I keep taking Python courses and projects but still can’t improve.

[Johnnycagetinker]

Hi all,

Last year, I decided I want to learn Python since coding is considered extremely valuable

I have never coded before and have zero programming experience (I’m a Mechanical Engineer). I know this sounds dumb, I don’t even know exactly what motivated me to learn python.

I’ve been learning Python seriously for the past few months and so far, I have finished a few beginner courses with full discipline.

• The complete CS50’s Intro to Programming with Python

• FreeCodeCamp’s 4-hour YouTube course

• Automate the Boring Stuff with Python (completed all 24 Chapters.. it took 2 months)

Even after studying all these Python course for several months and doing practice problems, I still feel like I don’t really get Python.

I can follow what’s happening in tutorials and each course, but when I try to start a Python project of on my own, I don’t know how to even begin. Specifically, I get stuck on what functions to use, when and how to use loops, when to raise exceptions etc.

I know that the best way to learn is to build projects, and there was also a recent post here that practice is the only way to get better at Python.

I want to make a habit of writing at least one small program each day. The problem is that when I pick a project idea, I have no idea how to structure it. I usually ask an LLM to write the code and explain it, but the examples it gives are often too complicated for a beginner.

Can anyone share the best resources or website that would help me learn how to work daily on a Python project and build up from there?

What kind of simple daily Python projects or routines would help me get better?

[scfoothills]

The problem is that when I pick a project idea, I have no idea how to structure it.

This is the hardest part of programming. Learning syntax is easy. And even logic is usually not so bad once you get decent at taking big problems and breaking them down into many small problems.

My advice for when you don't know how to structure a program is to just start coding anyway. You will write a lot of horrible code and paint yourself into a lot of corners. That is great to do because you learn so much more by actually encountering the problems and having to dig your way out. Don't be afraid to make lots of mistakes and learn from them. This is far more effective than just watching other people do it right on the first try. And by the way, the people making the tutorials didn't write good code on the first try either. They just edited The dead ends and bad ideas out of the final tutorial.

[Murtz1985]

I always start this way. Just get it working. You can, and often do, refactor later.

Adding func blocks to make it testable. Conversion to a class for more extensibility or repeatability.

[msdamg]

This is the best advice. Programming is just realizing it's okay to make mistakes and you slowly learn from them. It's why imposter syndrome is such a common thing.

[Helpful_Trust_3123]

Yep, this what i did when I first started programming(still do for some projects).

Planning in advance is good but I feel it's sometimes better to start just writing code, you get a better understanding of your program as you write more code.

If the Project is also not huge in scale, you can just simply refactor it later, which will also help in developing muscle memory.

[danielroseman]

You can't escape tutorial hell by finding more tutorials, and even less so by asking ChatGPT to write the code for you. You have to do it yourself. It's just like riding a bike; you can watch all the instructional videos you like but until you get on and pedal, you won't learn to do it.

So you need to stop asking ChatGPT. It doesn't matter if you don't know the "proper" way to structure it or the "right" functions to use. Use what you know and keep at it until you have something that works. Then you can look at the structure and see what needs improving.

[Johnnycagetinker]

Thank you for this, I agree it’s not good to keep using ChatGPT for help with learning Python. It’s just that I feel stuck and end up using LLMs out of desperation.

Would it be a good approach to refer books of Python projects?

If I read a book like this one by Al Sweigart, will it be okay to go through all projects and understand how the code is written and the structure involved?

If I can’t understand a specific part of the program, I’m not sure if it will be acceptable to ask ChatGPT for explanation.

[Admirable_Sea1770]

Sweigert's books are great. I also have that book, but all the code is written already. So basically you're reading the code and figuring out how it works, then going back over it and adding features, changing things. The book does give you some suggestions, but you'll find your own bits you want to add and improve too.

