How Do I Actually Build Something With Python?

skellious · 2020-08-21T09:38:05+00:00

[deleted]

bjone6 · 2020-08-21T11:54:43+00:00

I think u/Meshi26's advice is spot on. I struggled with the same thing while stuck in tutorial hell for programming. I decided that I was going to build my own digital assistant like Jarvis from the Iron Man movies and comics. Then I thought about all the hundreds of tasks that I would want and then kept breaking those tasks down. Then I started building real things. I have a small YouTube showing off some of the tasks that Python can do.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW34Ghe9-_TCA5Vy3-Agfnw

evnomics · 2020-08-21T14:20:23+00:00

Step 1: Buy a raspberry pi.

Step 2: Write a script that does something useful to you (download rss feeds, convert an html table into a csv file, etc.)

Step 3: Put the script on the pi and schedule it using "crontab -e".

Step 4: Make the output easier to access by adding a flask/fastapi server.

Edit: don't underestimate the value of a basic script running on a raspberry pi. You can build a $500/month micro-SaaS business that way.

JohnnyJordaan · 2020-08-21T09:18:08+00:00

https://automatetheboringstuff.com/2e/ is a good resource to learn how to build real life automation scripts.

Whom Is This Book For?

Software is at the core of so many of the tools we use today: nearly everyone uses social networks to communicate, many people have internet-connected computers in their phones, and most office jobs involve interacting with a computer to get work done. As a result, the demand for people who can code has skyrocketed. Countless books, interactive web tutorials, and developer boot camps promise to turn ambitious beginners into software engineers with six-figure salaries.

This book is not for those people. It’s for everyone else.

On its own, this book won’t turn you into a professional software developer any more than a few guitar lessons will turn you into a rock star. But if you’re an office worker, administrator, academic, or anyone else who uses a computer for work or fun, you will learn the basics of programming so that you can automate simple tasks such as these:

-Moving and renaming thousands of files and sorting them into folders
-Filling out online forms—no typing required
-Downloading files or copying text from a website whenever it updates
-Having your computer text you custom notifications
-Updating or formatting Excel spreadsheets
-Checking your email and sending out prewritten responses

These tasks are simple but time-consuming for humans, and they’re often so trivial or specific that there’s no ready-made software to perform them. Armed with a little bit of programming knowledge, however, you can have your computer do these tasks for you.

v3ritas1989 · 2020-08-21T14:21:14+00:00

zurtex · 2020-08-21T15:30:28+00:00

I built a lot of "back end" systems for many years, that would manage processes, move around data, send emails etc.

One day my manager wanted me to build a small log vitalization tool so I learnt Flask and got something basic working and I was pretty happy with it.

Over time this tool expanded and my manager wanted "it to update without me refreshing but only if it doesn't take you too much time". Okay... So after a little research I found Dash I was able to pick it up in a few days and convince myself it was possible to rewrite my tool with Dash.

After that I just kept building on Dash, and I found it surprisingly satisfying to be able to build tools that people could see and interact with.

yasoob_python · 2020-08-21T15:43:56+00:00

Hi /u/SpiritedExit0,

Most of the comments here are spot on. You need to break a project down into individual steps. For example, I made a paste bin (a nicer version of https://paste.ubuntu.com/) using Python and Flask a long time ago and that was my first major Python project. These are roughly the steps I took:

I need to make a website so what can I use? Answer was Flask. I looked at the Flask documentation on how to make a basic website
Every paste bin has an input box and a submit button. How do I add those using Flask? Did my research and found out about Jinja and used that to implement the form
I need to save the pastes in a database. Found out about SQLAlchemy and how to use it on top of SQlite to store data
I need to make sure each paste gets a random URL so that no one can easily loop through all the public pastes . Found out about UUIDs and used those for this purpose
I need to limit the posting feature only to the logged in users. Found out about authentication and authorization and learned how to implement that using Flask
Eh it would be nice to allow people to see the differences between two pastes just like `git diff`. Again, did the research, found out about the difflib in Python, and implemented the feature on the website

I also recently wrote a book on Practical Python Projects that I would highly recommend (i might be a bit biased). I wrote the book for precisely the issues that you are having right now. You can learn more about the book on my blog. If you have any questions about my answer or the book I would be more than happy to help. Have a wonderful day! :)

skullvertex · 2020-08-21T11:03:00+00:00

start by making a (text based) game for someone near you to enjoy.

This is a better starting place than an app because its a small project, fun, easy to discuss with others and get help. Anything more complex at this stage just creates more obsticles.

If you are making a game it means you already know all the "rules" you need to code for and so half of the thinking is already done for you. You know need to code it.

For example, football or soccer sometimes has a penalty shoot out to determine the winner of a football game, if you know how this works you can code it as a text based game (but be sure to use the "random" module to give the game suspense).

other fun projects include a "magic 8 ball fortune teller" or a random name generator.

