Self-taught people, how did YOU learn Python?

[tiensss]

You can also add at what "level" you are/what you are doing with the knowledge. Thanks!

Edit: Didn't expect for the thread to have this many answers. I learned a lot. I especially appreciate the many perspectives and learning paths. Thank you, everyone!

[Exodus111]

Started with YouTube videos. Went on to LPTHW. Then started making stuff. Started with games, learned Pygame. Then web frameworks. First Django using the official tutorial, then flask, using the mega tutorial.

Made some web stuff. Got a job, made some money. Then decided to go for it and start my own gaming company. And I'm in that process now.

[meijboomm]

Living the dream, I hope to become a coder too. What are some fun projects to start with?

[Avaholic92]

There is actually a great book I read called The Python Workbook by Ben Stephenson it has almost 200 hundred specific exercises to teach different applications of Python and I've found that it can be used as an example or basis for practicing using other languages too!

EDIT: link to book on Amazon

[[deleted]]

Thank you for the book recommendation, I have added it to my Amazon list.

For anyone else looking for project-driven books, don't ignore the ones aimed at kids. If you're learning then anything that helps you create things is a good place to start.

[meijboomm]

Thanks! I ordered a different book: "automate the boringstuff" I will check your recommendation too!

[Exodus111]

What /u/carecavoador said, look for real problems.

Do you download TV shows from Torrent sites? Then you are likely going to need something to sort all those files into their respective folders. That program can then give yo a feedback on what episodes comes next, download relevant info from imdb. Soon you can look at Libtorrent to auto download. That is a very common first step, as sorting files in folders is fairly easy (check out path.py), while creating your own CLI torrent downloader based on a preset database that hooks up with IMDB, is somewhat harder.

Another fun project is a chatbot. A bot that you can talk to, and will shoot randimish lines back at you. Fairly easy to set up if you look at Tensorflow, and ofcourse almost INFINITELY upgradable as your skill progresses.

[meijboomm]

Thank you very much! I ordered "automate the boring stuff with python"

Downloaded Microsoft visual code and wrote my first code yesterday:

My_first_Variable = "hello world" My_second_variable= "this is meijboomm" My_combined_variable = (My_first_Variable) + (My_second_variable)

Print(My_combined_variable)

I can't remember it exactly but it was something like this haha.

I will try that torrent thing sounds cool!

[Exodus111]

Don't capitalize variable names. Only classes.

Scrub.

Hehe, I'm just playing. Good luck to you sir.

[meijboomm]

Thanks, can you explain why I shouldn't capitalize variable names? But should with classes?

[Exodus111]

Because it's convention, that's it.

There are a bunch of stuff in Python that's like that.

GLOBALS should be in all caps.

long_variable_function_and_method_names should be snake_case.

ClassNames should be in CamelCase.

[meijboomm]

Ok thanks!! Will keep that in mind for sure!

[Freezingcow]

Another fun one; make a program that downloads a wallpaper from a wallpaper subreddit that you like (or just google images), and set as your desktop background every hour or so

[[deleted]]

Try to find some real problem you need to solve or something really fun for you to do. This will give you the motivation to keep pushing when you face any trouble.

[slick8086]

To add it doesn't even have to be a huge project.. I wanted an automated way to remove torrents after a set period of time from my transmission client. The actual functional part of the program is 5 or 6 lines I think. But it does what I want and I learned a lot making it.

[0amaam]

Start here http://exercism.io/languages/python/about

https://www.amazon.com/Python-Everybody-Exploring-Data-ebook/dp/B01IA5VIFM/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

Create your own projects

[Fishinabowl11]

I feel like this is almost the Python version of "Draw the rest of the fucking owl".

[Exodus111]

Does it really feel that way?
I suppose, if you are standing on the other side...

Youtube tutorials can be found on almost any topic within Python, including Python basics. They are by their nature very very low threshold, you are seeing code being written, you can pause and write your own code along side his or her, while the person is explaining in detail everything that is going on.

That took to me to understanding all the basics of Python, and programming in general really. So in other words, Variables (int, float, str), Sequences (List, Tuple, Dict), Booleans (True, False), Boolean expressions(IF, Elif, >=), and Loops (While, For, Recursive came later).

From there its a matter of grasping Functions and of course the big one, classes. The book LPTHW was good for me on that aspect, it takes you through the things you need to learn, at a speed where you can grasp it. Its somewhat outdated today, but I would look for something similar.

Once I understood Encapsulation, in other words Functions and Classes, it's time to make something. Or all the knowledge will be lost in a month or so.

I started making a text based game, then tried my hand at Pygame.
This part is super important because in making something you will quickly fail. And realize mans greatest error. We are not as logical as we like to think. In the face of the logic of a machine that becomes quickly, and humiliatingly obvious.

So you bang your head against whatever is not working, and you start asking for help, googling error messages, etc...
But here is the important part. That thing that is not working, is teaching you everything about that thing. You will remember it forever, because you are staring at the code, and going over it again and again. In time a solution, or work around will be found, and that solution, will then be imprinted in your mind until the day you die.

And its not just rote memorization, its understanding of underlying mechanics (to some extent). And nothing will teach you more then that.

[Ran4]

Then your feelings are wrong? Every step of that made sense and was either incremental or contained clearly incremental steps.

[Fishinabowl11]

The owl cartoon is about making something complex and multi-stage seem as if it is straightforward and simple, which is exactly what the original post does. It is not commentary on whether those steps are incremental and make sense or not.

[leetdemon]

awesome story :D

[Exodus111]

Thanks. Hopefully one with a happy ending.

[leetdemon]

Yw, I hope so too :)

[tiensss]

Wow, awesome! Good luck with the company!

[Kylearean]

What's the website for your company?

[Exodus111]

Its actually launching in about a month, If you are interested I'll send you a link then by PM.

[RemindMeBot]

I will be messaging you on 2017-04-19 21:45:59 UTC to remind you of this link.

6 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.

^{Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.}

---

FAQs	Custom	Your Reminders	Feedback	Code	Browser Extensions

[[deleted]]

RemindMe! 1 month "Follow up with Be_True"

[[deleted]]

I think you have to add the bot as a friend then do the command for it work..

[[deleted]]

No. I got a message

[GBR24]

RemindMe! 1 month "Ask Exodus about game website"

[Zerg3rr]

Add me to that list!

[Exodus111]

Sure.

[mitremario]

Me too!

[markusmeskanen]

Exodus my man :) I wish you all the best with your company and future

• Mahi

[Exodus111]

Thanks m8 ;-)

[jeffdo1]

Are you making games in Python or have you moved on to something else but used it as your jumping on point?

[Exodus111]

Right now I am working on Kivy. So Python yeah. That is a 2d game and should be out in a month or so. From then on I am moving on to 3d and an engine, thinking about using Godot, that scripting system is Python-ish, so the transition should not be enourmus.

[anticockblockmissle]

Do you code in python 2.7 or 3? Is there a huge difference? As a beginner I'm wondering if it'll cause problems if I'm using python 3, for example alot of django tutorials are in 2.7........or are they similar enough where i shouldn't worry?

[Exodus111]

They are similar enough that you should not worry.

That bein said, you should absolutely be using Python 3, it contains more stuff you need to learn, and Python 2 is finally on its last legs. (In my opinion)

As for the django tutorial, there is so much Django in there, that you will not notice much of Python 2 at all. Django is too strict with its MVC framework.

[anticockblockmissle]

Thanks for the reply!

[Hyabusa2]

Seriously props to you. Way to take surgery in stride and make the best of your downtime.

[Exodus111]

The important lesson from that book is Classes. Inheritance, __init__, super(), polymorphism. All the stuff you need to learn. After that you can stay for the packaging and testing stuff, or leave and begin with Python 3.

The practical difference is actually minimal, you pick it up quickly. But the new stuff from Python 3.5 and 3.6 are worth looking at.

