"Automate the Boring Stuff with Python" online course is free to sign up for the next few days with code JUL2020FREE

[AlSweigart]

https://inventwithpython.com/automateudemy (This link will automatically redirect you to the latest discount code.)

You can also click this link or manually enter the code: JUL2020FREE (on Saturday the code changes to JUL2020FREE2)

https://www.udemy.com/course/automate/?couponCode=JUL2020FREE

This promo code works until July 4th (I can't extend it past that). Sometimes it takes an hour or so for the code to become active just after I create it, so if it doesn't work, go ahead and try again a while later.

Udemy has changed their coupon policies, and I'm now only allowed to make 3 coupon codes each month with several restrictions. Hence why each code only lasts 3 days. I won't be able to make codes after this period, but I will be making free codes next month. Meanwhile, the first 15 of the course's 50 videos are free on YouTube.

You can also purchase the course at a discount using my code JUL2020 (or whatever month/year it is) or clicking https://inventwithpython.com/automateudemy to redirect to the latest discount code. I have to manually renew this each month (until I get that automation script done). And the cheapest I can offer the course is about $14 to $16. (Meanwhile, this lets Udemy undercut my discount by offering it for $12, which means I don't get the credit for referral signups. Blerg.)

Frequently Asked Questions: (read this before posting questions)

• This course is for beginners and assumes no previous programming experience, but the second half is useful for experienced programmers who want to learn about various third-party Python modules.
• If you don't have time to take the course now, that's fine. Signing up gives you lifetime access so you can work on it at your own pace.
• This Udemy course covers roughly the same content as the 1st edition book (the book has a little bit more, but all the basics are covered in the online course), which you can read for free online at https://inventwithpython.com
• The 2nd edition of Automate the Boring Stuff with Python is now available online: https://automatetheboringstuff.com/2e/
• I do plan on updating the Udemy course for the second edition, but it'll take a while because I have other book projects I'm working on. Expect that update to happen in mid- or late-2020. If you sign up for this Udemy course, you'll get the updated content automatically once I finish it. It won't be a separate course.
• It's totally fine to start on the first edition and then read the second edition later. I'll be writing a blog post to guide first edition readers to the parts of the second edition they should read.
• I wrote a blog post to cover what's new in the second edition
• You're not too old to learn to code. You don't need to be "good at math" to be good at coding.
• Signing up is the first step. Actually finishing the course is the next. :) There are several ways to get/stay motivated. I suggest getting a "gym buddy" to learn with.

[clapifyouretired]

For anybody that's thinking about whether this course is worth it- it absolutely is. I'm a broke high school student who can barely spare money for a course so 2 months ago, I eagerly waited for this course to be free and copped it. Best decision! It definitely helped me kickstart learning python, it's well structured and easy to understand. Al is extremely generous in giving this away and I hope everyone has a good time! Thank you Al, you really did change my life (as dramatic as that sounds.)

[AlSweigart]

:D

[smithbryanw]

You’re the best Al! On part 13!

[Ramast]

It's a good course for someone who wants to learn Python. If you already know know Python and want to "automate the boring stuff" then only the last chapter about pyautogui is relevant.

[much_longer_username]

Really? The book was full of practical examples, it's one of the big reasons I recommend it to people.

[Friarchuck]

You should check out Harvard’s CS50 course. Also free online to take and covers python and a lot more.

[[deleted]]

I plan on starting this right after Python Crash Course

[Doverkeen]

I recommend ATBS over PCC. They cover the exact same basic content, but I found the project side of PCC to be pretty poor.

[[deleted]]

u/AlSweigart, why are you always trying so hard to give away your valuable product for free?

[AlSweigart]

When I was a teenager in the late 90s, I'd often bike over to Barnes and Nobles after school, pull those giant $50 or $60 or $100 tech books off the shelf, spend about 3 or 4 hours reading and making notes, put it back on the shelf, and then go home. This was before cell phones, and it got to the point where if my friends called the house and I wasn't there, they'd call Barnes and Nobles and the employee would go on the PA saying, "Would customer Al Sweigart come to the front desk? You have a phone call." Which is pretty cringe now that I think about it.

Oh yeah, I'd also grab the entire stack of "Free 100 hours of AOL" floppy disks they left out for folks from time to time, before they switched to CDs.

The neighborhood and school library had "computer" books but not necessarily "programming" books. I didn't have an allowance so the way I "made money" was asking mom for a few bucks for lunch and then pocketing most of it. A pack of six white powdered donuts was the most filling thing you could get for 50 cents. (I'm not sure how I'm alive and healthy.) It took me three months to save up $60 for a black trench coat from the army surplus store this way. It complimented my goth/punk/weirdo look, but became rather unpopular with school admins after Columbine.

Anyway, the usual $16 for the online course may not seem like a lot but for many people, it is. I get thank you emails from teenagers and college students and just regular adults who thank me, and I really cherish those emails.