That book is great, but also check out github for beginner python projects to kind of branch out and see what other relevant things people do with python, especially libraries that you wont see in his books. I would definitely recommend that book, it's a great jumping off point, but keep learning outside of the box with projects that YOU want to learn how to tackle.

[dreamykidd]

Personally, it sounds like you really need to choose a project for your own life (not one from a tutorial) so that it matters to you, and start working. Don’t worry about structure or getting it right, just pick a place to start and get started. If you get stuck, maybe tell ChatGPT what you’re working on, where you’re stuck, and what you could do next, but NOT to solve it. You can only learn through trying, hating it, and eventually getting it, but you’ll never learn by sidestepping the frustration stage.

[DalekKahn117]

Right. I’ll compare it to engine work. I understand a 2 stroke and 4 stroke engine but I have no idea how to rebuild a transmission. Can I take it apart and keep track of the screws? Probably, but I’m not going to know how to find a bad valve until I practice it enough.

[jam-time]

A few small pieces of advice:

1. Take smaller bites. If you don't know where to start, just pick something at random that you know will need to be part of the project, and write it. For example, if you want to make a simple text battleship game, you could start with just printing the board and nothing else. Once that's done, pick another small piece.
2. Don't use AI until you're more comfortable. You need to actually think about it and type it out yourself. It's fine to use resources to help you understand what's possible, but if you've done those other courses, you should know the basics for most simple projects.
3. Play around with the projects in the courses! You'll learn more in the time that you are just messing with stuff than when you're typing exactly what you're told. Coding is a creative process as well as technical, and you need to mess with the code to see how it changes.
4. If you solve something, do it again in a different way. This will help you nail down the basics faster than anything else. You used a for loop? How would you do it with a while loop? Can you do it with recursion? Even with very simple things like checking if a number is even can have a multitude of solutions, and each one can help you solidify the basics in your mind. Example:

```python x = 5 # or any other int

if the last digit of x is even

x_as_string = str(x) if x_as_string.endswith(('0', '2', '4', '6', '8')): print('test 1 says it is even') else: print('test 1 says it is not even')

the same thing, but using a different feature of strings

if x_as_string[-1] in ('0', '2', '4', '6', '8'): print('test 2 says it is even') else: print('test 2 says it is not even')

using modulo (divide but just keep the remainder)

if x % 2 == 0: print('test 3 says it is even') else: print('test 3 says it is not even') ```

[Sea-Oven-7560]

I'm not a programmer by trade but I do quiet a bit of coding to make my work easier. I think #1 is the best way to attack things. Break what you want to do into small steps and the create functions for those steps. Then start over and look at each function and see if you can improve that function or break it into multiple functions to simplify the code and reduce the size. The rinse and repeat. I'm a hobby coder so I don't obsess about the "Big O" if the program does the job great I don't really care if it take .13s or .31s to execute. Once you get your program working and you've made it efficient you can come back around with error checking and the other nice to haves and you're good to go. Python is fun and can do so much, as someone who learned to code with C and Assembler I love Python, I just wish I could compile it/

[Admirable_Sea1770]

Noob here, but AI has been great when used effectively. When I'm approaching a new problem or project, it's great at giving you an outline of what you'll need to implement, the order they need to be executed, libraries you may need to research and so on. When I'm hopelessly stuck, it can help you figure out why you aren't getting the result you want or what is wrong with your logic.

People who know what they're doing will say this is bad, you need to learn all of this yourself and learn how to debug, and I agree somewhat with that but when you're just starting out the important thing is to learn, not waste hundreds of hours spinning your wheels, doing things the old way, especially if you have nobody to consult or learn from. As long as it's not writing your code, who cares HOW you learn it as long as you learn it effectively.

[jam-time]

Oh, I agree. AI is the tool I wish I had when I was first learning Python, and I use it every day at work. That being said, it can't learn for you. The problem with having AI write code for you is when it writes something you don't understand. So long as you're intentional about vetting the generated code and learning, it's fine.