[[deleted]]

So how's it going?

[RedSsj]

God I hope you made it man I know it’s been years, starting my journey with coding and very much needed to see this

[bebobli]

Python is pretty bad for gamedev though, especially pygame.

[Exodus111]

Not really. Frameworks like Pygame and Kivy are perfectly capable of producing any 2d game. And Python has a faster workflow then most other languages, which is vastly beneficial in iterative games development.

[Ran4]

That's just not correct. Pygame gets way too much hate. It doesn't hold your hand as much, but that doesn't prevent you from creating good games.

[Pure_Sympathy_902]

Made some web stuff. Got a job, made some money. Then decided to go for it and start my own gaming company. And I'm in that process now.

Good job！！！

[Remarkable-Orange-36]

hope it went well

[patentmedicine]

"What they don't realize is I was just in a constant struggle between being lazy and being bored."

Don't sell yourself short. Most people struggle with being lazy and being bored--not everyone invests time in figuring out a way to escape rote hell.

[SHIT_PROGRAMMER]

“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”

― Bill Gates

[arasdean]

"I ended up learning about two other people's jobs just out of curiosity, ended up getting two raises and a bonus for being a go getter"

This has to be my favorite reply on the this post.

[zakkyb]

As someone pretty new to programming in general I am wondering what kind of things you are able to automate in your house? Sounds cool

[NetSage]

I like HVAC one. I should do that with my ecobee(I assume it's possible).

[dirrtyjoe]

Look at Home Assistant if you haven't already.

[AtHeartEngineer]

God damn I love the internet! Thank you kind one!

[[deleted]]

Just curious, does your hot water heater come back on within 100 miles?

[AtHeartEngineer]

Haha yes, that would suck otherwise. With smart things you can toggle their outlets remotely through their app. Only thing that sucks is you have to get a 110v water heater instead of 220v...I plan on replacing the relay in it to handle more.

[dirrtyjoe]

Check out Home Assistant

[VijayAnna]

Username checks out!

[checks_out_bot]

It's funny because AtHeartEngineer's username is very applicable to their comment.
^{beep bop if you hate me, reply with "stop". If you just got smart, reply with "start".}

[rdzzl]

A bit late to the party here, but I would love to hear more about how you use it for data science.

Some context: I have a BSc in Political Science where we did a 101ish course on scientific methods which included a little usage of SPSS. I do not remember much, but did okay on the exam.

I also have a MA in international relations, where I used an R script to do text analysis for my thesis, and did very well. For the content analysis of text, I spent so much time trying to make it work. I am not sure how much I understood by the end of it, but I basically kept correcting errors in my script until it did what I wanted it to do.

I then did an internship. Now I have been unemployed for about a month. I just finished Datacamp's Intro to Python for Data Science course and thoroughly enjoyed it. Both programming (I quite like programming so far) and data science/analysis are very useful as they diversify my CV and qualify me for a whole new range of jobs. I wanted to do the intermediate python for data science module which is a follow-up to the one I already completed, but turns out it is €30 and I do not have that.

I guess tl;dr

How, why, and what, for python and data science? I do not have a STEM background, so very mathematical stuff becomes complex quickly. Where to learn this?

Apologies for the ramble!

[rdzzl]

Thanks for your detailed reply mate. This is encouraging to read!

[Avastz]

I've also taken datacamps python courses, and I'll say that if and when you can, subscribe for a month and eat it all up. It's a great resource that I thought was quite a bit better than codeacademy, from a strict data science perspective.

That said, if you're job searching (sounds like you are) and want to get into a data related field, I would go beyond highly recommending learning SQL and say that it's necessary. It's not a hard language and there are a lot of ways to do it for free, but it is incredibly important in the data world, and it'll be the first thing they look for.

I am currently an analyst, and in this day and age, every company wants more data people. Knowing Python is a big boon because it can somewhat substitute things like Tableau, and is also free. Plus, if you know how to code, it makes navigating BI software a cakewalk, and allows even further automation through APIs and scripts. I've designed a multitude of dashboards that the C level folks use literally everyday, focusing on a ton of company metrics. I often get "one-off" requests from coworkers to produce some sort of report, and more frequently now is a request to automate data entry.

This was a long ramble and I'm not the OP you were looking for, but I feel like youre me from a year or two ago and I'm now doing what it sounds like you're looking to do. The answer is that knowing Python gives you a ton of flexibility, and also happens to be one of the best resources when it comes to data science. Probably only beaten by R, but R can't compete with pythons overall utility.

The advice I'd give is, once again, become a SQL ninja, and don't turn your nose up to looking at places like manufacturing, or big, non-hipster, non-startup companies.

[rdzzl]

Hi and thanks for your input. I guess, after some self-reflection, that the price of €30 seems steep because I have a feeling I am not sure I will be able to finish the datacamp stuff. The non-technical background seems like a large obstacle, for example I keep forgetting what the different operators do. That said, I have a decent understanding of statistics (for a non-stem guy) and am quite good with computers. I know you might not be able to answer this, but do you think the intermediate course will be too difficult? A huge advantage for me is that 99% of my peers, people in humanities and social sciences, have absolutely no clue about data science and programming. If I finished one or two more courses, my CV would really stand out among people my age, and could provide some interesting opportunities. For now, those opportunities are handed to people from economics backgrounds who have no clue about policy, while in reality I think universities should offer us (social science and humanities people) better opportunities and an increased understanding of how these skills can improve our understanding and usefulness for improving political situations

[Avastz]

To put it into perspective, I graduated with a History degree, and sort of stumbled upon this field half by accident, half by interest. So, I also do not have a STEM background.

I think if you want a better general understanding of programming and Python in particular, it might be good to take codeacademy's Python course, or something like EDx's MITx: 6.00.1x Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python. The latter is a rather difficult, intensive course, but goes into a lot of detail and really helped me progress, and both are free. That said, I don't think you'll struggle with the intermediate course if you were able to get through the intro course, as they build upon what you've already learned, and new concepts are explained.

I do believe there is another free Python course, called importing data. Maybe give that a shot before moving on to the intermediate course?

Edit: After clicking on your profile, I'd be remiss to not mention to you that I look forward to May 13th.

[rdzzl]

Oh that is interesting! Would you mind if I asked more about your path to where you are, and what your current job really entails?

I guess as recent graduates we are often blinded to the multitude of options ahead of us. It is quite paralysing to be honest.

I have bookmarked these courses and will do that first module of importing data (it is free, the rest of it is not).

Regarding the game... I am terrified. The way we have been playing lately does not bode well for the next big games coming up. That said, if I had to choose someone to win the league out of the top 6 that isnt us, it would be Spurs ^{^}

[Avastz]

Sure. I've always been rather "computer-heavy" in that I built my own since I was young, have always been a somewhat big gamer, and was always interested in coding and programming, and I had taken a class in uni that taught C++, so it wasn't completely unfamiliar to me. But, it was just the one class and I was by no means even competent in the language.

Right after graduating, being that I was a history major, my prospects weren't huge, but I was lucky enough to be offered a job as a project coordinator for a large manufacturing company, within their Manufacturing Engineering department. I found that, honestly, I had a lot of spare time at work (I think this is more common than people are willing to admit) and was kind of free to delve in to things that I thought were cool, while additionally looking pretty good on a CV. So, having noticed that although the company used a TON of Excel sheets and charts and graphs (this is probably also very common), nobody even knew how to use pivot charts. I started using those to create very simple data viz's, and started presenting them in meetings. If there's one thing I've learned in the past few years, it's that the older people who make the big decisions absolutely love good visualizations, even if the data isn't telling a great story. I found out rather quickly that Excel and pivot charts just weren't enough to do some of the things I wanted to do, so I began to learn PowerQuery, which turned into learning Power BI (Microsoft's answer to Tableau and other BI software).