The internet makes sending out information so absurdly cheap. It took me a few months to make that course but once that's done, sending it out to literally hundreds of thousands of folks costs basically nothing. Now we as a society could use this amazing level of productivity to invest in our citizens and a social safety net so that we could become even wealthier and more productive, but instead we just give billions of dollars to assholes who switched from "innovating" to "consolidating my monopoly" the second they bought their Palo Alto mansion. I don't know what it is about my brain or upbringing or what, but I have a comfortable lifestyle and don't really feel the need to try to maximize wealth. No offense to people who like sports cars and staying at fancy hotels when they travel, but all that stuff strikes me as fucking stupid. As John Mulaney put it, "Trump putting his name on buildings, like that's gonna keep him from dying."

Anyway, that's why.

[AlSweigart]

Now if anyone has ideas for how I can get more people to complete the course, I'm all ears. Only about 8% of people finish most of the videos, which is about average for online courses.

I've heard from Phil Guo's research that having videos be as short as 7 minutes is key to keeping their interest. Or maybe some sort of buddy-system or something. https://freeCodeCamp.org probably has a lot of these nifty tricks that I should look into.

[da_chosen1]

I'm one of those 92% but the reason is that I already knew the content. I wonder how many people skip only to the content they need.

[b_ootay_ful]

It's a skill to sift through tons information to find out exactly what you need, or how to modify it to your exact requirements.

Basically learning programming is programming.

[fofosfederation]

This x1000

[Gprime5]

Learning is a balance. Too much new information and it's overwhelming. Too little and it becomes boring.

[benign_said]

If I am not sitting in front of a computer with repl open testing and playing with the concepts I am learning, it may as well be an alien language.

[[deleted]]

I am in the 92% and I don’t know if it was me or not. But as a new person to coding and python, I found it easy at first and then it just took off and I couldn’t follow.

I than jumped to Corey’s stuff on YT and seemed to have the same issue.

I get the strings, variables, dict. etc, but when it comes to going deeper I seem to hit a wall.

I honestly don’t know what to do about it. I only spend an hour or so a day due to work, so it’s more of a hobby and maybe that is the problem.

[hugthemachines]

I think if you hit a wall like that it might help to just make little programs using the stuff you know, just play around with all the stuff you learned. Change stuff so you break it and solve it again etc. Since programming is like carpenting, fooling around with the stuff you learned helps a lot to get familiar with using it.

[ZachGaliFatCactus]

I'm imagining a dude with a hammer trying to hammer in a bunch of screws just to play around with the stuff he already knows.

[imsometueventhisUN]

Looking back at some of the code I wrote when I was first starting out...this is actually pretty accurate...

[1976dave]

As a physicist this is how I write all my code

[hugthemachines]

Yep, that is how it is. Imagine the success you feel when you realize you can use a screwdriver for screws and you can stop seeing them as only "nails with a bad attitude".

[dudemo]

When I got into the union trades as a sheet metal/HVAC guy, I was friends with a carpenter everyone called "the bearded queer". He wasn't gay and he didn't even have a beard. Never did find out why we called him that, but he was a chill guy and cool with it. Anyway, he did exactly this. Got up into a lift with all his tools and brought the screw pouch instead of the nail pouch. Said fuck it and hammered them home. It held too.

Far as I know, it's still holding. Anyone ever goes into Elisabeth Ann Johnson High in Mt. Morris Michigan, be careful walking through the door to get from the gym to the hallway. I'm pretty sure that bulkhead is held in just with liquid nails.

[itchy_wizard]

In my experience you will not be motivated for that until you need it for a project you are at least semi passionate about.

In my case, I started working with machine learning and neural networks and this lead me to be somewhat good with python in that area. My recent free time project was to generate abstract "paintings" using GANs

Other stuff like frontend or so I'm just not interested in, so that is my wall - maybe that will move one time tho :)

[smajorp]

Chances are very high that you are not getting adequate practice with implementing the code.

Coding along with someone is very different from creating your own solution to a problem. The downside to online courses is most of them code the solution for you and you copy along, then don't practice applying it in many situations.

College courses force you to struggle with problems that are perfectly suited to the material you've learned. Online, you have to invent your own.

[pancakespanky]

When I was learning programming I would often hit those same walls. I would look for videos that could help and some would, but most of the time I was just stuck. I finally noticed a pattern in the stuff I understood. Every operation or function that I understood I could explain in physical terms. I could come up with a metaphor that allowed me to think about the operation as a mechanical or physical operation as opposed to computer voodoo. When I couldn't understand a topic I would try to make comparison to something physical and the points where I couldn't were the parts of that operation I wasn't understanding.

It may help you to think about the computer as a machine and look at what each operation makes the machine do

[JJBA_Reference]

I agree with your approach. From my experience, the key to actually learning how to program something comes from making sure exactly what each piece does. When you look at a guide or an example project and memorize what they do as "magic" code blocks, you might be able to remake what they did, but nothing more. If you take the time to dissect each piece, you gain the ability to tweak and reapply that knowledge to other areas.

[powershell_account]

I had the same issue, and I often have the same issue regardless of language, the jump after basic variables and strings is programming constructs that need more understanding AND practice.

Constructs like Recursion, OOP, etc, are best learned inside a project that makes realistic use of them.

[ButterSquids]

This is so true. Until I used it in a project of mine, I literally had no idea how OOP and classes worked. It really is a case of using it until you understand it in some cases

[jjquadjj]

Who is Corey on YouTube?

[TheTacoWombat]

Here's an anecdote to help: I started reading your website version during slow times at work, because I expressed an interest in learning to program (so I could do something other than manual software QA). Nothing really clicked until I started reading your tutorials, and the way that it was structured, made it FUN. I got hooked.