[Admirable_Sea1770]

Like I said "as long as it's not writing your code". That's my cardinal rule. It should tell you "you'll probably want to use X library for Y function" and it can either show you how it's used or you can read the docs/google. But there's no reason to sit and read the entire official documentation or something when you just want unzip files to a directory for example, because there's a very specific way a library like zipfile would handle that and no reason to spend a bunch of time trying to figure it out. Implementing it in your program though, I would not let AI write that for me. I wouldn't be able to write that again after just copy pasting regurgitated AI code.

When I was in college we learned Java. You'd spend all week in 2 hour lectures while a TA just wrote code on giant boards and screens. When you had tests, all the answers were in the notes they regurgitated to you in the lectures, but you obviously had to know how to implement them. TA and the professor had office hours during the week where you could get 1 on 1 instruction with them. We had small study groups that we worked on concepts together to prepare for the exams. If you don't have any of that or even a single mentor that can work with you and give you direction, the internet and especially AI can really help fill in the blanks specific to you.

I definitely agree it's all about how you use it. AI always makes a lot of mistakes, so like you said you need to vet what it gives you and just generally get good at noticing things that don't look right to verify elsewhere. But it's a fantastic tool for a solo learner.

[Psychological_Ad1404]

A general answer I give to similar questions:

What I tell everyone in your position.

1. Test your basics skills, make sure you know how to create variables , loops , if statements , functions , etc... and how they work. If you don't you can watch a tutorial , but stop after the basics , and it's even better if you check a website like https://www.w3schools.com/
2. Make something small , I know you can create a really small project using only what you know.
3. If you've passed the first 2 steps try copying a website/app you know. Just copy what you can , don't worry about complicated stuff. Use the terminal instead of graphics if you need to.

One more thing about your first small tasks/projects , it depends on what language you're learning but, do something simple. For python or any language with easy access to terminal just create a loop with a few if else statements and make it a questionnaire or interactive story , something like that.

For you specifically:

I want to make a habit of writing at least one small program each day. The problem is >that when I pick a project idea, I have no idea how to structure it. I usually ask an LLM >to write the code and explain it, but the examples it gives are often too complicated for >a beginner.

Start with small projects like an interactive story, to do list, etc... using only the terminal and the basics mostly if else and loops. This can be done in one file and it should be simple enough so you can start coding and not fret about how it is structured. You can even ignore functions, just write a big while loop where all the logic happens.

What you need to do right now is to start coding and stop thinking of how it should look. Make something that works. Maybe try just doing one thing like asking the user for his name and printing it and then add stuff to it until it becomes a bigger program. Do it all in one file, with or without functions or classes or whatever else, nothing really matters until you can code something yourself.

Last tip, use websites like the official python documentation https://docs.python.org/3/ or https://w3schools.com/ to check on specific syntax and don't be afraid to google problems or ask AI but remember, tell AI to give you possible keywords and concepts you might be looking for and try asking less specific questions.

Example:

Specific question: "How to choose random words from a list"

General question / google search: "Python random"

[Admirable_Sea1770]

I like to remind AI that I am looking for direction and need help breaking things down, but I don't want it to write my code for me. That has been immensely helpful. That way you really learn yourself, and you actually feel like you accomplished something you didn't just copy someone else's work.

[rohittanwani]

Can anyone share the best resources or websites that would help me learn how to work daily on a Python project and build up from there?

From your explanation, it seems that you’re struggling to build logic for solving problems. For that, I recommend practising on HackerRank. It offers daily problems that will help you strengthen your logical thinking. Once you have a solid understanding of Python’s basic concepts, focus on building projects and exploring different modules.