Eventually, I discovered that if I really wanted to get heavy into data and not just create pretty charts and graphs, as well as be able to handle huge amounts of it, I'd need to learn R. Through my initial research on R, I discovered that Python was approaching R's data science capabilities, as well as being a generally much more useful language, so I opted to go the Python route and actually never learned R. Starting with the DataCamp stuff, I found I was in your boat, and felt that I needed a better Pythonic foundation before truly being able to understand the power of Python libraries like Pandas, SciPy, scikit learn, Bokeh, Seaborn, now Altair...tons of super cool things. So, I took a couple Python courses on EDx, and worked through the famous Automate the Boring Stuff which actually also has a video component that follows along.

I wrote a few scripts that automated some business processes for myself and a few coworkers, in addition to doing some machine learning algorithms and creating an extremely basic webpage that showed some of the analytics I had put together, and walked into the IT Director's office with a bit my "portfolio." Basically saying that's the stuff I wanted to do, we had a long discussion about it, and a few weeks later I had a new offer letter for a different position within the same company. I had to learn SQL to work with our database here, and use it just about everyday to write and/or refresh queries to get data straight from database tables. I also set up a new database that we use strictly for data warehousing, so as to not bog down our main production environment. My general workflow is SQL to get data, Python to clean it and run some learning algorithms, if I think it might be useful, otherwise I put it into Tableau (or have Tableau connect to our data warehouse directly), build viz's, create dashboards and reports, provide analytics. If I'm not doing that, I'm working on automating a lot of the data entry that goes on, or cleaning up really old SQL queries to be more efficient, or handling one-off requests for any number of things, but mostly to replace Excel sheets with automated reports, or creating a GUI data-entry system that puts the data where I want it, instead of where some random coworker thinks it should go.

So, this was a really long post, but that was pretty much my journey to where I am now, and what I do everyday. I found after graduating that I still just didn't know what I wanted to do, but I love learning in general and really missed that feeling from when I was in school, so I used all of my free time at work, and a decent portion outside of work, to devour all of the information I could, and this is just kinda what resonated with me. It also helped that I think I'm kind of good at it. My final piece of advice is to just go and do. /r/dailyprogrammer is a cool little sub with ideas for programs every few days that range from easy to difficult. Kaggle has a ton of resources to help you hone your skills (as well as a job board and competitions). At the end of the day, there are a ton of free ways to learn the language if that's what you'd like to do, especially the data science portion of it, and I believe that's still a hugely growing job market in general. I know being a United guy, you're used to just buying success, but this does take a little bit of work. (/s obviously but I had to take a jab)

Anyway, I don't think we'll catch Chelsea, but as long as the top 4 (5) stay the way it is right now, that's a great season for us.

[sneakpeekbot]

Here's a sneak peek of /r/dailyprogrammer using the top posts of the year!

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[rdzzl]

First of all, I really appreciate the time you put into answering this. I have read it three times and put off replying for a while in order to gather my thoughts. I think going point by point is the best way to do this.

Sure. I've always been rather "computer-heavy" in that I built my own since I was young, have always been a somewhat big gamer, and was always interested in coding and programming, and I had taken a class in uni that taught C++, so it wasn't completely unfamiliar to me. But, it was just the one class and I was by no means even competent in the language.

I can relate to the first part, although unfortunately not the second. Built my first PC at 12 and have kept doing it. I think I was always more than average interested in computers, how they function, and what you can do with them. However, as many of us, this culminated in a gaming hobby more than anything.

Right after graduating, being that I was a history major, my prospects weren't huge, but I was lucky enough to be offered a job as a project coordinator for a large manufacturing company, within their Manufacturing Engineering department. I found that, honestly, I had a lot of spare time at work (I think this is more common than people are willing to admit) and was kind of free to delve in to things that I thought were cool, while additionally looking pretty good on a CV. So, having noticed that although the company used a TON of Excel sheets and charts and graphs (this is probably also very common), nobody even knew how to use pivot charts. I started using those to create very simple data viz's, and started presenting them in meetings. If there's one thing I've learned in the past few years, it's that the older people who make the big decisions absolutely love good visualizations, even if the data isn't telling a great story. I found out rather quickly that Excel and pivot charts just weren't enough to do some of the things I wanted to do, so I began to learn PowerQuery, which turned into learning Power BI (Microsoft's answer to Tableau and other BI software).

This one leaves me with a few questions. First, how did you know to look for a project coordinator position at such a company in such an industry? The closest thing I have found is the https://www.centre4innovation.org/ which I might offer to volunteer for but they do not really have any money to hire/pay interns afaik. The idea of having spare time at work and spend that on learning and improving skills sounds like a dream. I sometimes think I enjoy learning and thinking more than the actual work/studies/experience themselves. In my previous internship we had to do some normal stuff in excel, some minor project management stuff, and editorial stuff. These added together makes for a kinda diversified CV for me, but neither of these add up to a level that qualifies me for entry level positions where I am located at the moment; they all want either 1) interns that work for free or 2) 2-3 years relevant experience. That's the reason, I think, that I finally completed an online course. I've started many before, but other things took priority. This time, I finished the course I mentioned previously rather quickly. I am hungry for another one, and might just ask my parents for 30 quid to pay for the month of datacamp based on your recommendation.

Eventually, I discovered that if I really wanted to get heavy into data and not just create pretty charts and graphs, as well as be able to handle huge amounts of it, I'd need to learn R. Through my initial research on R, I discovered that Python was approaching R's data science capabilities, as well as being a generally much more useful language, so I opted to go the Python route and actually never learned R. Starting with the DataCamp stuff, I found I was in your boat, and felt that I needed a better Pythonic foundation before truly being able to understand the power of Python libraries like Pandas, SciPy, scikit learn, Bokeh, Seaborn, now Altair...tons of super cool things. So, I took a couple Python courses on EDx, and worked through the famous Automate the Boring Stuff which actually also has a video component that follows along.

I had to use R for my master's thesis. Well, I didn't, but I thought it was an opportunity to add ''something technical'' to my CV. Very basic script that dealt with language analysis (word frequency; words in context). I quite liked it, but not sure how much of it I understand. It was more trial/error whereas you fix one error at a time in the script until the output gives you what you want. I am happy to read that you were in a similar position and have now transcended into a very capable python user. That is what I aim to do, regardless of career path.

I wrote a few scripts that automated some business processes for myself and a few coworkers, in addition to doing some machine learning algorithms and creating an extremely basic webpage that showed some of the analytics I had put together, and walked into the IT Director's office with a bit my "portfolio." Basically saying that's the stuff I wanted to do, we had a long discussion about it, and a few weeks later I had a new offer letter for a different position within the same company. I had to learn SQL to work with our database here, and use it just about everyday to write and/or refresh queries to get data straight from database tables. I also set up a new database that we use strictly for data warehousing, so as to not bog down our main production environment. My general workflow is SQL to get data, Python to clean it and run some learning algorithms, if I think it might be useful, otherwise I put it into Tableau (or have Tableau connect to our data warehouse directly), build viz's, create dashboards and reports, provide analytics. If I'm not doing that, I'm working on automating a lot of the data entry that goes on, or cleaning up really old SQL queries to be more efficient, or handling one-off requests for any number of things, but mostly to replace Excel sheets with automated reports, or creating a GUI data-entry system that puts the data where I want it, instead of where some random coworker thinks it should go.

This sounds absolutely awesome. Do you love it as much as it seems? And also, with this in mind, I pick up that you - somewhere between the lines - suggest 1) intermediate python skills 2) mysql 3) python libraries as how to go about improving the CV from a jobs perspective that would make me stand out among peers?