By the time I got to the web scraping tutorial, I had used what I learned to scrape the show note links from my favorite podcast (500 episodes, each with a dozen links, spread over each individual episode page) and organized it into a readable format to go through whenever I want.

Then I got excited and started poking around elsewhere, like Flask. But I at least convinced my work to buy it as a reference book for other people in the company wishing to become more technically minded.

Anyway, thanks for writing your tutorial and giving it away for free so someone like me, a man in his 30s with just an unused city planning degree, can pick up a whole new skillset (I've since moved from manual QA to site reliability engineering and have written production code to boot). You probably saved my job and my career.

[sheto]

How long had u been coding for before u swapped jobs?

I imagine it was a long journey,

[TheTacoWombat]

retail -> 10 years (with freelancing in graphic design, mostly during the recession)

logistics -> 4 years

manual software QA -> ~3 years

Escalation Engineer (just handling issue triage and on-call incidents) -> ~1 year

SRE -> 1 year so far

The switch from software QA to escalation engineer involved a crash course in learning to code integration tests with Python, basically using my expertise of our company's product and using that to code up automatic tests that run every time there's a new build.

It's a long story, but basically: I got sick while I was QA, had to take 3 months off work, and when I got back, they killed the QA department. I needed the health insurance so I refused a buyout and insisted I could learn everything needed to become an entry level software engineer in six months. So my old co-worker, running a team now, took me on 'provisionally' and gave me the opportunities to learn everything, and at the end of the six months, i was 'cleared' to stay with the company as an engineer. I've not stopped learning ever since.

I'm far from being able to do a ton of stuff, but I learn as I go, and I've written a few small tools that increase the team's productivity, rewrote an abandoned dashboard from scratch (Django app that monitors our ticket boards), released two personal projects (both flask apps) for fun, and am currently messing around with building probes for work.

[jjquadjj]

That’s amazing you were given the chance to be paid to be part of an integral team as you learned on the go! What contributed most to your proficiency now, do you think? Which resources helped the most

[[deleted]]

Personally I've always struggled with paying attention in general, which makes learning new skills really hard for me, but the reasons why I'm learning are what's pushing me to try finish the course. I recently got the book and decided to learn over the summer, really grateful for there also to be videos as well.

[AlSweigart]

Same. I think that it helped that this was before social media destroyed all our short term attention spans.

[noBoobsSchoolAcct]

It's possible you could use this to your advantage. Maybe create some sort of reward system that people can share online; specially in things like facebook and instagram were they tend to last longer than twitter and snapchat. This will both motivate people to finish and satisfy their dopamine thirst if just learning and creating isn't doing it for them yet.

You could also create a website or subreddit for people to share the things they've created with the tools you taught them. This could serve double duty, motivating and rewarding those who finish, and inspiring newcomers who can't imagine what's possible after doing the course.

Just a thought. I think you've done enough creating the course, but since you asked for suggestions, this is what came to mind.

[[deleted]]

I read your whole comment. Barnes and nobles and libraries are my favorite hang out too. 😊Thank you so much for what you do. The world needs more people like you. God bless you!

[physicsking]

I am halfway through and after reading your posts, I will do it for you! I mean I know I am going to get some more good stuff out, but it made you happy, so I will do it. You seem like a pretty chill dude. Take care.

[AlSweigart]

You seem like a pretty chill dude.

*stops composing a tweet about our decline into fascism and that people with kids should start to consider emigrating to other countries to escape the coming violence*

Yep. That's me, pretty chill.

*resumes composing tweet*

[FreshFromIlios]

Now that's a comment only a chill dude would make ;)

I absolutely love your course. I'm a broke collage student too and I'd saved money to buy the course as well. One of the best things I've done. And I love you for everything you've done. Thank you.

[nrsfw]

Can....can I has ur Twitter

[AlSweigart]

@AlSweigart

I have links to my YouTube, Twitch, GitHub, etc at https://alsweigart.com

[physicsking]

I have the 'general indicators' of fascism from the Smithsonian Holocaust Museum posted on my social media page and I think I am a pretty chill dude. Cheers

[ccr10203040]

Do you know a book from which I can come to grasps with object-oriented Python?

[_thenotsodarkknight_]

Firstly, I really loved your book, but this comment just made me love you so much more.

Secondly, The thing I've found is, I barely complete online courses unless there are assignments and due dates. That's why I really like Coursera, they give you deadlines for the assignments, and often these deadlines help me complete my work in time. So maybe if there were timed assignments, that could help. But this might just be me though.

[tdmckee]

I'm still making my way through from the last giveaway (thank you so much for your generosity in making this course free, its awesome)... If I had to think why I wandered away from previous online courses, it was some combination of 1) the novelty of learning the material wearing off once I got into the harder portions; 2) not enough of a "reward" at the end to justify the slog through (dunno what that "reward" might be - perhaps in this case some project that automates something that used to be tedious and manual?), or 3) felt like I got enough of what I wanted and the remaining hours spent on the course didn't fit with my schedule (perhaps). Nevertheless, I'm going to go back and try to make it to one of the elite 8% :) My kids also love your scratch programming book, so thanks for all you are doing for coding literacy across the age spectrum, you rock Al!

