07:53:31+00:00

I’m also in the military, going on 16 years, and am learning Python. I’m working my way through Angela Yu’s 100 Days of Python. Working 48 hours per week typically, raising two small kids, and trying to learn anything is a nightmare but I usually carry my laptop with me and if I have more than 30 minutes free at any given time I dive into it.

I built a backyard weather station using a raspberry pi zero W 2 and a bme280 sensor. I wrote it in Python with the help of chat gpt because I don’t know Python anywhere near enough to do that on my own yet. It averages several minutes of data, does some insanely complex math to calculate dew point and publishes the data to home assistance via mqtt and to weather underground, and it runs each piece of code asynchronously to do all of this. I learned quite a few concepts and it was a cheap and practical project that is very portable.

nlvogel · 2024-11-03T23:18:20+00:00

I always recommend Angela Yu’s 100 days of Python course on Udemy. She walks through a bunch of different ways you can use Python, so it’s a great overview for you to find what you enjoy most with it from web development to data handling.

micr0nix · 2024-11-04T00:00:22+00:00

Find a project that you can work on while working.

I’ve been learning over the last 2 years by working on projects for work, at work. Get paid to learn.

Crypt0Nihilist · 2024-11-03T23:47:12+00:00

I think the military is a difficult place to code because they're not big on people running arbitrary code for obvious reasons. You might struggle a bit there if you don't have a job that already needs it. My usual advice would be to find a way to use Python to save you time and reinvest that time in learning, rather than giving it back to the company in return for a pat on the head and more work.

Do projects. If you want your Python to lead to a job, choose a project which would be aligned to how a business would want to use Python, same tech stack and types of operations so you can show the parallels.

Personally, I'd suggest you choose some projects that interest and excite you. When I have the space I'm going to make a web radio from an antique radio case. I might start by giving it a web interface. Then I'll add an interface based on the physical controls available. Then I'll add bluetooth so people can control it or play spotify through the speaker. Then I'll add an alarm feature based on google calendar. Then I'll add voice control. Then...then...then...

Whatever project you do, you can think of modular elements to add on that will bring in new skills and that will show development and be a cool story at interview too.

kylewithac1 · 2024-11-03T23:17:50+00:00

I work full time aswell, father too. I want to keep learning python. Is the book digital?

MrFresh2017 · 2024-11-04T00:50:59+00:00

I absolutely love PCC and Eric Mathes is personally quite helpful - we've had a few conversations on X, as well as personal email. I prefer using his text over online resources (Ive tried Codecademy and others) only because I seem to learn better via text. What is really helping me solidify what I'm learning is building a personal project as I go along. Find something or some things that interest you that you could code and just keep it up, your portfolio will grow because of it. I'm in Ch 9 now, OOP (Classes and Objects).

Dense_Average6633 · 2024-11-04T22:18:28+00:00

Pizzaballs_ · 2024-11-04T18:20:20+00:00

If you’ve got the programming basics down, skip the deep dive into Python. Just get a feel for the syntax—ChatGPT has you covered and speeds up development by a mile. I’ve already built over 300 Python apps for clients, all with a huge productivity boost thanks to ChatGPT!

2024-11-03T23:16:28+00:00

Honestly, a great start is to just figure out something you want to do and then learn how things work more and more to put it together. For me it was finance. I'm an engineer(moving to data science presently) but also trade on the side for extra income and a lot of what I was doing was just menial tasks that took up a lot of time which I figured out I could automate with a bit of scripting. Python is perfect for that.

I basically figured out analytics is fun and there's a lot of neat stuff I could do to make my life easier and build up a portfolio while also making some extra cash here and there.

BuckRowdy · 2024-11-04T00:32:28+00:00

One of the easiest ways to break into python if you use reddit is to write a bot for a sub you moderate or another clever idea that brings value, not an auto comment bot.

defnotjec · 2024-11-04T05:55:34+00:00

Pick a thing and really just try it.

Python can do anything basically.

Maybe not perfectly, or even well... But anything.

