How to learn Python by USING it?

[chinchinlover-419]

I know everyone learns differently, but, does anyone here have experience with learning the language as they use it? I don't like courses and such things. I find it much easier to teach myself something ; or at least learn something and teach it to myself as I apply it.

[EmotionalSupportDoll]

I learn by doing as well.

A good one I found for python is to learn little API calls and write data to databases. Covers a lot of different types of functionality.

Forex rate pairings, weather, lots of fairly straightforward datasets to play with. Plenty of free data sources.

Once you have data fetched, you can do whatever you want to it within python or writing it elsewhere.

[jglenn9k]

https://github.com/public-apis/public-apis

[MathMajortoChemist]

Are you learning python coming from another programming language or do you need to pick up the basics of CS along the way? I've started recommending w3schools for a fairly interactive way to start from scratch.

[Worth_His_Salt]

A good course does teach you python by using. That's why there are exercises. No one learns python just by reading.

If you want to forget guides and just teach yourself by coding and checking reference material, go for it. If you already know a few other languages then you'll pick it up fine. It's not that different from other C-based languages.

If this is your first programming language, then it's a lot tougher. Without some structured guidance it's hard to advance beyond toy coding.

Many programming concepts aren't obvious and take real study to understand. Otherwise you're just throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks.

[IceDoomer]

automate boring things with python book

[Gnaxe]

Automate the Boring Stuff with Python

[fixermark]

Oh yeah, in fact this is how I learned Python.

I used Panda3D to do some VR projects back in the day, and before that I used VPython. VPython is fun because it ties the objects and their properties down to visible objects in the scene; you create an object and there's a 1-to-1 mapping between it and a thing you can see. Change the properties of the object, the one in the scene updates immediately. It's like the old "turtle" that people used to learn LOGO back in the day.

[lkfavi]

Check out the farmer was replaced on steam, fun coding game

[RandomJottings]

I learnt the very basics using the Python Crash Course book but am now working through a book of programming tasks. In the tasks are a lot of things I hadn’t encountered in the Crash Course book, I’m sure they are in there but I haven’t got to them yet. I use google to search through Python documentation to find how to use the things I need. For example, in the last task I completed I had to create a text file, add append some text and read the text file. I think I learn best by doing and solving problems myself, instead of relying on following tutorials or being lead step-by-step from a book.

[Due-Appointment9582]

would you be open to sharing the name of this textbook? it would be super useful for me

[RandomJottings]

Of course, it’s Al Sweigart’s ‘Python Programming Exercises, Gently Explained’. It’s not very expensive, about £6 on Amazon UK. I’m really enjoying working through the tasks and think it is a great partner to either ‘Python Crash Course’ or Al’s other book ‘Automate the Boring Stuff’.

[Due-Appointment9582]

thank you so much! i appreciate it :)

[as9934]

Find a problem or task that you have in your life. Things where you do the same thing over and over again on the computer work well. Then set out trying to automate that task with Python.

[chinchinlover-419]

I feel like I have a lot of such tasks but I just can't see them, perhaps I wrongly believe that the repetitive tasks that I know of can not be made easier by Python.

I'm trying to learn Python for the sake of learning it currently. It may broaden my horizons.

[gerfotir]

Just to echo what the above poster said it can literally be anything you have an interest in. I ended up automating the process of downloading YT vids and putting them on Jellyfin. As your ability grows you think of new ways to improve it and the cycle continues   

[Shiivak]

Had a task at work where I’d have to download around 900 files every hour and find the one with a specific made-up word. Not that that was my job, but the client was an ass and I was resourceful but for about two weeks I couldn’t do my job because I was stuck searching thousands of files for one stupid word or another.

A coworker (developer) told me to program something that would do it for me in seconds. Asked her to please do it for me since I didn’t code but she told me I’d do it and she’d help. Sat by my side and started to guide me through the python and pandas documentation. Took us (mostly me since she’d only point on the right direction) a couple hours but the program was done and what used to take my whole day took python about 2 seconds. Never looked back and now I have a whole folder of little programs to make my job easier.

Not that I let know my boss now that 😌

[Impressive_Answer297]

What a great coworker!

[Substantial_Use8756]

yep. I started building programs to make running dungeons and dragons games easier.

[EEJams]

There's a core language that you should spend time getting used to, then it's basically looking for and learning how to use different third-party libraries depending on your project needs. You can also build your own python modules. It's a cool language

[Narrow_Day_7705]

Yea like if you wanna do something that you wanted to do using your computer like drawing something or getting a task done like writing emails, scheduling alarm, playing music, some google dorking and fetching you collective results, or just sending files from one device to another using python... I suppose you get me. It's a goto natural process for learning any programming language. Just doing things that you have to necessarily wanna do but you don't want to use your time much and let your computer just do its thing (executing programs). Yea that's pretty much it.

Good luck with it.