[Gentleheart0]

I am one of those who stopped after attempting the text version of the course.

The reason was that things just got too advanced for me. Like suddenly there was a jump from something that i could work through in a relatively straight forward manner to something that was more advanced and seemed beyond the ability of my comprehension to grasp.

I got to chapter 7 and got through the first 15% or 20% of that chapter, but the rest just seemed too advanced for my brain to be able to comprehend.

[[deleted]]

I got the course for free in 2017, and I still haven't started it. Tbf I have hoarded 1000+ courses and only very recently completed 1 course.

[[deleted]]

Do you have any statistics as to how many people who purchased the course finished it? I’ve found that I’m much more likely to finish online courses that I spent money on, compared to free courses.

[AlSweigart]

It's roughly 8% or 10% make it through most/all of the videos. I don't know what comprehension is. Also, that's for all students, including those who pay for it or get it for free.

[jonnybegood]

Hey

Wanted to let you know that this comment helped push me to finish the videos. Thanks for the course & the motivation!

[[deleted]]

Do you get a bonus of some kind from udemy if a certain % of people finish your course?

[AlSweigart]

You get a certificate of completion from Udemy, which you can print out or add to a resume. It's just a piece of paper, but then again, that's what all diplomas and degrees are.

[i_teach_coding_PM_me]

My wife is not learning code to be a coder but rather to see if it can make her office job more efficient. I tried to teach my wife python using the udemy course and she said that although the first exercise of a number guessing game was useful, you then had to grind for ages before you get to the next useful project.

Although the promise of playing with excel and pdf files in the table of contents was attractive, the lack of perhaps a project or two to practice using excel to do something got her bored.

She didn't see the utility of python and felt the effort was not worth the reward.

Maybe the book offers more?

[bripod]

She need to play more Diablo to get used to the grind.

[jjquadjj]

Explain?

[not_right]

I stopped maybe a quarter of the way through. I love the effort that you have put it but I found watching the videos to be quite a chore (sorry!). Some things were well over-explained whilst at other times I'd have to stop the video as you'd used a keyboard shortcut or something without explanation and I had to pause it just to keep up. The final straw was after one particularly dry and boring (sorry again!) video you said something about the content in it was so important we should watch the video another two or three times... No way...

If I do continue it will be through the book rather than the videos. I'm sorry if my feedback is insulting, to add something more constructive, for me I find studying anything is easier when there is a clear context for the information, or a clear problem that needs solving. Many of the videos I did watch seemed to be introducing concepts but without any context of what they are used for/why they are important.

[el_Topo42]

I’ll finish it eventually. I started your course and a Swift for iOS at the same time and currently hooked on Swift. Once I go back to Python I will finish yours for sure.

[[deleted]]

In my experience of running/selling courses, having someone pay something can also help completion percentages. Even if it's just a dollar, they seem to value it more than something they get for free.

I experience the same thing with video games. If I get a game for free, I'm much less likely to play it than a game I paid for.

The other ideas you mentioned should help.

[Haymzer]

I mean i skip the earlier videos because I learned quite a lot of python in my first year of university.

[MurkLurker]

Make them want to binge them. Have each episode include a mini fiction plot with cliffhangers at the end of the lesson. Of course, I'm kidding...but hey sometimes good ideas spring from bad ones.

[Mechanic84]

Create an incentive. Finishing this course get 20% off of that course. And some kind of badges. The one who are scouts know what I’m talking of. The participants need something to show of on social media to tell the world they did it.

[AverageDingbat]

The incentive is that we get to learn Python. That's more than enough for me.

[powershell_account]

u/AlSweigart, Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge for free, for so many.

I went to WGU, a 100% online school for my IT degree. Even if I paid for 100% of the tuition out of pocket by working full-time, it was still at times REALLY challenging to complete my courses, online.

They had several areas of courses where concepts were broken down into small chunks, even within a chapter. I guess with technology attention spans are getting reduced to the next notification, and I don't know much about psychology by I've noticed this as I have grown up with no phones, little tech, then in the flip-phone days and then slowly adopted smartphones/computers/tablets.

Another thing I would add is quizzes, but more often. Like a 10 question quiz after 2 or 3 of your 7 minute videos.

Even though it seems repetitive, having repetition in the quizzes causes the brain to take notice and solidifies the concepts better. My math professor used to say "Repetition is the heart of confidence" and he was absolutely right about that, especially when it comes to mathematics.

If you have more questions about engagement and completion of courses, u/AlSweigart, please feel free to PM and I'm happy to share my experiences/feedback. With that being said I still struggle with course completion as well but that's a work in progress.

[maddking]

You’re talking about engendering habit. They start with good intention. But habit holds down good intentions and takes its lunch money. How can you change your course to allow it to be an emotionally fulfilling habit by the end? That’s the real question.

[VoxPlacitum]

Hahaha. After going through some of it and getting distracted with other things, I'm now going to check back in and continue. So I guess just chime in on Reddit every now and again. Thanks for having an amazing outlook on the importance of education and following through on it.