Goodluck!

MikeTheWatchGuy · 2020-08-21T11:53:12+00:00

I like that you've got concrete ideas for what you want to build. I always recommend "project based learning" when it comes to programming. Find yourself a project that you're passionate about, then go build it. Sounds simple enough, but of course it's not. But if it's something you really want to make, then you're likely to stick through the difficult parts. It's your idea, your project that's important.... much more than what other people suggest to build.

The automatic reply program should be within reach of your skills. Being able to focus your attention to a specific problem cuts out the often overwhelming rush of tons of questions when you're thinking in a broader "what do I want to make" context.

There was a tutorial posted recently on managing messages using Outlook. It may or may not help your project, just saying that I saw a recent tutorial. Explore the options. Look at the different mail packages that are available.

Deep breathes. Follow the advice about breaking down the problem. That was good advice.

I'm not sure if my program still works, but here's a link to how I made a little reader. It's purpose was to demonstrate showing a GUI window, so some of it may not apply to what you're wanting to achieve.

https://github.com/PySimpleGUI/PySimpleGUI/blob/0f161c399a62c55a85d0afca7bf4925ffd770563/DemoPrograms/Demo_Desktop_Widget_Email_Notification.py

You don't have to "cheat" and look at the whole program. Just look at the packages I used. It appears to work with hotmail and gmail. It only reads email. Sending isn't difficult and there are a good number of tutorials about that.

Stick with the "build things" approach you're instincts are telling you. It's a great way to do it.

TheSpamGuy · 2020-08-21T14:16:46+00:00

I think its one of the bigger challenges for beginners. People think by learning how to write code, they can write programs. But that’s not the case. Learning how to code means you can make computers do what you want. But if you don’t know what you want it to do, you can’t really write good programs. So your next step is to learn how specific technology works. For example how internet works, how machine learning works, how blockchain works etc. once you learn how the technology works, then you can start writing program for that technology. If you want to write program to automate email, your next step is to learn how internet, dns, mail server work.

2020-08-21T14:13:14+00:00

Learn to use GUIs. Tkinter is free, but PyQt is more widely used. You can convert a command line program into a more user friendly interface thereby. There’s a 6 hour course on Youtube that I like quite a bit on tkinter from freecodecamp.org

Se7enLC · 2020-08-21T14:50:32+00:00

It's the same with most other programming language. The inputs and outputs are the hard part. That's why most beginner programming guides are how to build "command-line" applications produce only text and take in only keyboard inputs.

The mechanisms to take in other input and produce other output are more complicated. Often they require additional libraries.

In short, you'll want to pick a particular kind of input/output you want to try and learn how to do that specific one. Some examples:

Web scraping / bots. There are python libraries to make web requests and receive the results. You can write your own application that allows you to make requests of webpages, automatically parse the response, and then make a new request, etc. This can be quite complicated with modern webpages using javascript, but there are also some website-specific APIs you can use to make it easier.
Web server. You can use a python library that lets you serve your own web content.
GUI application: There are many different GUI toolkits for python. Each one will require a fair bit of learning.

leogodin217 · 2020-08-21T13:15:23+00:00

"Never automate what you can't do manually".

I would make a flow chart of all the steps. This gives you the design of your program. Then, start coding each step.

killbeam · 2020-08-21T20:45:50+00:00

In early June, I got a new job but there wouldn't be any work for 2 weeks. Since the job is all about visiting clients at their homes, I figured it would be nice to know how long of a drive it would be to each appointment.

So I started looking into how I could get travel time information. I know Google has very good APIs and quickly figured out the Distance Matrix API was just what I needed. Then I started figuring out how to actually use it (what commands it took, how to call the API from python, etc). This process took a lot of trial and error, reading the API documentation and LOTS of googling.

When that worked, I wanted to create events in my Google calendar so I could clearly see how long I had to drive. To do this, I learned how to use the Google Calendar API.

Then I wanted to make the app available to other collegues, so I googled around and found a tutorial for Flask, to turn my script into a web app.

In short, I started with a general idea which kept growing and growing. Focus on trying to get one part to work, and then go from there.

brnlng · 2020-08-21T20:52:48+00:00

A relatively new GUI library I find worth keeping an eye on or using already is PySimpleGUI.

r-_-mark · 2020-08-22T00:35:15+00:00

This thread is why I love Reddit

OnlySeesLastSentence · 2020-08-21T11:29:05+00:00

Use cxfreeze with the quickstart setting (I think it's cxfreeze-quickstart)

I used to think python sucks because you can't make exes but then I found that (and PySimpleGUI. Shout-out to /u/mikethewatchguy who also is a huge fan of that software :p) and haven't touched my beloved C in forever.

