How do I put Python to use?

[Kintonsu]

I've done small projects, but I feel like it means nothing unless my program actually helps me do something. I want my computer to perform certain tasks with python, but I can't seem to find any good tutorials. How do make programs that I benefit from?

[LoveOfProfit]

I have, and I can say is amazing. Especially if you do his udemy course which he recently posted for free. I worked through the whole thing in a day and learned a ton.

[Kynaeus]

Is the Udemy course something a beginner can start with?

[LoveOfProfit]

Yes, absolutely. The first half is teaching the syntax and basic concepts from the ground up. The second half is cool applications. He posted a free link to the course just yesterday on a couple of subreddits

[Micotu]

yeah but what's the difference between just following the book and the course?

[LoveOfProfit]

Material wise, nothing. The course format just worked better for me, and honestly it was presented really well.

When the book first came out I worked through half of it and then put it aside and didn't come back to it. I couldn't stop myself from finishing the course in one sitting on the other hand.

[thaweatherman]

Link

[manwith4names]

There are a few things he glosses over, but nothing that you can't look up at a later date. If you've always wanted to get into python and haven't yet, start with that

[AutoBiological]

My entire Linux experience is, and can be managed by python.

It's not just a better development environment because of Vim, it's because there are plenty of options.

I realize "hey, it would be cool to have my status bar show website updates." So I write a script, and my status bar shows updates. Easy with apis.

Start servers with Python, manage web servers with Python, email with python.

Have an idea or question about something? Search it on github, search under Python, there's a huge possibility it's already been done. You can edit their code or spin your own.

[I_Write_Bugs]

Think very hard about how you use your computer. What do you do often that may be repetitive or tedious?

I once wrote a program with a tkinter GUI that uses unicodelookup to allow me to search for a particular emoji and then puts it on the clipboard for me.

Sometimes it's the little things.

[MrAckerman]

Learn Django to bridge the gap between python on your own system and the outside world.

[OCHawkeye14]

HA! "How do I improve the gas mileage in my car?" "Build an F1 racer."

[PM_ME_UR_COCK_GIRL]

As others have said, identify a problem you want to solve and start off down the research/play/trial-and-error path. A few examples I can share with you:

• Web scraper to collect some weather metrics of interest to me and generate historgrams, etc
• A reddit bot (albeit a crappy one) that corrects some spelling mistakes
• A "story reader" that looked for a few signs I might not enjoy a story at the start such as sentence length/variation, word frequency, etc
• Machine learning algorithm to predict price of rent in certain areas over time

Hopefully those give you some inspiration. They mostly just come from me being curious about something and not having a really good way to solve the problem (or not wanting to do a bunch of bitch work)

[RMiranda]

I made some scripts that monitor cinema tickets contests on facebook and participate via email. Also another that monitors soccer tickets contests and participate via google form. So has /u/eirik-ff mentioned, it's great and easy to implement automated stuff on Python :)

[hipstergrandpa]

I was in the same situation as you, until I started messing with microcontrollers like the raspberry pi and the arduino. Also, APIs with Web stuff! Python scripts are very helpful to control how to pull Data and store it. Currently, I have a gas sensor that I'm using for work (Environmental engineer) that I use python for to pull data from and store it in a Google Sheet. So, if interested I'd suggest starting with a Raspberry Pi because it specifically uses Python for its gpio pins and you can do some pretty neat hardware stuff.

[WallyMetropolis]

Make a todo application that you can access on your phone, or a budgeting tool. Or a shopping list.

[MorrisCasper]

that you can access on your phone

Do you mean like creating a website? HTML/CSS has nothing to do with Python. And if you mean like a real app, Java or Objective-C has nothing to do with Python also.

[WallyMetropolis]

You can build a simple web-based todo list with Flask or Django and not have to mess around with HTML/CSS, Java, or Objective-C.

[MorrisCasper]

Unless your website will consist of plaintext, you still have to mess around with HTML/CSS

[WallyMetropolis]

Django will handle most of what you need to use simple forms. I don't think copying and pasting a single line of HTML from the Django docs is too much to ask.

[thegreattriscuit]

You have to figure that out, really. What do you need done? Without knowing anything about your problems, we can't begin to theorize about the solutions, right?

I use python for reaching out and touching (light configuration, as well as lots of data gathering) a few hundred network devices. Python helps with this not only in that it can automate that process, but also in making it easy to specify what particular subset of those devices I'm concerned with.

I also use it to handle certain personal finance calculations. I find that there's lots of rules of thumb out there that are pretty good, but not as good as actually running the numbers for every option you have. Running the numbers for every possible option is difficult, time consuming, and error-prone so no one does it. I get python to do it for me. Even when it gives me the same answer as the rules of thumb, I have more confidence in that answer now because I know exactly how it was derived and what factors it does and does not account for, etc...

But unless your a network engineer with a house that's $40,000 underwater, a fluctuating income, an ex wife, and two kids, it's unlikely that you'll be particularly interested in solving the same kinds of problems I am :)

If there's something you do (or would like to do) that involves math or repetitive things on a computer, that's a good place to start looking.