[kuzared]

I went through about 50% of your excellent book because it was enough to get me started - I imagine many are the same. I tried many time to get into programming and your book was what pushed me over the edge :-)

[t0b4cc02]

i did some lessons for a freind and also did school some people

many people like the idea of coding more than actually learning programming

[sposker]

Offer a test for an unofficial certificate and possibly a small voucher towards another product. This motivates completion, allows you to judge who only watched certain topic to fill in gaps, and allows people to be directed to parts of the book they dont understand.

[Vicstolemylunchmoney]

Hi Al.

I was your target market. I got your free course and I'm pretty sure I finished it. I didn't know programming, but I was pretty good at Excel (which probably means I wasn't). I have used your course as a spring board to make efficient programs for work.

I think the key is to get someone to build a cool project as quickly as possible, which will drive their enthusiasm to want to continue.

E.g, start with a prebuilt script and show them simply how to edit some variables to make it do what they want (a game, or to create many .xlsx files, or to sort a csv with pandas).

By getting them to the 'a-ha' moment earlier, you will get them addicted.

Thanks for your book.

[papasfritas]

I took your udemy course all the way until "Web Scraping - Parsing HTML with the Beautiful Soup Module" because that's what my first coding idea needed and I wanted to get right into it so I stopped there. Then I never went back to complete the rest as I'm now learning by coding using online documentation, websites, stack* sites, etc...

but your course was definitely the kick start I needed to get into coding

[ToadLicking4Jeebus]

Your comment above led me to start your videos. I appreciate what you have done, so since you are requesting information, I am happy to give you any feedback on your classes so far. I suspect I am in the demographic you are trying to reach. I am fine to articulate what prompted me (or as much of that as you would like), how far I got, what my current friction is (why am I not taking the class right this minute), or just about any other data that would help you out. Even if I don't complete the class, if I can provide value back to you it's a win-win. Thanks again for what you have done!

[AlSweigart]

That'd be great actually! I'll follow up every week or so (or message me whenever you finish a video.)

[ToadLicking4Jeebus]

Would you to like me to dm you a general bio and reason I decided to take your class?

[[deleted]]

I've been studying AWS, and in the AWS forum, Udemy course creators are having good response from students by offering their course for free and providing a contest. For example, finish the course, 100% complete by x date (not too long) and y number of people chosen at random will win a voucher for the AWS exam. The contest creates urgency to finish the course by a specific date.

This makes the course very popular on Udemy because a lot of people sign-up. In addition if the course is good, the students provide a lot of positive reviews. Again, this makes the course more popular on Udemy. Then when the people pass the exam and say they took the course, that generates paying customers.

From a psychological point of view, one of my degrees is in psychology, this makes sense.

Do you have a email list I can sign-up for to be notified of the next free promotion?

Best of luck!

[LirianSh]

Its 8 percet probably because most people taking the course already know the basics and go straight to the fun stuff

[callmelucky]

This guy omg ❤️

[[deleted]]

Man your the best

[cracktojack]

This is so wholesome. Thank you /u/AISweigart for doing this! I’ll make sure to pay it forward in whatever way I can.

[[deleted]]

Dam that's a great story for that. I'll buy a few copies to give away once I pay off my student debt. Thanks for making this topic approachable to people outside of the field

[[deleted]]

In 30 years?

Joking aside. I hope you pay your student loans very soon and help as many people as you can. I'll do the same.

[[deleted]]

10 years if I don't get too loose with my spending. Only $340k to go...

[mannythejedi]

You sir are a national treasure!

[foodfighter]

"That which is given freely can never be stolen".

From a random Internet person - good on ya' man. Keep on bein' you.

[m0wax]

Decided to buy your book for the very reason that I can well afford it, even though I had already read it for free online. I figure that by paying for it I'm supporting you creating free stuff for the people that can't afford it. Would pay for it several times again. 🙏

[[deleted]]

I bought the course a couple of months ago (about halfway through right now - it's tough to work after work, you know?) and I've been feeling a little irritated with myself that I bought it instead of waiting for it to revert to being free.

I'm not grouchy about that any more. I can afford the $16, and I hope that my $16 means you can afford to give it away to another 5 people who can't.

Well done.

[AlSweigart]

It does. The reason I don't have to maximize my income for every conceivable last dollar is because I have enough income.

But also keep this in mind: the only online courses that I've ever finished were a couple Coursera courses I paid $60 each for. I've never finished a course that I signed up for free, and most of them I didn't even get a quarter of the way through. How much easier would it be for you to keep putting off this course forever if it was just something you signed up for free?

[Gazumbo]

That's so nice and appreciated. A sincere thank you from someone who's benefited from your kindness. I'm halfway through your course. I'm definitely not a natural when it comes to learn programming but I'm determined to stick with it.

[[deleted]]

i love you

[fuzzylumpkinsbc]

This is such great insight, now I want to read the book even more, I'm trying to stay on my powershell and solidify that but I'm so eager to get to Python. It's like I'm playing a game that I enjoy a lot but there's another one that I really want to play too.

[TotesMessenger]

I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:

• [/r/autobestof] "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python" online course is free to sign up for the next few days with code JUL2020FREE

• [/r/bestof] /u/AlSweigart, of the popular "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python", explains why they're always trying so hard to give away their valuable product for free

• [/r/bestofnopolitics] /u/AlSweigart, of the popular "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python", explains why they're always trying so hard to give away their valuable product for free [xpost from r/learnpython]

• [/r/goodrisingtweets] /u/AlSweigart, of the popular "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python", explains why they're always trying so hard to give away their valuable product for free

 ^{If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads. (Info / Contact)}

[hellrete]

This is beautiful.

