Python Learning Resources

Since I’m beginning to learn Python, I looked at a few resources, and I figured I might just publish my notes here. For one, it might be helpful for the 2 random people that come across it and save them some time looking around.

Books

Automate the Boring Stuff with Python by Al Sweigart

Read the entire book free: https://automatetheboringstuff.com

This book came highly recommended by several people. I got started with it a bit but eventually put it aside. Not because it’s not a good book, but because having some kind of basic fundament is missing for me.

How to Think Like a Computer Scientist by Peter Wentworth, Jeffrey Elkner, Allen B. Downey, and Chris Meyers

A great free book, but also very outdated (2012) that is really more about thinking like a computer scientist than it is about Python. Honestly, if it was updated to today, I think it would be great as it communicates a structured way of thinking – it’s not just “this code does that”, and it’s not abstract – it’s about adopting a certain frame of mind and then applying it to specific challenges.

Free Videos

This was the first video course I began with:

I actually think it’s a good start, even though I abandoned it about 1h 30 minutes into it. Why I think it’s a good start: Because you get to see (AND HEAR) how he works with Python. There’s quite a specific terminology to Python at times, so it helps to just hear how someone pronounces certain words or reads certain lines of codes out loud. Less work trying to mentally decipher what’s in front of your eyes, and most of all less uncertainty and ambiguity.

It definitely felt weird for me not knowing how to sound out certain things in my head when I saw them on the screen, and with this, this course helped.

Why I abandoned it? At some point I honestly couldn’t follow along anymore. I spread out watching this course over several days, which is probably not the best way to use it. I recommend you set aside a few hours and then just crush through the course in one day. The downside is that it can be a lot of information to process, so there’s a risk of overhwelm, but the upside is that all that information is fresh on your mind.

This is what I’m studying right now. 12 hours with the bro. So far I like it. There’s also a 1h crash course, which I might be switching to first for the super fundamentals. From what I’ve gathered, there’s actually a lot of overlap, but I like the idea of a highly condensed version first, and then doing a more detailed, longer version.

Other resources:

Python Programming MOOC
Reddit recommendation. Free, by the University of Helsinki
Exercism’s Python Track
Also free.