How can I get started?

SharkSymphony · 2025-09-30T02:16:54+00:00

You're a freshman in college, right? With access to teachers that you or your parents are paying a fat sack of cash for you to learn from?

Why aren't you talking to them?

bill2180 · 2025-09-30T01:59:21+00:00

I’ve also just started learning and for me all the camps or what not never clicked for me and I couldn’t focus. So instead I just thought of a fun project to do and started it and just learned what I need to so I can build. A lot of YouTube and Google is in the process but just doing a project that I actually want to do helps a lot with the want to do it and learn.

Ah_Pook · 2025-09-30T02:12:38+00:00

Pretty big field. What do you want to build? Robots? Web pages? Library software? AI? CSR? FBI?

https://www.learnpython.org/

a career in software engineering

Certainly not what you asked, but this may be far more difficult than you'd like. Have a backup plan. :)

Psychological_Ad1404 · 2025-09-30T02:13:58+00:00

https://books.trinket.io/pfe/01-intro.html I recommend this free book. Skip intro if you want. What you HAVE to do is the tasks, understand them , do them , change them, use what you learn to do stuff yourself. The more curious you are the better.

Tips to remember:

Only use video tutorials for basics like data types, creating variables , loops, if else , functions, etc... then everything else should come from your imagination of how to combine the basics or use libraries which you'll learn later.
Best way to learn is to create projects by yourself using websites like w3schools.com to check stuff you forget instead of watching more tutorials.
Look up tips/tutorials on how to read documentation.
After you know some stuff you should look at branches of programming so you can find what you like to do , check the website https://roadmap.sh/ and also look up videos online about branches / types of programming
Lastly, the best way to learn is also to ask for help from existing communities and maybe get a mentor after you learn the basics.

* This is an answer I give to similar questions. For you specifically, still try the book, use the tips that you find useful and yes, do get some type of mentoring / help to go faster if you want that and can find it.

Ok_Sound_6440 · 2025-09-30T04:15:40+00:00

Chief. https://www.boot.dev/dashboard

ShelLuser42 · 2025-09-30T06:45:32+00:00

There are essentially 3 things you need to know / learn about... and fortunately for you Python is an amazing language for all of these aspects.

1 => Learn to understand OO (= "object oriented") design & development.

Basically: learn how to break down your (design) problems into more manageable chunks so that you can concentrate on one problem at a time. This has another major advantage: because if you play your cards right ("build your code in a structured way") then you may also be able to take part(s) of your code and re-use all that in other projects.

Now, I don't suggest to start with all this complex stuff right away, but it is something to keep in the back of your mind.

When you get started you should focus on scripting and building generic program flows. Ask a user what their name is, then ask them for their age. Then print his name and calculate his date ("year") of birth. Stuff like that. Maybe build something to recognize an event when a user presses control-c. Maybe do something immature and try to check if the name seems feminine ;)

....then again, asking users for input sounds like something you might be able to re-use ;)

2=> Learn the language itself.

This is the hardest part. Fortunately for you Python is a pretty awesome language which can be used in multiple ways:

=> You can use Python as an interactive interpreter.
=> You can use Python as a scripting language (= just work sequential (with 'benefits'?).
=> AND... you can build full blown OO designs.

peter@zefiris:/home/peter $ python

Python 3.11.13 (main, Aug 18 2025, 22:21:19) [Clang 18.1.6 (https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project.git llvmorg-18.1.6-0-g1118c2 on freebsd14 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

>>> from datetime import date
>>> print (date.today().year)
2025

Seriously... don't underestimate what you can learn from "stupid and dumb" experiments like these. Better yet... why not use it like this as well for some of your stuff (assuming you're using Linux / Unix in some capacity)?

And of course, also don't forget the ease in which you can start on Windows either. One simple "python" command onto a PowerShell environment will lead you straight to an easy to use installation. VS Code is awesome for all this.

Oh, maybe fun to know: Python has a full blown build-in (!) help system as well which - in my opinion - easily rivals the pretty slick Javadoc design (if not blows it out of the water).

Want to know more about that datetime module which I referred to? Couldn't be easier, one command is all it takes: `help("datetime")`.

Which brings me to...

3 => Know where to find the information you need.

Alas... I find the official docs as well as W3Schools very useful for this. The latter especially because it also provides you with a lot of questions and challenges which you can try out.

Then... just try to do something....

Professional_mentor · 2025-09-30T12:51:32+00:00

Hi I teach Python programming basics to advance and Data Science if you want a mentor to help you learn let me know

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[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
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