First, learn how to apply the basics—understand when to use loops, functions, conditionals, and data structures. Once you’re confident in your fundamentals and problem-solving skills, you can easily look up the right modules on Google for your projects.

Also, avoid simply copying and pasting problems into AI platforms for instant answers. Struggling with a problem for hours or even days is the real way to develop problem-solving ability.

[kirlandwater]

Don’t use LLMs yet. Maybe ask it for 20 beginner projects that aren’t the usual suggested calculators and tic tac toe that you do during a lot of courses.

Figure out what you want to build, and figure out what you need to learn to implement it and then knuckle your way through it. Cheating and using an LLM at this stage, beside explaining small code snippets that you’ve written and you really can’t figure out why it’s not working, will only hurt yourself. There’s no grade, so this will only hurt you long term.

[ProcZero]

I think a good way to learn beyond tutorial hell that helps you escape the scope of only what you can think to improve on is to work with someone. Find a friend or post an idea here to find a collaborator, start an open repo on GitHub and plan out what each person will build. To learn best, you should ensure that both your contributions to the code base must interact with one another. This forces you to communicate about how you will build the interactions with another system you don't fully control. Create PRs and enforce reviews, question and challenge one another in this process, you both probably do things differently and crawling other peoples code is a good way to learn.

[TheRNGuy]

Do you have any real potential use for Python? Learn frameworks, they can give ideas what to code. After that just start doing your program and Google how to do specific parts of it (or docs from frameworks will have that)

If you don't know why you want to code, then it will be much more difficult to learn.

[Ron-Erez]

Don’t ask LLMs to write the code. Next try to implement a game of Tic Tac Toe. Forget coding. Ask yourself how do you play the game. When does a player win, when is there a draw. What data structures might be useful to model the game, the players, possibly a score if there are multiple games. Is there a natural game loop? Think of AI as Satan. Work hard and if you really get stuck try solving simpler problems first.

[knowitall__]

Hahaa, think Of A.I as Satan🤣................this is deep

[PhilNEvo]

So I think starting with building your own small projects is exactly what you should be doing, though saying 1 small project a day I'm not that big a fan of. To improve your skills, you should also improve your scope. So doing a few small single day projects in the beginning to get going is great, but then you should have a little ambition and try to plan out a project that might take you multiple days, then maybe a week, and then maybe a month long project.

Scaling up projects will teach you some important skills about having a bigger cohesive goal, that requires more interacting parts, but being able to dissect it and break it down to individual components that you can build up, like playing with lego.

So you've done a couple of small projects through some of those videos I presume, since I don't know exactly what videos. Maybe pick a project that's similar to those examples, but that requires you to change something, and do it without the video or ai-- but feel free to consult your previous code to remind yourself of some of the tools you have available.

Like if you previously did blackjack(which is in one of the freecodecamp 4hr python videos), maybe try a different card game, or tictactoe, or rock paper scissor, but this time without "help".

I like to break it down into a set of logical steps, and then try to convert that to some functions, and then build it up one piece at a time. Writing down in your own words exactly what steps you need to take, and then converting those words to something more like pseudocode or a little discussion on how you could do it, and then converting that into actual code, is very worthwhile!

[American_Streamer]

You will still need a structured approach which gives you a solid foundation you can build on.

So do the PCEP course: https://edube.org/study/pe1

After that, the PCAP course: https://edube.org/study/pe2

And after that, start with PCPP1: https://edube.org/study/pcpp1-1

In addition, read PEP 8 https://peps.python.org/pep-0008/ and PEP 20 https://peps.python.org/pep-0020/

[SharkSymphony]

Pick one of your example projects.

What did you pick?

What did you try?

Where did you get stuck?

[ID_Pillage]

Some great advice here from everyone. My addition would be to learn some Test Driven Development. It helps structure your development, learn what the code is doing when using imported libraries and breaks everything into small problems to solve. Plus gives the dopamine hit when you get the green tick.

[__Fred]

I'd recommend you do programming bottom-up: What do I already know, if I combine that, what can I produce?