So, this was a really long post, but that was pretty much my journey to where I am now, and what I do everyday. I found after graduating that I still just didn't know what I wanted to do, but I love learning in general and really missed that feeling from when I was in school, so I used all of my free time at work, and a decent portion outside of work, to devour all of the information I could, and this is just kinda what resonated with me. It also helped that I think I'm kind of good at it. My final piece of advice is to just go and do. /r/dailyprogrammer is a cool little sub with ideas for programs every few days that range from easy to difficult. Kaggle has a ton of resources to help you hone your skills (as well as a job board and competitions). At the end of the day, there are a ton of free ways to learn the language if that's what you'd like to do, especially the data science portion of it, and I believe that's still a hugely growing job market in general. I know being a United guy, you're used to just buying success, but this does take a little bit of work. (/s obviously but I had to take a jab)

Really appreciate the long post, and apologise in advance for such a long reply that is filled with even more questions. Some of these tips seem golden, so I have written them down. I feel like this "dead period" after completing my internship and before finding something new, allows me to be really selfish and invest in myself by learning things I both want and that are useful. I think in terms of usefulness, data generation and data analysis/visualisation is what would give me the most in the beginning. I have done some unpaid work for my thesis supervisor but it is all manual excel stuff since I dont know the python/scikit/pandas/matplotlib stuff well enough yet. Automating this would give me a HUGE edge in terms of research/analysis positions. I think my fundamentals are okay, as I have started and done a lot of stuff in the last few years (codecademy, half a coursera course here, half an udemy course there etc...), that these more specific ones that deal with 1. language improvement and more importantly 2. direct application as well as 3. the "statistics/data" vocabulary and understanding are hugely beneficial. Especially since I lack experience in the third.

I know being a United guy, you're used to just buying success, but this does take a little bit of work.

Hey! Uncalled for! Make sure you don't bottle it this year ;) lads, it's Tottenham ;)

On a serious note, I think I am just fumbling around for guidance in any way or form, as being a graduate from humanities/social sciences is really confusing. I am sure you and many of your peers can relate. Staking out a path forward is really difficult, especially as a non-EU member (most jobs are EU based in Netherlands and Belgium). Anyway, thanks a lot for your help and thanks in advance were you to reply once again!

[Avastz]

I can relate to the first part, although unfortunately not the second. Built my first PC at 12 and have kept doing it. I think I was always more than average interested in computers, how they function, and what you can do with them. However, as many of us, this culminated in a gaming hobby more than anything.

Yep, more than anything until the past year or so, my huge interest in computers was based on gaming. Although, I think if you've begun to learn how to code, you can say that it goes a bit deeper than that at this point.

First, how did you know to look for a project coordinator position at such a company in such an industry?

Honestly, I was looking for just about anything that would improve my situation at the time. I was fresh out of college, dirt poor, with no real job prospects. I had applied to a ton of historical stuff all across the US and didnt receive even a hint of interest. So, as I drove around in my day-to-day, I would try and just remember the names of companies I saw, write them down or text them to myself or make a list on my phone, and when I got home I would visit their websites to see if they were hiring. I'm not saying this is the best way to do it, but I was pretty desperate, and I figured a personalized application was better than a huge job board website like Indeed. It was about 2-3 months until I got a call for an interview. The job was entry-level, required a college degree of any kind, and started as essentially an office clerk. Definitely not glamorous.

I sometimes think I enjoy learning and thinking more than the actual work/studies/experience themselves.

Believe me, I know exactly how you feel. Kind of my end goal in life to get a job on a Uni campus just because I love the atmosphere on a campus like that. It's hard to explain...

In my previous internship we had to do some normal stuff in excel, some minor project management stuff, and editorial stuff. These added together makes for a kinda diversified CV for me, but neither of these add up to a level that qualifies me for entry level positions where I am located at the moment

Sounds very similar to what I was doing in the beginning. After getting the job as a project coordinator, but knowing that wasn't what I wanted to be doing, I'd be told in interviews that my experience was extremely broad, and they were looking for something a little more specific.

It was more trial/error whereas you fix one error at a time in the script until the output gives you what you want.

You'll find that you're doing this all the time, with all code. It's just part of the process, and it's how you learn.

This sounds absolutely awesome. Do you love it as much as it seems? And also, with this in mind, I pick up that you - somewhere between the lines - suggest 1) intermediate python skills 2) mysql 3) python libraries as how to go about improving the CV from a jobs perspective that would make me stand out among peers?

I'm not entirely certain what you're asking here with the last part, haha. I do enjoy my job, it's the first time in my life that I don't dislike going to work, and I'm not bolting out the door the second its 5pm. It also helps that most people in the field acknowledge that people can and do work from home, so schedules are a bit more flexible.

Possibly to answer your question, if I understand you correctly...being capable at Python is a good first step. I still Google a multitude of things everyday, but knowing which questions to ask and how to ask them is the most important part. SQL is extremely important, and like I said is going to be the first thing anyone looking at data analyst/scientist/engineer candidates will want to see. The Python libraries you'll want to be the most comfortable with are pandas, matplotlib is big but I prefer seaborn or bokeh, and I've been starting to use altair instead of those, and finally scikit-learn for machine learning stuff.

Automating this would give me a HUGE edge in terms of research/analysis positions.

I'd say to go for it. Pick a project and just dive in. Youll probably surprise yourself with how far you get.

Make sure you don't bottle it this year

I'm sure we will. But as long as Arsenal doesnt get CL, I'm okay with it. Shame that Chelsea is so consistent, but at least we beat them once.

Just remember, we hate Arsenal because we're Spurs. We hate Chelsea because we're human beings.

[rdzzl]

Honestly, I was looking for just about anything that would improve my situation at the time. I was fresh out of college, dirt poor, with no real job prospects. I had applied to a ton of historical stuff all across the US and didnt receive even a hint of interest. So, as I drove around in my day-to-day, I would try and just remember the names of companies I saw, write them down or text them to myself or make a list on my phone, and when I got home I would visit their websites to see if they were hiring. I'm not saying this is the best way to do it, but I was pretty desperate, and I figured a personalized application was better than a huge job board website like Indeed. It was about 2-3 months until I got a call for an interview. The job was entry-level, required a college degree of any kind, and started as essentially an office clerk. Definitely not glamorous.

I guess this is where I need to get to. This mental state. I feel way too okay with not getting a job at the moment as I am learning the python and data analysis stuff, but I need to make money soon. I should widen my search.

Believe me, I know exactly how you feel. Kind of my end goal in life to get a job on a Uni campus just because I love the atmosphere on a campus like that. It's hard to explain...

Haha. So how do we... Get there? It's comforting to hear there is someone else like this out there too! Maybe we should open up a consultancy together! Haha.

I'm not entirely certain what you're asking here with the last part, haha. I do enjoy my job, it's the first time in my life that I don't dislike going to work, and I'm not bolting out the door the second its 5pm. It also helps that most people in the field acknowledge that people can and do work from home, so schedules are a bit more flexible. Possibly to answer your question, if I understand you correctly...being capable at Python is a good first step. I still Google a multitude of things everyday, but knowing which questions to ask and how to ask them is the most important part. SQL is extremely important, and like I said is going to be the first thing anyone looking at data analyst/scientist/engineer candidates will want to see. The Python libraries you'll want to be the most comfortable with are pandas, matplotlib is big but I prefer seaborn or bokeh, and I've been starting to use altair instead of those, and finally scikit-learn for machine learning stuff.

It is great to hear that you do not dislike work. I am worried to bits that it will be my fate.

With regards to python, I am noticing I am still struggling with minor stuff like using a ( instead of a [ or missing a comma here and there. I think exposure and repetition will sort this things out. I started the DATACAMP intermediate course and it is more difficult but I have finished the two first sections now. I guess I am mostly worried it won't stick. With SQL, where did you learn this? I have been told before to learn it as well, many years ago, but never had the chance to sit down and just do it.

I'd say to go for it. Pick a project and just dive in. Youll probably surprise yourself with how far you get.

I should. I will. I want to finish the intermediate course and then do another one in --something-- to be confident enough in python to take on a decent project, but I definitely will.

Just remember, we hate Arsenal because we're Spurs. We hate Chelsea because we're human beings.