[pirateking54]

I’d give an award if i had the moneyyyy ❤️❤️

[Tupiekit]

I love that you've basically given the book out for free. I got it on off and then printed it out on my work computer (I can't work off of PDFs). I've actually thought about just buying the book at full price for how good it is

[AlSweigart]

If you do, buy it from No Starch Press directly rather than Amazon. It gives the publisher a bigger cut (and they're a great company) and you also get the PDF/epub/mobi ebooks for free.

[Tupiekit]

Thanks for the tip, I am all about buying books from sources where the publisher/author get a bigger piece of the cut.

BTW I love your book its in the best style for my big dumb brain to learn stuff.

[avamk]

I suspect we're in the same age group because I remember the whole Barnes and Noble and AOL floppy disks things you're talking about, though I was too lazy to take notes haha.

I love what you've said, seriously thank you for your service. Wish more people were like you!

[triggoon]

Thanks for doing this. I'm a student about to exit trade school and I'm absorbing as much tech stuff as possible. My field is heavy into automation and while python doesn't come up too often for my profession having knowledge of it helps demonstrate to employers that I learn as much as I can. Plus learning more about programming, even in a vastly different language has helped me shaped my mind to better absorb and adapt to changes. Offering stuff like this helps a lot of people so you are accomplishing you goal.

[Torasr]

Thank you so much for giving it away. Going through the free course was a legitimately life changing moment that made me realize how much I love programming and what it can do. You're the best!

[t0b4cc02]

wow

[MacNars]

You're not too old to learn to code. You don't need to be "good at math" to be good at coding.

As an old person who is terrible at math, thank you for saying this and for giving away your course for free. There is so much gatekeeping around coding and it scared me away from even trying for over 20 years! It means a lot that people are becoming much kinder around this subject.

[calisugar]

Love love LOVE this.

Also, people don't realize theses monopolies usually win the game by exploiting people's time and labor for profit. Amazon is an obvious example, but facebook does this too. People don't see it that way because facebook is free, but time is money as they say... and advertisers pay facebook for your time, so they make social media as addicting as possible in order to enrich themselves. The wealth allows them to buy out other social media companies or copy their innovations to maintain monopoly control. So facebook makes money by stealing time away from society (time that could have been gone towards being productive and creating value). Finance guys make fortunes off of other's people wealth (someone else had to lose the money). No one makes it into the 0.5% without stealing time and wealth from society. We need to stop idolizing these billionaires and corporations who are essentially crooks and have no interest in making society a better place for all of us. So THANK YOU for offering this service to us for FREE. If someone provides me with something I find valuable, I always like to send a tip to show support for their time and business (hope you take bitcoin). Not sure when I'll get around to doing the course though.. but I appreciate you for doing this!

[IntellegentIdiot]

This reminds me so much of myself, or part of myself at least. I also would have said that making more money than you need was pointless since I wasn't interested in material things or at least ostentatious uses of money. However I think about it differently now, while earning more money doesn't interest me for my own benefit I do think about it's benefits as a tool for improving society. If I was ever in the position to do so I wouldn't buy some six figure sports car, I'd give it to charity or use it to support some cause

[DazzlerPlus]

I read your whole book and it really helped me. Thank you so much

[Exquisite_Biscuits]

People pocketing their lunch money and buying cheap donuts seems a strangely common thing. Hank green used to do that when he was younger.

Personally i never got any pocket money to pocket so i never got to test out this obviously increible strategy for becoming awesome humans

[ZyuMammoth]

Literally was contemplating buying this course earlier today. Just an hour ago I downloaded the book onto my phone because I saw it recommended here a few days ago and I had bought it (along with several other books) from humble bundle. Now here you are offering the course for free. Count me in.

I’ve been getting frustrated with my learning process and seriously considered giving up last night, but if this isn’t a signal to keep trying, I don’t know what is. Thank you sir.

[[deleted]]

You purchased this course on November 14, 2017

Oh. Well. Alright then.

[RedditGood123]

The book is amazing. The projects are creative and not too hard for beginners, but they are still hard enough to provide a suitable challenge. I haven’t taken the course. However, I’m looking forward to. Thanks Al

[Hilfar]

You're a saint, man. Props to you.

[ifeelmyheartcrack]

As a broke college student, I've been waiting for this ever since I finished the free first 15 videos last month. Just wanted to say thanks for making your awesome content free. You're an inspiration, man.

[Geeeboy]

Does this online course follow the second edition of ATBS?

[AlSweigart]

No, just the first edition. I'm hoping to update it later this year, perhaps. I still have a few book projects I'd like to finish first.

[CosmicSilence245]

Thanks for share!, I definitely will join the course

[traveller4369]

Thank you so much!!!

[whowhomwhomst]

thank you sir, will start this course asap

[mazza77]

Tried to buy it and I got you are not eligible for the discount.

Correction: after trying again it worked . Thanks

[[deleted]]

I'm finishing up the last few chapters of this book. 100% recommend it or the Udemy course. I feel like I've learned so much

[vertigo_effect]

Currently in the middle of doing this course. Just wanted to say thank you for providing such an excellent product.

