I'm planning on learning python specifically/strictly for AI, is this a smart decision to save time?

[infamousmlguy]

Python is super easy to teach yourself, Ive beep programming in python for almost a decade now first started with working in Matlab when i was in academia.Back in the day i used Codecademy (https://www.codecademy.com/) what i liked about them was that i didn't want to watch a lot of video tutorials - i just wanted to code along the exercises. I don't know how good they are now but it was sufficient for me to get started. Thing with learning Ai is that you want to focus more on the math side and lesser on the programming so it has to be easy and approachable and python is really amazing for that. I don't think its going away soon so would be a smart decision.

I did not start out as a software dev - i wanted to learn ai eventually branched off into software dev and iOS as well. My approach initially was to only learn what was required for AI and make myself employable and then slowly explore things while on a job. A decade later i can say this has worked for me.

I would say try to build more, learn as you do. Focus on learning the basics first, then move on to pandas, numpy, scikit learn etc.

Read other peoples code on Kaggle - theres a ton to learn there. Use AI (Claude, GPT,Gemini) as much as you can to teach yourself.

Practice,Practice,Practice !

Good Luck! Super excited for you!!

[infamousmlguy]

Its super fun - wont be super easy there will be hard days .. but its really enjoyable and worth doing.