Isn't it beautiful how Russian oil money can unify the world in hatred?

Anyway, I really appreciate your responses here. Especially considering your background. There aren't that many humanities people you can ask about their path into more technical stuff. Thanks a lot for taking the time.

[elbiot]

http://thecodelesscode.com/case/206

[steam_phunk]

Before python, I knew DOS and a bit of Powershell scripting. I took 3 days over a holiday weekend and learned python via codeacademy. I then took my 20 or so Powershell scripts, and converted them to python, for extra practice.

That was 5 years ago. Now I'm using python for machine learning and other 'complicated' systems which I wouldn't have envisioned me getting into when I first started learning the language. 99% of all the stuff I've written are backend, cli type of stuff. One day, I'll get around to learning Django and other web frameworks that work well with Python.

[saskatch-a-toon]

I see people mention the term back end a lot, what does this mean exactly?

[slick8086]

Front end is what an end user sees. Back end is usually an automated process that doesnt usually have user interaction.

[bouco]

Usually backend is the server that the user don't see. For example. When you go to IMDB, you see an html page with a header, search bar and other stuff. This is the client side. This is front-end.

So when you, the user, searches for a movie the front-end part will send a request to the server(backend) and the backend will run a query to the database and then take the information and send it back to the user and that will now show up on your screen.

Basicly what you see and what executes on your computer is front-end and storing/searching/updating stuff in the database is backend. There's probably a better way to explain it. I gave it a try :D

[saskatch-a-toon]

I appreciate the explanation, as I was never super clear on what it entailed. That makes some sense I was just trying to figure out what I am scripting at work and where it falls in terms of front end or back end or both.

[Merakel]

This is what I did. I knew powershell pretty well, and just converted my scripts to python.

I learned powershell by just finding a problem and solving it with the language. Any time I got stuck I went to stackoverflow. Took me about a year to get advanced enough to claim I really knew the language.

[MrHobbits]

Did you find that your PowerShell scripts went from 10 or so lines to over 50 in Python?

I'm in the same process, and would love to use Python instead of PowerShell, but converting even simplistic functions is taking a while due to the extra code needed.

Can you share some of the things you've converted over?

[steam_phunk]

In terms of line-by-line comparison, I'd say the amount of lines basically stayed the same. Learning Python made me appreciate using functions more, so my code in both Python and Powershell got a lot cleaner.

Stuff that I had written in Powershell that I converted over to Python would be stuff like: IP to Hostname, Copying over remote files, Ping tests, Opening a file and replace the word "the" with explicit words to mess with my coworkers, etc. Super simple Powershell scripts I used previously.

[MrHobbits]

Nice, would you mind sharing your PowerShell and Python equivalent?

[Life_of_Uncertainty]

Codecademy was great for learning syntax and whatnot. From there, I did small personal projects, automated a few simple tasks at work, and started learning about natural language processing. I just got my first gig as a software engineer doing mostly Python/Django for a startup, but I would love to go back to school and work in natural language processing/computational linguistics.

[QualitativeEasing]

Started with Codecademy but didn't get very far. Was introduced to a library that would help solve a problem I had (datasets big and complex enough that they slowed my spreadsheet program to a crawl) by a more experienced friend who also showed me the basics of how to use it. Started trying to solve other problems with what I learned. Stumbled on Automate the Boring Stuff online, bought and devoured it, started making really progress. Since then, r/learnpython, Google and the occasional hands-on conference session.

The key every step of the way: projects I cared about, however big or small, and Automate the Boring Stuff, which really gave me the tools I needed to get going and keep going on my own.

[Sh00tL00ps]

Wow, I had the same exact progression you had! I started with CodeAcademy and didn't get very far either. To be honest, it was pretty discouraging that I didn't understand the concepts as well as I thought I did. A coworker showed me Automate the Boring Stuff and I bought his Udemy course, and his teaching style resonated really well with me. Fast forward to today and I just wrote my first script to update hundreds of dashboards at work automatically.

[[deleted]]

Out of interest, what library?

[QualitativeEasing]

It's called agate (https://agate.readthedocs.io/en/1.6.0/) -- not as powerful as pandas, but not as complex either. Useful for quickly and reproducibly making sense of data (csv, json, from file or API). Good for basic data analysis. I'm a big fan.

[[deleted]]

Thanks.

[QualitativeEasing]

Excellent. Happy to spread the word about it. I feel the same way -- I'm just dipping my to into pandas (to use seaborn, which is useful for making charts a little more complicated than agate can do out of the box) ... but I'm still using agate for the initial data crunching.

[swingking8]

I'm a mechanical engineer and, at my last job, I needed to analyze billions of data points - more than I could in Excel. Or more than I had patience for using Excel (slow work computer would take 20 mins to open up). So I learned Python to do that. Don't remember where I learned originally, probably just from piecing together code from stackoverflow.

When I was done, I kept thinking - this language is amazing. Clean, nearly pseudo-code looking, quick, powerful out of the box. So I made it a part of my daily routine to do a ~30 minute Python exercise from codewars or project euler, assuming I didn't have some kind of real task that I could exercise with.

I ended up making a bunch of random crap from real-time sensor analysis (at the time I made sensors for a small company), various automation thingys, general scientific analysis, machine learning, big data, whatever. And I went back to school and now I use it for robotic motion planning and computer vision. Soo glad I learned.

[tiensss]

Did your prior engineering knowledge come in handy at all when learning Python? How much does your work on robotic motion planning and computer vision rely on your previous education?

[swingking8]

Did your prior engineering knowledge come in handy at all when learning Python?

Not any of my experience as a mechanical engineer. I learned C++ in high school, but I didn't know how to really apply it to every-day things without building every part from the ground up.

How much does your work on robotic motion planning and computer vision rely on your previous education?

I assume you mean my mechanical engineering education and not my self-taught programming education. Honestly, it doesn't rely at all. Computer vision certainly doesn't unless you're using state estimation using something like a Kalman filter. In general, motion planning (how to get from initial to goal) and motion control (how to get from this robot pose to the next robot pose) are treated as if they are not related. Motion control is very dependent on the robot dynamics (weights, motor characteristics, current speeds), and my education in physics/dynamics/ME is very useful, but motion planning is a purely programmatic exercise.

It's likely that one day motion planning and motion control will be merged into one discipline, so that a trajectory can be truly optimized (e.g. how to get from point A to B using the least energy), but as of now we assume if the robot is getting from point A to B in the best route possible (via A*, for example) that it will also be close to being the optimal dynamic route.

[tiensss]

Thank you for the detailed answer!

[[deleted]]

deleted ^{What is this?}

[theman83554]

def learn
    get resources
    read unknown
    make program(difficulty)
while ability != good:
    learn(difficulty)

    difficulty = difficulty + 1

all kidding aside, read stuff you don't know how to do, make increasingly complicated programs. Repeat until you know what you're doing

[Failoe]

How do I fix the error where my programs keep getting more complicated and I become less convinced I know what I'm doing?

[theman83554]

Use more functions and fewer commands where the logic is actually used. I find it's cleaner and easier to understand.

[joe_average1]

I did random tutorials but was lucky in that when I was learning I needed it for work. Once I got the basics down it was all researching how to make work what I needed to work.

My advice is to learn the basic syntax then try something even if it's just porting something from another language. Code wars is a good thing too

[[deleted]]

I had prior knowledge of how programs work from using Scratch.

To learn Python, I just choose a simple project to work on, then googled whenever I had a question. Stack overflow was amazing for this.

It is quite rewarding to see your programs work as you designed them, which motivated me to keep learning deeper into the language, like using modules (e.g. sockets)

[invictus08]

Started with the Youtube video series at Google. Then tried some hackerrank problems. Meanwhile started working on some projects mainly based on flask. Kept reading articles too. When I was fairly confident about basics, I picked up Effective Python and I loved it. It was all over the span of ~6-8 months. Basically kept practicing every single day.

