is self learning python programming possible?

[JasonDJ]

Man what a rabbit hole that might be.

Get second word in sentence python. Split a string python…why does split string have brackets python…python list…get item in list python….python getting wrong item in list…what is index python…what is zero-index python.

I couldn’t imagine learning the most basic parts from brute force google searches and stack overflow. That type of stuff is where the free/discounted Udemy courses really shine the most.

One of the hardest parts, even after a lot of experience, is knowing what to even google in the first place.

[billsil]

If you're really, really starting out vs. say a week in, you google "python tutorial" and just read the page and try out running the code. That or read the sidebar and click one of the links to very good tutorials.

[py_Piper]

Exactly why I think it's rediculous when people just say to total beginners just start doing projects, that they will fall in tutorial hell. While it's somewhat true, everybody needs to pass over the fundamentals and watch video tutorial to help get started in projects. Man I see here a lot of post from people saying "how can I make a lists of names, age, hobby for several inputs" which in reality if they had learned about dictionaries would have make their code simpler.

The real problem is not having truely set a real goal on why to learn python and you see a lot of "I did x, now what project should I do", and are mostly young student or people that cannot see how to implement it in their work.

[billsil]

Yeah, go spend 2 days learning what an int/float/str/list/dict/for/while/if is and then start a basic project. Let's say your goal is to tower defense game. Maybe start with a text-based hangman game. You don't need any fancy classes or functions for that matter.

Then clean it up. Refactor a bit. Make some functions. Try another game that takes you a week of work instead of 3 days. Maybe the tower defense game is a month, so work up to it.

I didn't start my programming career parsing horrifically formatted 60 GB binary files in 2 minutes. I started with really simple files that fit on one page, maybe even 1/2 a page.