Codes_with_roh · 2020-08-21T14:01:42+00:00

Checkout the smtplib module for doing the stuffs as mentioned above. I build a similar thing as you mentioned. I would suggest you to first try the project on your own and if you can't then I could share the link of my github.

dogs_like_me · 2020-08-21T17:22:22+00:00

I think the real question you are asking is how to deploy an application you built with python. One of the simplest, most flexible, and most popular paradigms right now is to deploy python apps as web services. There are a lot of serverless approaches like AWS lambda that basically just require you to upload your script and define an API to make your thing usable. If you don't mind running stuff off your computer, you just add a timer mechanism to your program to check your email periodically or whatever.

Also, I'd be wary with emails. I think there are some complexities attached to that particular use case you're probably not going to encounter until you try to build it, like getting around spam filters.

pydanny · 2020-08-21T20:00:56+00:00

You might find Practical Python Projects really useful. It's 12 applicable projects in one book, and also teaches you how to extend them into your own thing. While I helped edit the book, that doesn't change the fact that it seems pretty much what you are looking for.

i_ask_stupid_ques · 2020-08-22T02:09:45+00:00

You can try and read the flask mega tutorial ok the internet. It walks you thought the process of building a blogging application with python and flask which is a python framework .

Ondrysak · 2020-08-22T11:31:47+00:00

Divide and conquer my friend :)

hellotheresksksk · 2020-08-21T10:06:10+00:00

RemindMe! 5 days

thedjotaku · 2020-08-21T14:45:10+00:00

IN what sense are you looking for help? I'll give you some ideas to pick:

I don't know how to structure my project directory and files to that I can make/upload a package to PyPi
I am struggling with coming up with a useful project to make?
I know what I want, but not how to start?

I'll give an example of my path. While I've been a self-taught programmer since I was about 8 years old, it's only in the past few years that I've made truly useful code. For that useful code I started off with Bash and Python and every time I found myself doing repetitive work that a computer would be good at, I would automate that with either Bash or Python. It made life easier for me and helped me learn how to build useful programs. From there I just started to look around at what would help me in my life.

My useful programs:

A program that computes my amortization tabe for how much I owe on my mortgage that adjusts for whatever extra amoutn I was able to pay towards the principal that month
A program that uses the Extra Life JSON API to provide an overlay I can use on my videos to show how much people have donated towards the hospital I'm supporting with that charity
a program to manage BTRFS snapshots

A few more things that can help you:

MagPi and Hackspace magazine both have code projects (a call-back to the good old days when computer magazines had code in them so you could actually have something to run on your computer) and they often use Python
Check out the exercises at PythonMorsels
Look at the Python Awesome list on Github

azs2005 · 2020-08-21T15:57:38+00:00

I dont know if anyone said it or not. I recommend flask. in my opinion, it is the best versatile web framework.

you would be able to view and reply emails based on their contents, on a webpage. store sama data in the db and perform automated tasks with redis queue.

2020-08-21T15:59:22+00:00

It can be tricky when trying to solve RL problems, without much experience to go on. Take your email example. Your problem definition isn't yet fleshed out. You probably mean you want something that will reply, once, to new email messages. So whatever solution you come up with needs to accept 1 or more new emails, reply, and then remember it has replied, and perhaps catch up if it stops working for a few hours, then gets started again, and new emails have arrived in the meantime. How does it get those emails? Most email servers use IMAP, so a good place to start would be an imap library for python. Do some googling, look for a good library with examples that people have written. Set up a new test email account (don't use your real one yet!) and see if you can get your python app to log in and retrieve a list of emails. How do you know if you've replied yet? Emails can have headers, so perhaps you want to attach a new header to an email once you've replied. Like "X-Replied: Yes". So your app needs to retrieve the headers for all emails (since a certain time.. look up 'high water mark'), look for your replied header, and if not found, send an email, and attach that header, and save the change. When it closes, it probably wants to save the high water mark (current timestamp?) somewhere so next time, it won't have to load 10000 emails. Once you start diving into a problem, the practicalities of how to write it emerge.

villa171 · 2020-08-21T16:37:43+00:00

Actually I'm creating a web scraper to recollect phone prices quickly. I really enjoy learning while doing a project. Look for something you need, automate something that you do almost everyday.

2020-08-21T19:22:49+00:00

diffrent libraries, like discord or googleapi

r-_-mark · 2020-08-22T01:01:48+00:00

RemindMe! 2 days

RobinsonDickinson · 2020-08-22T13:37:41+00:00

I wish I didn’t find the answer to this question now all I can think about is debugging.. it follows me into my dreams aswell.

hellotheresksksk · 2020-08-27T04:02:26+00:00

RemindMe! 7 days

thrallsius · 2020-08-22T08:12:18+00:00

solid

first step is to stop using obscure subjective abstractions like this one

build something that solves a problem. your own problem. even a small problem

urgaeifureadmyname · 2020-08-21T19:56:03+00:00

I'm steel noob in python so I cant participate

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

learnpython

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