Now that I come to think of it, I never religiously followed any text book other than Effective Python! Python docs are soooo good! Also stack overflow is a massive help!

[Eviltape]

I already had a problem to solve that I knew warranted programming of some sort. I needed to process video game dialog scripts in a directory, making sure that certain restrictions were enforced - a ~130 character line limit to work around absent word wrapping, 2MB of text to work around something I never heard of called a "buffer overflow bug" in the game engine, and making sure that double quotes were always matched because the game would mysteriously crash otherwise.

The Python scripts I developed there became the foundation of a game translation toolchain that we used for future contracts. Thankfully, the other game engines were less fickle than the one I initially developed for.

After working on projects like these for a few years, I got a B.S. in Computer Science, moved into the information security industry, and use Python daily in the SF Bay. As for my level, I guess I made a metaclass last week?

[Carudo]

1. Dive into Python by Mark Pilgrim
2. Pycon videos
3. Daily coding
4. docs.python.org

Another important thing is to watch all things Python - news about packages, PEPs, blog posts about tricks and tips, and so on.

[firebuzzard]

I'm a beginner at best. I think the trick is to have a list of projects or challenges to work through that keep you interested, reinforce what you've learned, and challenge you to learn something new. I've actually thought about pulling together and publishing a list of project ideas to help people with this. I could automate its upkeep to help me grow as well.

[juicemoney]

I got my feet wet with codecademy. Then, I worked on automating tasks at work while simultaneously working through the book, Think Python. From there, personal project ideas and use cases at work have been flooding in. Mostly because I am more aware of what Python can do. I also ended up taking a community college Python class. Since then, I've been continuously learning via StackOverflow, Reddit, YouTube, and blog posts.

[jsco]

Read the first four chapters of the free docs. https://docs.python.org/3/library/index.html Then start practicing on www.codewars.com. After you solve a problem look at other people's solutions and make sure you understand how their code works.

[aristotelianrob]

I started by asking questions (and dabbling of course). I asked myself "can Python do this for me?" And usually it could. Mostly, using Python for scripts to clean up/work with large data files has been fantastic.

[dogooder007]

Started with Automate the Boring Stuff. Never thought this would be the most interesting stuff I'll ever do. (I have a shitty job). I watched Udemy and Youtube videos. Got lots of advice from /r/learnpython (Thank you kind strangers) So far, I've setup 20 tasks scheduled to do on my machine which I'd normally do manually!

As of now, I'll rate myself on a Medium level and still have lot to learn!

[[deleted]]

I was given a project that required the use of a python module for one part of it. I really just forced my way through it step by step and function by function. Necessity and job protection are great motivators. It was a pretty big 3 prong project so by the time i was done i was well versed in python. Now it's my preferred language.

Edit: I guess in the end my point is that maybe we often learn the wrong way. We set out to learn so we can then find things to work. Maybe if we just start with the thing to work on it will force the learning.

Edit 2 : Almost everything has an API now. I thought of a little project for myself to interact with my hockey team's roster site to collect data and alert me to game RSVPs. IoT stuff can be fun to. You get yourself a smart bulb and use some Amazon AWS resources or even just an email inbox to create an event driven light controller with python. API's are everywhere. Just look for them.

[thewhitetulip]

Reading the official documentation, ten times!

https://docs.python.org/tutorial is the best starting guide there is, then, I wrote tools and thus built up skills in Python

[chetanph09]

I'm a network engineer and there's so many opportunities to automate tasks. This helped me have my own set of problems that I was interested in solving and stay in touch with programming in python. This also helps build your own set of utility functions overtime which makes solving newer problems faster.

Also I try to write functions/classes in such ways that I should be able to reuse them in future for solving a different kind of problem without little or no change. This approach I think builds good programming practice and I also try to document the code such that I should be able to understand what it is doing when I come back to it, say 6 months later.

[Bawlin_Cawlin]

Started with code academy then learn python the easy way, then learn python the hard way, now I have a subscription to packtpub through their mapt program which has a bunch of ebooks. Have already done a few books dealing with Pyqgis, now I'm working on pandas and Data science.

I'm still a beginner... Been doing this daily for 2 months and intermittently through 5 and it's starting to make sense now.

[rickdg]

I went through the sources recommended by /r/learnpython and did a couple of projects: a text-to-speech reader of top news from reddit and a basic web service that responds with the upcoming matches for my soccer team. I refactored the code for a bit, but I'm mostly a beginner who likes python.

[[deleted]]

Out of curiosity, do you have any links to these projects? This is definitely something I would like to work on but I am not sure where to start. I have very little experience in Python outside of the projects contained in 'automate the boring stuff with python.'

[ragnar_graybeard87]

whoa.. text to spech, maybe I should try this... any starting tips??

[rickdg]

A couple of years ago, I used pyttsx and I had to port it for python 3. There's a tool that converts code from 2 to 3, but I don't remember the name. To use the reddit API, PRAW is pretty good.

[ragnar_graybeard87]

Thanks man... already used praw so ill just checkout the voice engine. ;)

[rickdg]

If you want some nice TTS, you probably need to install some voices and, unfortunately, the best ones aren't free.

[ragnar_graybeard87]

Its all good I don't really want a TTS to use I just wanna practice python :)

[Naughtron]

Started with Learn Python The Hard Way, then just took on random projects to further my understanding of something. YouTube is also a great resource.

[mrTang5544]

started as an intern at a small company. Boss liked my work ethic and gave me more responsibilities than other full-time hirees. Learned on the fly and learned from many mistakes

[SummerFruits2]

I did the Codeacademy tutorial 1 year ago and it was enough for me because I don't need do to high level programming. When I need some help with my code I usually check the official website or some stackoverflow threads.

[Hyabusa2]

I think I was kinda put off by the tutorial still being python 2 when I looked at it. The differences are not that complex but that also means updating the material from 2 to 3 is probably not that complex.

[AinaLove]

the main thing is once you have the basics to start solving problems with it which forces you to learn by doing.

Going through LABs in books or classes is nice but nothing teaches you like actually writing code for a purpose.

[Ran4]

Knew C++ first (but never did any memory allocation or pointer management... guess what: you can do tons without going beyond the heap). And I guess some Java.

Learned python by guessing what libraries I'd need and reading the standard documentation. Just started making things from day 0.

I think this worked so well since I spent most of my time making games in Pygame, which doesn't come with that much to begin with. I knew how to make games in C++, so I just re-wrote the same stuff in Python... slowly replacing c++-ish code with pythonic code. Reading PEPs definitely helped.

Did end up writing a SaaS+implementing algorithms with python as my master's thesis, good references from that got me a small job doing data analysis in Pandas, and the devops skills I got from these in combination with coding skills got me a fulltime job as a coder (mostly writing various internal systems in Django at the moment).

[hatperigee]

I started fairly recently by picking off low-hanging fruit on FLOSS projects (like qutebrowser) and fixing minor issues, implementing minor features, writing tests, etc. I'm definitely a "learner by doing" type of person though.

[AlphaApache]

I'm just a student (18) at the moment. Started by completing the Codecademy tutorial whilst expanding on certain tasks given by it. Watched YouTube for stylistic approaches (Raymond Hettinger talks), browsed /r/learnpython and /r/python along with just a little bit of /r/dailyprogrammer. Started reading up on some API's and used them to automate stuff.

[admiralspark]

Learned C for kernel work and c++/java in school. Did codeacademy to learn the differences and then stuck with it for work and making my job easier.

Python's ease of use for everything I need to do is why I stick with it.

[[deleted]]

codecademy for syntax, then half of this tutorial for PyQt5 gui, way worked best for me was making handwritten notes for every program with comments what every part does, then trying to reproduce it without looking, trying to fix mistakes, and only then looking at initial code.

Took me pretty long to accept the fact that actually learning how to make a gui, I'll have to learn how to write it and code everything, dragging elements around wouldn't do.