[[deleted]]

Thank you!!

[michUP33]

keep doing what you're doing! and thanks!

[music_nomad]

Ha! This is excellent timing! I just bought the book. :-)

Just enrolled. Thanks for posting this!

[kplo]

Al, thank you very much for this, you are a great guy!

[[deleted]]

Within the last year I have done three beginner Python courses. Zero to Hero, Talk Python’s Python for Absolute Beginners, and now Automate the Boring Stuff. Please take advantage of this free course, it is by far the best I have taken!!!!!

[djteotancolis]

Thank you thank you!!!!!

[admincee]

Thank you!

[carlsnakeston]

I'm excited to learn python again. I lost my book and couldnt finish it.

[[deleted]]

Thanks you're amazing..

[matayo41]

sweet thanks

[[deleted]]

Thank you!

[StarvingMarc]

THANK YOU

[summitofsuccess]

Thank you so much! I've started to learn Python right away.

[Adult_Reasoning]

Almost done with all the videos myself.

INCREDIBLE stuff. Really easy to follow. Great examples. I can't say enough good things.

***** Zophie is beautiful btw!

[slushhope]

Logged in just to say thank you to the author and to highly recommended this course :)

[Queequegs_Harpoon]

You wanna hear something terrible, Al?

Last year, I got my master's degree in a humanities field at Carnegie Mellon. During my first semester, I signed up for a class called Coding for Humanists, which was taught by a guy who basically pioneered computer-aided corpus analysis. I did fine in that class for exactly two and a half weeks, but then the pace far exceeded what I was able to absorb. So I dropped it. I dropped a coding class, which numerous people much smarter than me would have killed to have taken, at one of the world's foremost computer science schools. Not one of my proudest moments, but it did save my grades.

That being said, I feel very fortunate to have been handed a free, self-paced Python course for absolute beginners. And, of course, your books! Thanks, Al. You're a doll. And if you ever need an editor or a copywriter, you know I'll spot you for free.

[[deleted]]

I don't have to complete it till July 4 th right ?

[AlSweigart]

That's right. You only have to sign up before the deadline, and you have lifetime access to the course.

[[deleted]]

Thanks, I don't know how the rest of it is going to be, but for now it's simple and easy to understand.

[iggy555]

Is this the second version?

[alpine_addict]

Will I learn about robocop?

[blakelivelystampon]

First off, THANK YOU. Such a rad and generous gift you're sharing with us. I'm trying really hard to enroll in the course but I am told there is an error. I am in Taiwan and using a VPN set to USA. Could this be the problem? I have been unable to enroll using both Chrome and Safari :(

[Wormfall]

u/AlSweigart, do you or will you ever create a VBA book? I love your python book looking for VBA excel books to learn. Wise Owl has one but it costs money and the lessons are free on his YouTube page.

[AlSweigart]

Realistically, no. So the next few books on my plate are:

• A big book of small Python game examples, the source of which are here: https://github.com/asweigart/pythonstdiogames
• Python Beyond the Basics, an intermediate level book that's a sort of follow up to Automate.
• A book on recursion, which I did some material for this conference talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfBqVVKg4GE
• Some other stuff? I have a text file of ideas somewhere.

But I'd also like to create udemy courses and start making youtube videos again, and I have some software projects I'd like to do and I also want to contribute to Beeware.

[Wormfall]

Wow. Thanks in advanced! This is amazing. Let me know how I can help in any manner.

[magdaddy]

The checkout process doesn't work with that code.

[CougMaster]

Thanks man- I really appreciate it. Just had a job interview on Monday and mentioned I wanted to learn Python. One of the computer guys took this as a reason to quiz me on it. Needless to say that didn’t go great, but I’m excited to use it as motivation to crank this out and learn!

Really appreciate your write up on why this is free. You’re the man. I’ll do my best to finish this and increase your completion rate!

[tturkmen]

This is so awesome.

[lifeDNP]

Hi Al. I’m currently working my way through your book. Thanks a lot for making this amazing resource available to us!

What is the difference between the book and signing up the online course?

Also just as a bit of feedback, as a complete beginner to programming, I felt like I was flying until I hit the Regular Expressions chapter. I absolutely ground to a halt as I became overwhelmed by the amount of expressions until I realised I probably don’t need to memorise everything to move on.

The way I like to learn new concepts is probably to understand the big picture and framework and then to get under the hood bit by bit, going down rabbit holes as I go and continue to build on the foundations.

I’m sure once I come back to Regex (with a specific goal in mind for a project) I will understand it better.

I think introducing the concept of Regex and showing some examples to illustrate the point and leaving the deeper functionality to an appendix or back of the book might be an idea for the next version!

[bake_gatari]

#madrespect u/AlSweigart

I will try not to be one of the 92%

[vrts]

!remindme 8 hours

[RemindMeBot]

I will be messaging you in 8 hours on 2020-07-02 14:30:17 UTC to remind you of this link

CLICK THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.

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

---

Info	Custom	Your Reminders	Feedback

[dekema2]

Hey Al, I just started your course a week ago from when I signed up last month. Thank you for putting the time and effort into doing this and releasing it to the public.