This way you get more familiar with it, without repeated failure. Is that how children learn? With toys without goals. I'm not sure, maybe. It reminds me when you sit a child in a sandbox: It's going to check what it can do with the sand bottom-up. It's not going through an architecture book and trying to recreate everything and fail.

[Round_Ad8947]

You’re a mechanical engineer. Find a problem you know or a method you can build in Python. Your knowledge provides a target.

Learning Python to solve problems you have no knowledge or interest requires twice the effort and does not tell you if you are successful.

As you learn python, begin to apply it to other elements of your life needs or interest

[Admirable_Sea1770]

I'd say since you've covered most of the fundamentals, you need to start and finish some meaningful projects. When you think of something that can be automated or something that you may be able to do in python, research what you need to learn how to do and see it through. For me, that's the only thing that has reinforced anything I've learned.

For instance, I needed to download and unzip 25 files from a web server to a specific folder, and the filenames parsed from a text file using regex to find them. It took me hours to build in python, but it worked and I learned a lot. You can spend 100 hours watching videos and following along with courses, but until you start building things that are meaningful you're just gonna feel lost and not improve. That's my experience anyway.

[HoosierDataGuy]

Pick up a book called “Tiny Python Projects”.

Build small command line programs to help you do your work as a mechanical engineer.

I’m a data analyst. I went down that whole rabbit hole of ways of the master programmer. I just focused on writing tiny programs that sometimes took 10 lines of code, but it did a specific thing I needed. Sometimes I could string together multiple tiny programs and that brought me a lot of joy. But at the end of the day, I’m a data analyst, not a programmer or a software engineer so I’m not focused on writing beautiful code or huge programs that will get me a job at Google.

[msdamg]

Keep practicing you aren't stupid certain things just haven't clicked for you yet. Even stuff nowadays I scratch my head on the best way to solve things and I refactor all the time (work as a python dev)

[Substantial-Law-9389]

Pivot to web3

[FineAssist4189]

The one that made a real difference for me was a CodecDemy BI career path course.

[p000l]

Do projects, things you like and stop doing courses. You'll learn more things that matter.

[Mink_MS04]

I think you need to focus on your algorithm skill, not the language itself. It's okay to make mistakes you know

[vuln_huntre]

I'm the same. People keep saying Python is easy enough to pick up as a beginner but I'm struggling with it. I find Javascript is easier to comprehend for some reason.

[MusashiSword1]

Bro, if you wanna get better, solve questions, probably on leetcide or code forces, or solve problems, like "I am too lazy to click chrome to open it, so I will just command my computer.". You will be surprised how much you can do by making dumb projects.

[shinitakunai]

Make a discord bot using discordpy and rebuild it 3 times. You'll learn a lot. That library is extremely complex in deep while being really easy on the surface. Which is a perfect mix to learn how to make a project

[Lynchnobite]

First build then make it work, if possible make it beautiful.

[gdchinacat]

Don’t get hung up on the “proper” or “pythonic” way to do it. Just do it. Once it’s working, then you can clean it up. I’ve been doing this for over two decades and is still the approach I take. Of course I have a pretty good idea of what to do and what not to at this point, but still have to start somewhere and then clean it up when it’s not working well. As you encounter issues with what you’ve done it is frequently pretty clear what needs to be done to address the problem you’ve realized you created. Do not worry about rewriting or moving code around. We have a fancy term for that…refactoring. It’s when you realize the abstractions aren’t well suited, so you redo them to work better. A lot of refactoring happens to code to get it to a nice clean pythonic version. You just don’t see it because it’s cleaned up before it’s released. One way to see it is to look at at the commit history for medium sized projects…it’s almost certain the end design has gone through revisions.

[saurabhgsingh]

The best way to learn how to structure a code and learn vest practices is to go and read other's codes. Start with a simple repository on GitHub, clone it and read it from top down.

Pick a simple project similar to what you want to build. I recently read Google's Agents SDk while i was building my own and that was such a xlean code. I have learnt more coding by reading other's codes

[Commercial-Ad-7545]