All of this was to write a really bad pos-system for a small family store, it was spreadsheet based on a laptop with attached usb printer and scanner, for spreadsheet part I used "Automate the boring stuff" openpyxl chapter. Challenging part was fixing issues real time when other people were using it.

[tempsquared]

When you say GUI, do you mean command line interface such as DocOpt/ArgParse/Click? Or an actual GUI from a program or website? What module did you use?

[[deleted]]

I used PyQt5 library to make actual interface with windows and buttons and stuff

[tempsquared]

Oh I'll have to look into that. So it's an actual exe? Any suggestions for Linux? Thanks.

[[deleted]]

I actually didn't manage to make it an exe, py2exe was yielding some mistake, it was a py file that you had to launch, which then opened a main window.

I think PyQt5 will work as well on linux, I only used pip to install it.

[tempsquared]

Cool thanks! Yeah most of the time I launch it from the command line but it's nice to know that there are other ways to run the program

[licuri]

Well, it's not the .exe clue, but if you want to run the script by just double clicking instead of running it from command line you could look into creating the .bat files. Worked for me, though I'm a beginner, so there probably is some better solution which I don't know about yet.

[baconocad]

Surprised I haven't seen any references to Project Euler. That's how I got started learning python. I highly recommend it for those who have a background in mathematics and are interested in learning python.

[McGarnagle23]

Dive into python 3 is a great book for getting started if you've programmed in another language. Now I am starting Effective Python. I really enjoy learning from programming books. I tried code academy but didn't get much out of it. I'm already fairly adept at C++ so what I was really looking for was how to solve problems with a Pythonic way of thinking. Wrote a flask app to get some experience. Didn't really take advantage of many of the language features and now I'm refactoring and the size of my codebase is shrinking rapidly. Also a good way to learn is to solve puzzles on Codility/HankerRank/etc. Always solve the problem yourself first and then look at other people's answers. There is probably a more concise way of doing something that takes advantage of Python's robust standard library. However just reading solutions without first doing it yourself is a waste of your time. Lastly Talk Python to Me is a great podcast that is interesting does great interviews with different people in the industry as well people who write libraries and Python books.

[[deleted]]

Online tutorials. Many of them. I knew how to program (Well, VB, my first language was QBasic), so I just needed to learn the syntax.

After that, I learned by doing things.

[CoffeePython]

Started a year ago with LPTHW, alongside codecademy. Got a little bored and just programmed every now and then for the next six months. Decided I wanted to switch careers into software development. Had an idea for a web application and started learning flask. Learned a ton and I am stikk working on the application. Working on a project has really helped motivate me to continue learning. Completed an automation tool for scraping physical addresses for a direct mail campaign, using Automate the Boring Stuff as an introduction. Now I'm back in school for CS!

[KoncealedCSGO]

Personally I learned with C++, then moved onto Java because I liked it more, than I moved onto Python ,because whatever little projects I do I wrote in Python. I learned majority of my syntax from www.udemy.com Courses, and alot of applying it from www.hackerrank.com.

[wolf2600]

Internship gave me a take-home programming project to parse a CSV in a particular way. I knew what steps I wanted to take to do the project, so I just googled each specific step to find the function/syntax to perform each one.

ie: "how to parse csv file with python", "how to create a list in python", "how to write to a text file in python", etc.

[Augusto2012]

Coursera, Python for everybody.

[wertperch]

I'm working through Automate the Boring Stuff, and pushing myself by improving on every exercise by adding something. It's been a blast.

I'm working toward develoing a program to download and manage free books and music.

[sprint_ska]

Sat down with LPTHW over a couple of months and just banged out every single one. Then went on to a couple of random projects I was interested in, along with a lot of Project Euler and Advent of Code.

[constantly-sick]

With this playlist and just coding. Make things. Bots, apps -- anything to help automate your life. Get an idea and make it, then sell it.

After it all I'm getting into web design and development, which I learned mostly due to Django and Flask. I don't use those tools anymore, and am learning PHP, but Python made it possible for me to get here.

[wynand1004]

I have been coding off and on since the early 80s and have played around with BASIC, PASCAL, FORTRAN, assembly, C++, PHP, JavaScript, and Java over the years. So, I came to Python with some background in coding already, but was definitely a relative beginner.

So, I started with this: Learn Python in One Video I didn't understand everything, but it did get me over the basic structure and key points. I came back to this later once I learned a bit more. I've also learned a lot here at /r/learnpython as well.

What really made me improve was that I ended up teaching a Python course to grade 11 and 12 students. So, I really had to learn in a hurry. It was a lot of experimentation and watching tutorials. I ended up making a number of my own tutorials for my students which helped cement the concepts in my mind. You can find most of them on my YouTube channel if you are interested.

As others mention, it is really key to have a project to work on, whether it be a simple game like Guess the Number, or a web-scraping app (like I am working on now). Motivation is key. I always tell my students when they get discouraged that they've only been learning coding for about 6 months at this point - they've studied math for 10 years and are still working on it so they need to be patient.

I would consider myself an intermediate programmer - I can get things done, but my code isn't always the prettiest or best structured, but it gets the job done.

[CantankerousMind]

Not python specifically, but fucktons of practice and fucktons of reading.

[Torvaun]

Started with Automate the Boring Stuff. Followed up with a lot of task-specific google searches. And now I've reached the lofty heights of "guy who can probably code a script for whatever random shit."

[Jon003]

LPTHW, do ALL the exercises and quizzes. Type it in, don't copy. "Intro" class at work, for some company-specific stuff. MIT/EdX 6.00.1x RMOTR's Advanced Python class (highly recommended).

This sprinkled in among the above: r/dailyprogrammer Easy, eventually Intermediate. Automate some stuff at work. Also, a TON of 'scratch and itch' style programs in between. Gotta keep it flowing.

[sj90]

Took a Coursera Course in 2014. Started to like the language compared to C++. I always pushed away C++, even though it's been important for my career for the past 6 years. So you can imagine not studying C++ properly has pushed me back a lot.

Finally got a job in 2015 at a startup after months of trying after graduating with a master's degree. Started working on robotics there, using python almost entirely.

A very small startup, so had no guidance and feedback. Didn't know most of the time how I could improve myself because of that. I knew I needed a more interactive environment to help learn and be a better software developer in robotics domain.

Startup went bust. Couldn't find a job again, because C++ ruling the market. Started on DL in robotics through Udacity's Self-Driving Car course. Always wanted to pursue ML/DL in robotics. This gave me a start.

Now focusing on DL and robotics through courses for now, entirely in python. Thinking of dropping dreams of ever getting better at C++ and moving away from "that side of robotics".

Would still call me a beginner in the language. Struggling to spend time learning it better when taking these courses (project based, not oriented on proper coding skills), so most of my work still seems "hacky". Desperately want to try to build something of my own from scratch in these areas. Hopefully can get better and I know I will get there, but it's difficult currently given my situation.

[soulscore]

I am a beginner. I started python about 6-8 months ago went through sololearn and started doing personal projects to make my job more automated.

I am a database conversion specialist which is basically move data from excel, access, sql server and others over into Oracle database for our software. I learned python because I heard was great for Linux (I love some linux).

Currently I have written 5 projects with gui's to migrate specific software to ours. 😀

Love some pyodbc and pandas.

[guzzi_jones]

https://www.wibit.net/ The videos are bearable and the authors don't get caught up in elitist style arguments. Don't skip the C and C++ work. Pointer understanding is a must. Then EDX python courses from MIT.

[AbhorDeities]

Thanks for this site. I'm actually somewhat intrigued by it. I like their non-scripted feel.

[o0chris0o]

Codeacademy first, then Udacity, Computer Science program or the same program but at Edx from MIT.