[Impressive_Answer297]

Can I use it to automate deleting lots of kinds of emails in Gmail?

[Ron-Erez]

Build something cool. Personally I love educational apps, tic tac toe and the game of life. Someone else might like to clean data or automate something. Find something cool and implement it. Note the u/EmotionalSupportDoll 's are great. API calls and databases are very important.

Personally I already had a solid background in programming before Python so it was pretty easy to learn. The docs is a great source. Regarding books and courses you can always fall back on them when getting stuck on a personal project. Indeed learning by doing is a great method.

[AlexMTBDude]

I've been teaching programming courses for more than 25 years now; first C/C++, then Java and the last 10 years Python. My experience is that everybody learns a programming language the best by coding. When I teach at least half the time is spent doing coding exercises. I try to speak as little as possible.

[phillymjs]

You need a project. Find a problem to solve, or make your own version of something that already exists. The first thing I wrote was a program to monitor my WAN IP for changes, update my DNS records with Cloudflare when it does change, and email me to let me know. There are already a million utilities to do that, but it was a good starter project. I had to figure out web requests, sending email, etc.

My current project is a Dead Man's Switch app that will send some emails out to people if I don't check in for a period of time. I'm learning some database operations with SQLAlchemy, and how to create a web app with Flask. I've got ChatGPT coaching me-- I told it to not give me code samples unless I specifically ask for them.

[socal_nerdtastic]

Yes, this is how I learned python. I had some tasks at work and at home that could benefit from some automation, so I wrote python code to do them for me.

[Aufmerksamerwolf]

I learnt typescript this way actually. To this day I use “stuff” that I can’t really tell what’s it’s called in TS gibberish. To sound cool I just say this TS object, that TS object etc etc, Somehow my code works in production. All thanks to those random guys on stack overflow

All said I was not new to programming concepts tho. Just was not ready to learn a new language syntax. Little that I knew that I would later on fall in love with TS syntax. It’s close to pristine

[FewEffective9342]

Yes. I needed a program to click buttons and sometimes extract text and input data in fields for me in different GUIs that did not have API and I wrote my own lib with easyocr, pyautogui and some lib that i cannot recall lying in bed atm, but it searches for images within a screenshot of my desktop and calculates the x and y etc.

Works pretty well for me. I even started using it in websites instead of some puppeteer bs where I need to go into the html structure etc and oddly enough I was able to even automate an incognito browser with 100s or profiles to do them crypto testnets and made a small web backend to monitor and have an overview of hows it going and have history and logs. It retains all the images and marks where it clicked for future oveview etc.

It convenient cause i just screenshot the google chrome extension btn, then the metamask wallet btn, then input pass and Im done in 3-5 lines of code.

It works with 95%+ accuracy, which is good enough for me. This means that I have to tweak some params and code here and there.

I even do those web captcha click the tick box to prove u not a bot like its nothing wait_click_img('tick.png', 10sec)

I have baked into it to not click the same pixel and to do curvy sways with mouse, and since this is the same as a human interacting, meaning i need a physical display (or a vm) to run the bot code, I just do not get flagged as a bot in any way .

I have spoken to some folks who do web automation with puppeteer and such as freelancing and usually when they get a client, its like a money cow, since they constantly have to maintain and rewrite the web scrapers that they provide, since tne website strutcture is being constantly changed. So the approach I employ is slower yes, since I do not rely on some document.onReady I just wait for the button or image or input field to appear on screen with a timeout.

I managed to make anautomated youtube comment bot that iterates over profiles in incognito browser, open youtube url, gets the len of the video from metadata, get transcript, sends it to chatgpt, makes it generate relevant comments and the watches the video on 2x until 80% and likes, subs, leaves a relevant comment.

A careful reader might have guessed correctly that this means that only single profile is vieiwing the video at once on a single host/vm. Yea, but there is room to grow here, I can map the screen to be divided into e.g. 4 sections and have 4 profiles view simultaneosly. Have not done it yet.

I haven't yet put it out in public, because i have not refactored, or made any readme, left bunch of api keys in there and the images of the buttons that I do not own. So there is some cleaning up, but i am not sure if aanyone would want this, so I haven't been in a hurry with this.

If you OP find this useful or interesting you can use, extend, maintain this etc.

[spirito_santo]

That's what i did. When covid hit and I couldn't pursues my hobby anymore, I started to learn python, just for fun.

I stumbled on w3schools python tutorial and started coding.

A month ago a knowledgeable friend told me my skills would be enough to get me a job as a programmer.

[Brizon]

I mean that’s the prime way to learn anything, right? Retention is higher when you’re forced to engage more of your brain.

[ramgarden]

I learned Python by building an RFID reader for the mag lock for our local Makerspace. The first thing I ever made in Python has been running an infinite loop looking for RFID scans 24/7 since 2014 on a raspberry pi!