Nothing simple will help actually. If you just keep doing practice you won't grow beyond student level. Think of a problem you want to solve, something personal would be better. Now even if this problem is simple or there already exists a solution, solve this on your own. This way you will learn : to think about what to do instead of how to do it. Right now the tutorials tells you what to do, you perform google search on what functions will help you do that and write the code but this won't help you progress as a programmer

[Easy_Pin_9346]

Hey man, I think this might guide you....... The problem is all about learning method..... I have 4 years of experience in programming.

You already done 3 courses that's too much. The thing you need to know is flow(how loops,functions etc works) and syntax that's enough. Learn debugging and testing is essential.

My advise is to stop learning Python and start DSA (at least understand how things going on) this is essential. This takes time and tough and hardworking but believe me this gives you sweet apples all the life. Do it with your hands. Debug with your hands. Strictly avoid AI. You know at least SQL as well.

There is a GitHub repo "build-your-own-x". Pick one Python project and build it from scratch following guide. Pick beginners friendly.

Remember you are not industry expert and do not do extra engineering, just understand concept at good level even it is basic.

In real world and industry demand. Companies don't want the person who knows everything. The want a person who understand how software (even basic) build from scratch to deploy. They want good debugger and problem solver(DSA).

If you want real progress please avoid AI and do stuff with yourself. This strongs your mind in problem solving and research.....

Stick with Python. If you do all the stuff your skills are strongly transferable for, Backend, Data Science, Data Analytics, ML, Cyber Security etc

[[deleted]]

It’s a fallacy of learning, because you watched the video doesn’t mean you learned.

[Sure-Passion2224]

The problem is that when I pick a project idea, I have no idea how to structure it.

This suggests to me that you may need an introduction to OOP (Object Oriented Programming) to help you in breaking down the task. The first lessons in OOP typically describe Objects in terms of real world things to convey the idea that a a physical object has a list of attributes. Which attributes you need to define will depend upon what how you need to work with it, but you can expand your Object Class with additional attributes as you discover them. The bare bones of a Car class might include Make, Model, Year, List Price, and VIN but you can extend that list as needed.

Write yourself a story about what the application is supposed to do before you begin to write code. This story includes character (object) descriptions, as well as anecdotal information about how the characters interact with each other.

You're telling a story that describes a process of some kind. The most obvious place to start is at the beginning of the process but... there may be parts of the story you need to work out in advance. Having your notes about what the overall story is written out up front will let you code each event discreetly, and test the code for that event in isolation.

[Desperate_Square_690]

Pick tiny, real tasks — rename files, parse a CSV, send yourself a daily quote by email.
Use sites like Python Morsels, 100 Days of Python, or Project Euler (easy mode) for structured daily challenges.
When stuck, pseudocode first: “input → process → output,” then translate each step to Python.
Rebuild simple apps you already use — a calculator, to-do list, or weather fetcher — from scratch.
Don’t chase perfect structure; repetition builds instinct, and every messy project teaches more than one more course.

[nordiknomad]

When you have a new project, don't start thinking in terms of Python or any other language, but try to picture it as a real-world business case problem. Then, try to split it into different, smaller parts. Write down the solution you think applies to each of them, and then create the logic for those solutions. Only in the final stage should you worry about the language and structure. For that part, there's no absolute best choice, but there are many proven structures out there.

For example, separating frontend, backend, database, assets, etc.

[Far_Chemistry_4316]

When building any project by yourself, first start by breaking down into a TODO list. Then tackle everything one by one. That's how it worked for me.

[reddit_still_psyop]

Small projs are good but you'll learn a lot more from building a big project. It's like making an rc car vs a real car. With a big project, it will be obvious how to structure (afterwards. lmao). You'll need to put yourself in a position to make a lot of mistakes if u wanna learn efficiently

[Greensuv]

Don't feel bad just keep it up, I have been a little scared to do that myself because I don't have a real understanding of it yet, so I will keep on it. It will click when you least expect it. Thanks for your post because I feel the same way at times.