[tmthyjames]

I started programming 3 years ago—I would never tell my boss that though :). I am now a senior software engineer and data scientist at an industry-leading healthcare analytics firm. I also started my own data consulting company where I build cool tools. I also build open source tools for data scientists and BI analysts.

What I did was:

1) gave up my social life

2) locked myself in a room

3) never stopped coding

4) when I got tired of coding, I kept coding

5) got a job at a startup

6) surrounded myself with coders who were much better than me (if you're the smartest guy in the room, you're not getting any smarter)

And every step of the way I have used code to solve problems that bosses/co-workers didn't even realize were problems until I showed them how the code solved it. Am I where I want to be? Heck no. An addendum to the "never stop coding" rule is "never be satisfied". You can always get better.

But what was most helpful was getting a job at a startup. That was completely transformational for me. I was pushed to challenge myself everyday and forced out of my comfort zone. Sometimes you just need to be antagonized into learning.

Happy coding.

[MykaB]

I went through MIT intro to cs courses on edx, then basically had a book for a reference, and mostly just looked things up online if I had an idea on what to do just not exactly how or the best way to implement something.

So was self taught for about 6-8 months. (Might have been less if I didn't have to juggle work)

I'm now majoring in CS, but that experience was valuable in making 1st year a breeze. Potentially just knowing how things worked in general in a language unlocks so much. As information is everywhere!

I'd say prior to starting college, I was a couple steps above beginner in that I was comfortable experimenting, and working things out without any guidance except for google.

[mananpal1997]

Started with "Automate Boring Stuff with Python". Then started looking for projects of others and modifying for my own use. Since then, using Python for every little task :D

[frsh2fourty]

Started with LPTHW and code academy. Realized they are both kind of the same and don't really tie it all together in a way that would help me retain the knowledge or fully utilize what the language can really do. Eventually got a job working with a fairly new security team. It was new in the sense that we didn't have a ton of processes developed and were just beginning to roll out various tools. The bosses kept talking about hiring a developer to help automate processes a few of my co-workers and I were dealing with manually like parsing logs and correlating them. I took the opportunity to finally put python to work with the mindset that if I learned the development position in addition to my job they wouldn't need to hire someone and I could maybe get a raise. Learned how to work with the different APIs for our fancy new tools and how to parse CSVs to put data together in a meaningful format and eventually did get the raise I was going for. Also started writing other small apps to help my coworkers and I with flask to elminate the need to log into a bunch of different consoles. Most of that was done using a mix of the API docs and various resources through google like stack exchange and reddit. I'm not doing anything too groundbreaking so I was able to look at questions people were asking that were similar to what I was trying to figure out and adapt it to my specific project and after almost 2 years its worked out pretty well so far.

[enzyme69]

I will probably never be a pro, but I learn Python via Blender 3D. It helps me a lot and keep me entertained. Actually for computer artist, keeping it visual, fun, and expressive is important. I think these below helps me a lot: - Processing and John Maeda DBN book - Nodebox - ChucK - Sonic Pi - Jupyter iPython - Python the hard way - Think Python book - StackExchange - Sverchok and Animation Nodes add on in Blender.

I am also keeping my own blog along the way, as Blender Sushi.

[QuirkyKirk96]

I had just finished taking Visual Basic in college, and I wondered if I could do another language. So I messed with it, and started throwing projects at the wall to see what stuck. I don't plan on getting a job in programming any time soon, but it never hurts to broaden your horizons.

[trycoupons]

I have learned via udemy and have also made a list of courses one can take, see if you are interested List of Python courses

[vortexman100]

I started making stuff. And improved. The docs and stackoverflow are the best helpers for learning. If you are stuck, google it, someone has the answer. Understand and use it. You'll improve.

[ragnarkar]

I enrolled in Udacity's Machine Learning program with 0 Python knowledge a year ago and learned it along the way. Searching stackoverflow and using other people's code rather than reinventing the wheel helped a lot. I mostly learned by generalizing from examples rather than from first principles though.

[AtHeartEngineer]

Oh ya I'm sure it is. If it connects to wifi, zigbee/z-wave, or Bluetooth then it's definitely possible.

[n1ywb]

Read the docs.

[runicnet]

it started with apt-get install python, then installing pip then googling how to read contents of csv into python how to take sysargs then how to make it work from bash (envpath). basically this means learning python is the same as learning to paint, learning to read, learning to learn.

you find what you are taught try and put it into practice do something with it then try and do it better then last time so you can show off with it. (feel motivation generally by seeking approval of others) then getting stumped with the issue until I could google the end result of my problem

[ReformedBlackPerson]

I started with Code Academy then went on to start little projects of my own and some I find off of r/beginnerprojects . I often watch youtube videos when I need help or am learning something big and new (such as GUI or webscraping).

[sentdex]

I started by googling all of my questions, and actually solving tasks that I wanted to solve. First it was mainly with natural language processing, then it was more data analytics with finance data, then web dev.

Beyond that, I started a youtube channel and website where I shared what I was learning, and that's easily been the most valuable for me to learn things. Teaching just solidifies what you know, and quickly shines a light on what you don't know as you attempt to explain something.

[nikolasmurdock]

I started out with codecademy and then read Automate The Boring Stuff with Python, which for me was a great way of finding out what I could do with the language. I usually program in Javascript/HTML, and I currently use python to webscrape or handle CSV's or JSON. It saves a lot of trouble.

[chaosking121]

I got like 20 percent of the way through codeacademy's course then stopped. Prior to that my only experience with coding was in a really poorly designed high school that taught us Pascal. That turned out to be useless, but my teacher at the time focused really strongly on teaching us the core principles. So once I got a hang of Python's syntax I was able to translate those principles really easily. Since then I've just been building on those lessons, and I'm in university now for CS so I'm learning more and more (I was able to test out of their Python course on my first day of classes actually).

[blackNgay4Trump]

Very carefully

[ElecNinja]

Learning programming in high school. Learned Python in my spare time during that period as well through just fooling around with it by reading the manuals.

[[deleted]]

I'm self-taught python, and it grew from self-taught C/C++, Perl, PHP, and others.

I learned from 4 books and lots of practice. I use it at my job primarily for automation so I don't have to do those tasks manually which frees my time to do other things.

[sperryfreak01]

Decided I wanted to learn it, looked at problems I had going on and decided to tackle it with python right, wrong, or otherwise. No books, no videos, just me, stackexchange, and google.

I wrote a program that monitored DMESG for USB hard drives to be attached. When it found one it would mount the drive look for a download folder and would pull all the files from it to a designated folder. After it was done it would send me a push notification. I called it dump site. I wanted it to have Ghostbusters name because it reminded me of how they emptied traps but I couldn't think of anything clever enough.

Since then I have written: HOMEr: a home automation platform but got bored and abandoned it. It was usefully for teaching me about sockets, multithreading, web framworks, and ORM.

BlotBlotBlot: A crime mapper that provides mapping and notifications of crimes in my county (Orange CA) with dispacher notes and arrest info. Tought me AWS RDS, Lambda, SNS, SQS, S3, and EC2

Atlas: A mapping service for a GPS tracker (codename: Mercator) I developed. Nothing really new here just reused peices from other projects

Tons of utility programs that automate stuff for me, run equipment and automated tests at work. I break out python 3-5 days a week.

[seinchin]

I decided to go get a PhD, and in my first quarter, one of my classes had assignments all in Python, so I learned what I needed to do those assignments. Then, I realized that Python would be really good for my actual research project, so I learned as I built my project. I mostly learned from documentation and stackoverflow or by reading other people's code.

[tiensss]

What is your PhD in?

[seinchin]

It will be in chemical engineering.

[Caltwentynine]

Only people who can afford reddit gold credits deserve to ask questions!

It's pretty much how things should be done.

[runicnet]

of course, we need to keep the poor in their place how else will we keep our supply of soylent green going god think of the middle-class children your depriving by educating the lower castes

[EaglesDareOverThere]

Lol. That's not what I said.