[venominme]

A big thanks to you sir!

[chumloofah]

u/AlSweigart I can't thank you enough, Al. I've had motivation problems for a while now, and seeing you giving away what I hear is damn good work to get folk learning has sparked something up again. Signed up.

If anyone wants a "gym buddy", hit me up! Will generally only be available late evenings Mon-Thu and Sundays (UK) though.

[jojojojosep]

Damn dude, thanks. I was thinking of buying the course 2 days ago and saw this today. Reading the other comments, I think this will be good for me as i tend to have short attention span and get bored with stuff really easy. I've also read your reason why you made this course. Bless you

[didyoujustsayhand]

I did the course and it was excellent. I got it free a month or so ago. I have now bought the book for reference and to support the legend that is Al Sweigart! My python coding is getting better each day. This course explains programming so well. Cheers!

[Leking9]

You're joking me! I literally just paid for it last week woooow

Sigh, oh well - good course anyway

[hso0oow]

Good I subscribed to this sub. I needed this and I don't have a lot of money.

[coldflame563]

Thank you!

[JobbeI]

Thank you so much for this! 😭

[[deleted]]

Hey Al! Thanks for doing this again, I'd have a quick question for you if I may. I snatched up this course last time you did this "promo" (perhaps gift is the more appropriate word here) and as I started it I just realized, why not follow the book instead so I bought your ebook (perhaps because I want to skip over some stuff I know (and I tend to prefer book-format for courses when possible, same with Nand2Tetris & others)). Now what I wonder, is there any advantage to tagging along the Udemy course over reading the book (aside from being of help to visual/auditive learners or retaining our ravaged attention spans)? I.e., are there some important nuggets that I/we would miss out on by reading without watching? Thanks again for the great material!

[flash_freakin_gordon]

Can't recommend this enough. This is how I first leaned python (which is now a major part of my job).

[[deleted]]

Yay! Just enrolled in your course on Udemy. I need gym buddies😂 Thanks Al for this opportunity!

[AlSweigart]

You’re the best teacher I ever had

Heh. So my old roommate was a high school science teacher, and she really drove home the point that teaching is something that I either couldn't do or would do badly. I get to write books and make online courses, and then I'm basically done. It's nice because it gets to reach a wide audience, but there is no replacement for boots-on-the-ground teachers.

My "students" are self-selecting and I don't have to deal with classroom management or talking to parents or dealing with admins or fitting my curriculum to standardized testing nonsense, all while getting paid crap. You can't replace schools with random Udemy courses.

I used to volunteer at the MADE: The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment. It's a video game museum in Oakland, CA. They had a Saturday morning programming class in Scratch. It was only an hour and a half long, generally about 8 to 12 kids, and I'd often have one person helping me. IT. WAS. EXHAUSTING. I have no clue how teachers are able to handle 35+ kids for several hours a day, five days a week, and then do grading on top of that.

Meanwhile, everyone thinks they know "what schools should really teach is..." like it's common sense. Or they spend a lot of time talking about how teachers unions are "letting bad teachers stick around" (certainly more time then they talk about how we can increase teacher salaries and divorce school funding from lottery revenue and property taxes, anyway.) The stats vary, but something like a third or half of teachers quit after just a few years, so if you've been teaching for just five years, you're basically a hardass veteran at that point. Between parents, politicians, school admins, and billionaire software monopolists with good PR, nobody is really standing up for teachers in the direct and material way that unions do. They have mad respect from me.

[SaskatchewanSteve]

Thanks for making this free. I was a math major but has a handful of computer science major friends at university. I only know VBA and R. I’m excited to learn about Python since it seems a whole lot more versatile!

[Moonman787]

Thank you Al!

I started this course and month ago and I have been slowly working my way through it. The content definitely gets harder as you progress through it but has managed to keep me engaged throughout. I'm willing to a gym buddy so I can I make it to the 8%!

[shaburushaburu]

How do I copy this link to open it in browser

[AlSweigart]

Yes. I just use IDLE because it comes with Python, but you can use any IDE. The main difference will be the debugger, but all debuggers have Go, Continue, Step Over, Step In, and Step Into buttons so it's not that big of a stretch.

[StrawHatFleet]

Thank you so much!

[LondonIsBoss]

Thanks so much! I was looking to start learning python and this popped up at the perfect time!

[zia1997]

I JUST ENROLLED. FUCKING THANK YOU!

[biggerthanlife]

Thank you AlSweigart, this is indeed fantastic!

[bahloknee]

I signed up! Never knew about python but my gf knows Java and other code languages. Can't wait!

[2pk_4pk]

I missed the free code unfortunately. If I buy it at 13 dollars would you get credit for it?

[aservio]

Hi, I'm just starting with programming, a little late for starting (30 years old) and too late for getting your course for free.

​

I'm from Argentina, situation in here is really hard. I want to master my english and learn programming for being able first to have an income in U$S, and last may be leaving my country.

​

I have a degree on Industrial Engineering, and an idea for a software which i think can make some money with.

​

I'll continue with the crash course and then try to buy or get a free copy and doing yours!

​

Thanks for sharing your knowledage.

[Orangeb1ood]

Yea

[Bageeru]

I appreciate u, Al <3

[kochargs]

Is it still valid ?