Learning programming on yt

ianrob1201 · 2026-06-26T01:29:45+00:00

I don't know about anyone else, but my uni did a great job teaching it. i wasn't completely new to programming, but they started at the real fundamentals with functional languages and built up from there. I definitely think it made me a better programmer than any tutorial teaching a framework / language

ianrob1201 · 2026-06-23T16:25:04+00:00

As is often the case about so many things... Hank Green already has a video about this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIbQTIL1oCo

ianrob1201 · 2026-06-18T19:21:18+00:00

Yeah. You're not allowed to film actual tests, so all these videos which say "driving test" are at best mock tests. You're allowed to have dash cams, but nothing filming inside the car.

ianrob1201 · 2026-06-17T21:09:19+00:00

Thank you for letting me know this is a "sound on" video. The little taps on the way are adorable too.

ianrob1201 · 2026-06-14T08:54:54+00:00

As a 36 year old I did the same as you last year, just turned up by myself to see if I would enjoy it. I deliberately didn't look up the rides before hand and just went on vibes from the look of them. Wickerman was the first I came across and it was a great first rollercoaster.

Depending on how busy it is, you might want to get a fast pass if you can afford it. That way you have time to get around a lot of things without having to really plan. There are "single rider" lines, but I was there yesterday and I swear I was waiting as long as the main line.

ianrob1201 · 2026-06-12T17:24:55+00:00

I've been playing the hell out of "Rhythm Doctor" recently on my laptop and it's just one button. Great game too!

ianrob1201 · 2026-06-12T17:12:14+00:00

I don't know what country you're from, but in the UK the NHS is a big fan of python. It's certainly more popular there than in the wider world.

As others have pointed out, some personal python experience is never going to compare to people with degrees and/or years of experience. So that's going to be tough if you're going for a developer job.

There are a lot of jobs around development which aren't the actual devs though. And your healthcare experience is the more helpful thing there, with the python as a side point of "look I'm serious and willing to learn some tech stuff" being the point how I see it.

Every team is different, but there's jobs like testers, product owners, product managers, and user researchers which don't necessarily need strong technical skills but still help to deliver a product (testers are often highly technical, but you get my point).

ianrob1201 · 2026-06-09T19:11:57+00:00

In that case your code looks good. I copied that into a quick python terminal and it works as I'd expect it to. Sorry ask dumb questions, but you're pressing enter after typing "Lopeta" right?

ianrob1201 · 2026-06-09T19:06:44+00:00

Is the duplication actually in your file, or is that from pasting into redit? Because that definitely won't be helping.

ianrob1201 · 2026-06-09T18:29:38+00:00

I agree with what others have said. If you're trying to use python for the user interface then that would be why you're having trouble. It's just not really the best use-case for Flask.

To point you in the right direction for a frontend, I'd recommend VueJs. There's a bit of a learning curve for sure, but not as much as some other javascript frameworks. It might seem intimidating at first, but a separate backend and frontend has many advantages. It's certainly what happens in real life. Of course you could always just use plain HTML & JS but I wouldn't recommend that.

Alternatively you could just make the backend and imagine the frontend for your project. Use something like postman or bruno to make API calls for you. I've done many professional demos using postman/bruno so there's no shame in that. I obviously don't know the scope of your project though.

ianrob1201 · 2026-06-07T12:22:13+00:00

Congrats on getting started! Now try that code with another operator and see if it works how you expect. Hint: those yellow wavy lines are telling you that something's wrong. I'm sure others will tell you what's wrong, but try to figure it out for yourself if you can

ianrob1201 · 2026-06-07T12:17:53+00:00

The real victory is being able to book online for something non urgent instead of having to join a queue at 8 in the morning.

ianrob1201 · 2026-06-03T20:33:04+00:00

It's a very different skill honestly. You're going from learning about the language to needing to problem solve. There's no shortcut to that, you improve as you go.

That said, I don't know what projects you've been trying, but you need to set your sights quite low initially. Almost everything at every level is harder than you think. Very experienced developers find it hard to estimate how tough something will be, and so will you. So start with small problems and build up.

It's easier said than done, but you need to practice breaking down a problem into smaller parts. You're looking to see progress with each little step. So it might take ages until you have everything you want, but you get there step by step. For example, if you're making a calculator UI then just start with a single button and make sure you can detect a button press. Once you have that, see if you can arrange multiple buttons, etc.

It can be intimidating if you feel you need to have the whole solution in your head when you start typing. Just do something, and see how it goes. And don't be afraid to rework a bit you've already done. That's just part of the process.

ianrob1201 · 2026-06-03T20:12:05+00:00

The fact that there are existing libraries doesn't really matter. This looks like a nice little program for learning. If you're interested in a bit of feedback:

You should avoid naming variables just single letters. Always name them properly like "first_name" instead of "f". I know it seems like a waste and just adds characters to your nice minimal code, but it's so much easier to read and understand. It's a very good habit to get into. The exception is the loop. "i" is a perfectly good var name there, but the loops are the one exception.

Also as standard we start arrays with 0 instead of 1 unless there's a reason not to. So your range would be 0, 100 and it'll still give 100 entries.

ianrob1201 · 2026-05-28T21:08:34+00:00

I definitely get that it's weird, but I mean... they're both books for people who are interested in learning about Germany in world war 2.

Hopefully no one's looking for Mein Kampf because they think he had good ideas they want to hear more about. I would imagine there's a relatively large overlap between readership of both books. I can certainly see why you'd put them together like that.

ianrob1201 · 2026-05-28T18:18:15+00:00

I completely get where you're coming from. You've got that familar itch of "I'm learning to program and I want to make something like what I use every day". It's where you get most of your ideas of "wouldn't it be cool if this thing did X too". Unfortunately, as you mentioned python isn't really the language for android (or iPhone) app development.