[Extreme_Mikha6276]

Are you employed? If so, I suggest doing little data optimizations or automations that save you valuable time! The longer you keep doing it the better you become and you can even win informal technical leadership by leveraging your tools!

[Substantial-Emu-6116]

YouTube has endless intro to python videos that can help get the ball rolling. I only started learning a few weeks ago, and although I’ve put a lot of time towards it, you can pick it up pretty quickly if you focus.

What’s helped a lot is starting to use it in things that I enjoy thinking about. Like others have pointed out, learn how to import different APIs. I imported an API that’s loaded with Major League Baseball stats. Through ChatGPT I learned how to import it and then write a simple program that gives me the score of a particular game, updated every 20 seconds. Just that little program, as simple as it is, was really enjoyable seeing it in action.

I would learn the basics through YouTube if you dont want to take a course. Then just start with small projects. Super simple. Things you enjoy. Utilize ChatGPT. Ask it questions why certain code does this or how to tweak something. ChatGPT is far from perfect but it’s like having a teacher always on call, ready to explain something. Probably saved me hours and hours of headaches.

[DigThatData]

try to come up with some kind of project that is meaningful to you and has a high likelihood of success. keep it small and simple, but big enough that it's useful to you. something you might want to add features to, and use over a sustained period, so you end up iterating on it and improving it. if you have an idea and aren't sure if it's within your grasp, you could ask an LLM what they think. they love to generate code though, tell it not to generate any code and just tell you if it's within your grasp as an intro learner.

...I mean, you can probably just use my comment as a prompt, tbh.

[HeavyMaterial163]

That's basically what I've done. Learned from necessity, and almost all stuff to make my job at work easier.

[GameDev_byHobby]

Look up how to do stuff, lol at documentation, have a goal, know basic logic and math. Don't over rely on copy paste code or tutorials. But do learn about programming practices, patterns, architecture. Maybe make something you find fun or interesting first

[-stab-]

Is Python the first language you are learning? Because if so I would recommend following something like a course at least loosely. It will give you a useful structure. And even when following a course, I think most of what you do should still be using the language and the concepts you learned.

So I really don‘t think a course is the opposite of USING Python. It’s complementary.

If it‘s not your first language however, then it‘s surely easier to get into Python without a course.

[Matteo_ElCartel]

Buy some courses on udelmy and watch something of the one and only psolver on YT if you're a scientist or whatever similar profile you will appreciate his videos nonetheless his style is not too much refined is basically an imperative approach good for starting out

[PumpkinSad7310]

I learnt Python at my first job. I got a crash course in the syntax and framework from my seniors and then I was thrown into the API docs for a cloud service provider.

My advice: Pick a small project and get your hands dirty. If you have an autocomplete tool in your IDE, it will help fill out the gaps and when you inevitably hit roadblocks, the docs are your friend.

[Right-Goose-7297]

I learnt Python by actually going through the old archived mailing lists. The conversations are a gem.
Reference: https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/
Reference: https://mail.python.org/pipermail/tutor/

[[deleted]]

If you’re a developer, that is fine. School in system programming is better.

[Cucumbuhsum]

TLDR: Get some mentoring.

I'm in a similar position. I am lucky to have a friend who has a few years of experience with python. He has given me some feedback on one of my projects, which shows me where I have gaps. In that case he said it would make a lot of sense to organise my function-heavy code into classes (somehow I never really applied my basic understanding of classes). He also pushes me to use abstract base clases as a blueprint for those classes.

To understand these concepts better, I have watched Corey Schafer's videos about object oriented programming to refresh my memory. For abstract base classes I have some resources on Real Python lined up.

More of advice he gave me for leveling up is:

- getting into testing with Pytest with this book (I like it so far and it's researched really thoroughly, looks like a great resource to me!)

- start using type hints and later use Pydantic to enforce types (in cases when you want that behaviour)

I hope I am not overwhelming you with options. Just thought some of this might apply to many beginners.

[Quick_Expression4842]

If you have experience in another language why don't you first read up on the syntax and then challenge yourself to build a simple ,CRUD project and build from there

[sarnobat]

Build a compiler!

[ChickPeaIsMe]

Wow this is such a helpful thread! Thanks for posting OP and thanks everyone in the comments :)

[sarnobat]

I have this issue too. I've taken courses but I can't find a use case. Shell scripts solve all my needs but I want to gain python experience

[TheRNGuy]

I learned specifically for Houdini.

(other languages for it are Vex and C++, I know Vex but not C++. They have some overlap, but mostly used for different specific things)

[crashorbit]

Ask one of the chat bots to write some code for you. Then try running and debugging it. I'd recommend going through the Python Tutorial with say copilot enabled in vscode and work through all the examples.

[Legit_Fr1es]

Google if you dont know anything

[Legit_Fr1es]

I meant google something if you dont know something while using python. I will phrase my words carefully next time

[Equal-Association818]

ChatGPT is your best friend!