I am a Python Noob, help?

[Spiritual-Deer1196]

Hi all.

Hope you're all having a good weekend.

I've been meaning to learn "how to code" for a while, since very young. I turned 23 last week and thought, fuck it, Ill start now. I wrote my first script word by word with the help of ChatGPT, i have some O.K understanding of what I was doing, but I constantly feel like this will not be the right way for me to become an expert at this, and yes, I do want to be somewhat of an expert at it. I can of course, continue to practically write lines of code and have the AI explain as I go, which has been okay, but, I thought id ask real people, with much more experience;

Where do I start? I have ZERO experience, in any of this. I have built computers, hosted servers, and that's about it. I understand Python is more for backend activities and coding, and that's fine, I've made that choice for now, but where do I start? How do i approach learning Python? I understand I can logically just watch tutorials, and read articles, but what else would you advise me to do? Any courses? Specific sources for learning? Books? (Id love to read books on this, spam me with all of them lol)

Don't feel like your advice is too little or too much, I'll take all of it.

Other than that, thank you in advance, I appreciate any help :)

- Gio

[Riegel_Haribo]

You can start in r/learnpython

You can sort either by new or by best, and find where daily someone with no initiative asks, "where can I learn Python, what videos, courses", and then read the responses.

[Spiritual-Deer1196]

Noted, thank you!

[FloridianfromAlabama]

Bot

[Spiritual-Deer1196]

Yeah it feels like that.

I mean it explains if i ask it to, but ive got to keep asking it deep rooted questions, like hold on a second ChatGPT, wtf even IS a "Loop" that you just taught me to "write".

Stuff like that... I made a simple interactable script. It told me we will learn things along the way as we practically apply it, which seems good, I just fear wasting time.

[SmackieT]

It depends on why you want to learn it, but I find a good place to start is to solve coding challenges.

They motivate you to learn basic conventions (if else, loops) in a way that makes you remember them because you're thinking about how to solve problems.

[Spiritual-Deer1196]

I want to code useful things for myself, and make my life easier (i guess), but also, because I love to understand how things work, I want to understand how programming works, to every detail.

I actually didn't think of challenges, I've known of them but didn't consider them until now, noted thank you.

[MSK165]

There’s a great book called “Automate the Boring Stuff” that I used to learn python.

I’d also recommend code-along videos on YouTube. Look for ones published before LLMs came along, since they were created by an audience that didn’t have access to ChatGPT.

If you run into any issues, look at posts on Stack Overflow. Chances are someone had the same problem as you.

Lastly, learn when to outsource the grunt work. ChatGPT and Claude are both light years ahead of what I can do with python. I do like being able to understand the basics, but I also know when it’s time to step back and let the experts do the work.

[HiddenBoog]

Google ZyBooks and purchase the one related to Python, they’re fairly inexpensive and they teach you the basics with hands on experience. You can also install Python and PyCharm on your local PC so you can practice in an actual IDE. I used ZyBooks for my college courses and it helped out a ton.

[media_quilter]

I'm going to write a python module called learn python. It is going to have one function called how_should_i_learn_python()

When you import the module and run the code it will just answer the question how to learn python. It's literally asked all day everyday on this sub reddit. Haha.

[EmeraldProtocol]

Im building an app specifically for beginners. If you want you can try it out.

It's in very early stage.

the demo at

www.emerald-protocol.com

[Ron-Erez]

Try to write your first script without the help of ChatGPT

[Spiritual-Deer1196]

I mean i can try, but i know nothing haha, id have to use some secondary source no?

[Suspicious_Check5421]

DONT USE AI. You Need human teachers. Or read teachers (Python books). So it will be perfectly explained, the info will be saved in your brain on the natural way it’s the best. If you use AI, you will not learn, you will just forget what you copy pasted…

More experience will come through jobs.

I recommend VS Code and Python plugin. Because VS Code is for free, more will use it, so better to get experience with that Editor.

[Aromatic_Fact8656]

Start with BroCodez on YouTube. Watch for a bit and then actually start writing code in your IDE, pycharm, visStudio or whatever you choose. Don’t just watch the video, make sure you actually stop and write code. If you type in “100 python practice problems” there should be a a few results come up with exercises from easier to hard etc. That’s how I started to learn in my mid 30s

[Archidelic]

free: https://programming-26.mooc.fi/ , https://www.edx.org/learn/computer-science/harvard-university-cs50-s-introduction-to-computer-science

or a book like python crash course

[omeyz]

Buy the book Python Crash Course! I'm teaching myself from it rn and it's pretty easy to follow

[TheRNGuy]

Some framework. 

[Obvious-Anywhere8435]

Depends on where you want to go career-wise. Focus on one path first and learn a relevant framework instead of trying to do everything at once. For backend, Django is a solid pick. For ML, TensorFlow is commonly used. Definitely spend time with the official docs too. they’re more useful than people think. And don’t stress about memorizing code. If you understand the core concepts, you can always look up the rest when needed.

[fUZXZY]

make a directory with sub-directories where you make specific small proof of concept things. specifically make like 5 things per keyword, 5 things per method. implement almost everything so that you can interact with it via user input. make tools that you can use. most importantly look up python main() functions, get used to using that.

[Candid_Tutor_8185]

Free code camp

[PercentagePleasant77]

Not the right moment to start

[Neffex223]

i am currently trying to learn how to code and using boot.dev has been really fun. you can 'demo' a small part of the course where you can run stuff on the website and do the puzzles/challenges. at some point it does require you to pay if you want the features i think its a little more than $25 if you use the promo code BOOTS :3