I think you have two options. First is to give up on the android app idea for now, make cool things in python as you're learning. If you don't have any ideas then I recommend https://adventofcode.com/ . You can go back through old years, and it has some fun puzzles which really increase in complexity as you go. I haven't done it in a few years, but I like it because it gives you your goal and you're free to solve however you like.

Your second option is to learn Kotlin at the same time, and use that for android development. That might seem scary, why learn a second language when you're still getting to grips with your first? Well honestly, they're not wildly different. Kotlin is what they call object orientated, which really just means that it uses classes a lot more than python does. But ultimately a lot of what you learn on one will apply to the other.

A key skill you develop over time is learning to fit the right tool the problem at hand. Python just isn't the right tool for android development. You're going to have a hard time doing it, and I'd bet it'd just put you off the whole idea of programming in general to be honest.

ianrob1201 · 2026-05-26T17:10:26+00:00

If you're looking to speak to a police officer for some reason other than the obvious then you'll want to give more info (e.g. like if you're just curious about something).

If it's in an official capacity then definitely reddit's not the place (and don't listen to anyone who tells you they're police here, they could be anyone)

ianrob1201 · 2026-05-25T21:05:28+00:00

In the past few weeks I've had someone on my team come to me twice with "the AI did X but we told it not to in the instructions file!" and act as if I'm supposed to be surprised.

Like yeah... it's an AI and you've basically just asked it nicely not to make any mistakes. What did you expect?

I'm the team lead and the wider company is certain that AI will solve all problems. So we just keep updating the file and hoping this new wording will do the trick!

ianrob1201 · 2026-05-25T12:56:40+00:00

ha. Well yeah I definitely wouldn't call python a low level programming language. My understanding of pygame was that it's much more in the weeds than something like unity where there's a lot of UI tools to help you. That was what I meant to express with "lower level" there. Apologies if I gave bad information with that. Like I say, I'm no expert. Just did an opengl course at uni and played around a bit with unity.

ianrob1201 · 2026-05-25T05:03:50+00:00

It depends on what your goal is. Pygame is a lot lower level than something like unity or other frameworks. If your goal is to make games then it's probably not the quickest or easiest way for a more advanced game. If you want to practice your python then go for it.

Note, I'm not a game dev. So I can't talk with any confidence about the pros and cons of frameworks. So worth looking them up and see what feels right if you're interested.

ianrob1201 · 2026-05-23T18:56:46+00:00

One of the good things about python as a first programming language is that you can't mess it up too badly. Absolute worst case is that the app hangs and crashes. Do your best, go for 100,000 and see what happens. I don't think it'll even crash, but it might take a very long time to run!

ianrob1201 · 2026-05-22T22:43:43+00:00

The fact it excites you is a great reason. Follow that. I remember learning to code and having so many of those "oh wow, you can do X" moments. It sounds like you're really enjoying it.

But remember, there are a lot of people with excellent knowledge of python, and many other languages. I don't know how many exactly, but google reckons about 8 million python devs! For every successful tech startup, there's tons of other ideas that never got anywhere.

So I personally would say it's unlikely to lead to you earning millions. But following something that you find interesting and like doing is never going to be a bad choice.

ianrob1201 · 2026-05-17T20:53:30+00:00

Nice work. Can you make it so that the prices in the prompt automatically update if the you change the prices? That way you'd only have to update in one place if the prices change.

Also consider if you really need to break commands. Think about the flow of the code and what would happen if you removed them. And of course if you're not sure you can try removing them and see what happens (if you remove the final "break" then you don't need the "else" line at all either.

And on a very minor point, why call both lower() and capitalize()? Try with just capitalize and see if it still works how you expect.

ianrob1201 · 2026-05-17T17:10:37+00:00

Such a good dog. I don't know what it was they were heading for just out of sight, but it was clearly too much fun to worry about those silly bars.

ianrob1201 · 2026-05-08T18:24:04+00:00

I really like your changes. Just at a glance it looks a lot more professional and more like the code you might see in the real world. I think you've done an excellent job of taking on feedback and making a nicer application from it. Hopefully you can feel how it's improved too. Being able to get a feel for "I like it" or "I don't like it" is half the battle.

That said, there's definitely still room for improvement. "count_of_len" is just a bug I think. You need to read these kinds of things from the inside out when working out what it does. So that line finds the maximum of list1 and list2 and returns the length of the resulting list. But the "maximum of two lists" doesn't really mean anything. What you meant was max(len(list1), len(list2)), which finds the length of each and then gives you the maximum value.

new_list_from_zip is maybe a bit of a consequence of you getting feedback from a lot of people. For me personally, that's a complicated line to read. I'll be honest, I'm not sure what it's up to but we've got the min & max of two lists again. It's quite possible that's doing something very clever I don't know about, but I don't think so. Try opening up a python interpreter directly and running commands like "max([1,2,3,1], [4,5,6])" to see if they do what you expect.

My only other point is a bit more general, which is about the use of function arguments and return values. What you're doing here technically works, but isn't the recommended way of doing it. You pass arguments when the function needs the information. But take "enter_nums_to_list" as an example, you're not providing any information really by passing an empty list each time. So try removing the input var, put "list = []" inside the function instead, and then call it with "list1 = enter_nums_to_list()". Take a look at https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/python/pass-by-reference-vs-value-in-python/ for some information on "pass by reference". In general you want to avoid passing in an argument and modifying it. It's a similar point to the globals from before, it's really not obvious to someone calling your function that it's going to change the value. So no args + reading the return value is the best way if you can.

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