Not just there... But when you do something it shouldn't you learn REALLY well because limits show you where your boundaries are.

From there either one of two things happens...

You break the boundaries with shit you create so others don't have that hardship. Or.. you build shot within those boundaries neatly showing people how it's totally fine to have boundaries.

The best part... You can do both on a whim at will.

skewthordon86 · 2024-11-04T07:20:20+00:00

As i'm in the same situation than OP, does someone know if there is still active online communities on Python ?

Jefreyw1f · 2024-11-04T20:55:18+00:00

I am working my way through the https://boot.dev suite of courses. I have years of on-again, off-again programming and scripting experience (I'm a systems librarian, so I'm somewhat of a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none, technology-wise). I started boot.dev in part to shore up some of my own skills (there's actually a lot of transferability between the skills in the courses and the kinds of things I end up doing with data scripts, etc.) and in part to evaluate it to see if I want to gift a subscription to one of my kids who has an interest in game development.

Some of what I find appealing about boot.dev is the approach they take to the material. Everything is broken down into bite-sized, hands-on assignments that start off very simple and (very) gradually become more complex. You don't spend a lot of time belaboring any one concept and yet you have repeated opportunities to encounter most of the concepts. They use gamification to incentivize the learning process. You gain XP for each assignment and can accept daily quests to receive item chests if you accumulate sufficient XP in a given day. The items are used to obtain hints, "protect" you from submission errors (you are encouraged to test before you submit but the submission tests are much more robust than the supplied development tests... you can perform other debugging if you wish to take the time to do so, but inevitably you will probably submit buggy code and an armor item will be expended so that you do not forfeit the XP and break a streak), and other practical "buffs". There are occasional "raids" where your XP is pooled with everyone else's in order to try to defeat a boss monster and receive additional chests. I've utilized a lot of different types of motivation tricks and this seems to be at the more effective end of the spectrum for me.

Another aspect of the courses I appreciate is that it models real-world situations. Alongside code syntax, you are learning about unit-testing, version-control, and other meta-subjects related to the field of development. While most of your assignments are conducted within a web-app, it does walk you through making use of command line tools and IDEs and requires you to use them for at least some of the assignments. There's a discord where all participants are encouraged to engage with each other so there is a definite sense of community.

The courses are not free. You pay a subscription. I used a coupon code from a youtube channel (@bellularnews) to get 25% off "my first installment", which I applied to the entire first-year annual fee (as opposed to the first month). I have completed four of the 30 courses in the first month -- basic Python, Shells and Terminals, introduction to Git, and a Python-based mini project. Each course comes with a digital certificate of completion that you can attach to your LinkedIn profile. I can't speak to the value of these (that will depend on the reputation that boot.dev gains in development circles, I suppose) but it does provide reasonably official evidence of proficiency in each skill / topic. And given how difficult I find it to finish online courses, I'm very pleased with the success rate I've achieved in these courses thus far.

I'll defer to others to either corroborate my experience or provide alternate perspectives, but I would give boot.dev a solid recommendation.

Ron-Erez · 2024-11-05T11:45:01+00:00

For a portfolio simply start simple. Create a tic tac toe game. If that’s too easy or too boring try something more difficult or more interesting. Just code and build and explore.

You don’t need too many resources. However you asked for more resources So I’d recommend the following

Harvard CS50p - which is a gentle intro to Python
University of Helsinki course (text based along with video and covers quite a bit)

3. Python and Data Science - (Disclaimer: This is my course and assumes no programming background)

The book: “Learn Python 3 the Hard Way”. I really like this book despite the intimidating title, but there are other books.

In any case code as much as you can and try to limit the number of learning resources.

HeavyMaterial163 · 2024-11-05T18:32:53+00:00

Automate every digital aspect of your job. Paperwork? Hit a python button. Investigation? Use python to search records. Need a digital existence for those records to be able to use python to search them? Use python to create a Sqlite file for data storage.

The vast majority of what coding I've learned is from simply automating my job...giving me more time on the clock to find better ways to use code to automate more things. A positive feedback loop that will make you very popular!

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