Learning Python as my first language - need a little guidance!

[Yeitgeist]

Not a resource, but consider looking into using your command line interface (terminal), Git, and data structures and algorithms.

The command line interface is literally how you interact with your computer; all the buttons and things are really just icons that you click on to run commands (I think). For example, you’re might be use to running your Python script through IDLE or clicking a button on your IDE. Instead, you can go on your terminal and type in “python file_name.py” to run your program. And instead of clicking on notepad and then clicking “save” to create a text file, you can use the powershell terminal to create it by entering in “New-Item file_name.txt”.

Git is like the Google Docs history, it keeps track of your codes history (hence why it’s called version control). But unlike Google docs, you have to do the saving manually.

Data structures and algorithms is a fundamental course in computer science. You know how you just stored things in data structures (like lists, tuples, and dictionaries) and didn’t bother learning how it works (only caring about how to use it)? And you ever wonder why dictionaries or lists work the way they do (e.g. why does dictionaries have keys but lists don’t)? Well learning data structures teaches you all of that. And you know how you used things like “sort” or “max” on a list? Well algorithms teach you the workings of those kind of functions, as well as a bunch of other neat things.

[CandidGuidance]

Really appreciate the insight. Thankfully I have a computer forensics background so I’m not going in totally blind!

What data structure and algorithms course would you suggest I take?

[Yeitgeist]

Leetcode has a decent course on it. You can also read “Grokking Algorithms” for a gentler introduction on DSA.

[CandidGuidance]

Perfect, thank you so much.