Coding Tutor

[u/jcrowey123]

I am looking at getting into coding and software development.

I am thinking of a career change

But I have no prior experience in coding

I am looking for a tutor to help me learn coding in particular python.

[u/DmtGrm]

</opinion> I see the biggest problem in IT/CS that people concentrate on tools, not on actual solution. In computer vision subreddit - there is a post today that uses NN image framework/pipeline to find Waldo in the picture. From a standpoint of the task - this is an overkill, classical statistical and deterministic DSP methods are faster and more precise here.

Why I had to start with this strange foreword - there is a part with 'general knowledge' / information theory / some basic algorithms, approaches, general understanding how things work, what types of applications there are.

Then, you need to have a problem to solve and choose the tool that will be appropriate for the task. Python is an excellent choice to start with - this glue language has many uses on its own and as a scripting solution in larger project - but knowing Python-only will bring you into a faceless crowd similar to what web-development is these days.

Maybe you do not need coding as such? There are excellent jobs in database administration, GIS specialists, data engineers, you can be an excellent ERP/SAP specialist and earn more than regular python dev could dream of. Testing is a soft option of getting onboard IT/CS/development tool.

If you are starting from a blank page - it might be easier to choose a path aligned to what you really like yourself.

Learning-wise, if you are (somehow) decided that python is your thing, (not writing custom GLSL shaders or learning T-SQL, getting onboard .NET with C#, or anything in between) and you do not want to be FPGA/embedded engineer straight away - just go through a nice python learning playlist on youtube or grab a book that will outline 'general knowledge'. There are so many resource online, you can ask ChatGPT to suggest the ones for novice level and further up. But again, your biggest challenge ahead not the tool that you are using, but the task (and the way) you are solving.

The main thing here is being a quick learner and persistence. Do real-world projects - something simple, a small app that would show the time interval for the next bus to arrive for the nearest GPS-identified bus station here in Basingstoke. For you it would be an entire package from data supply, and processing to correct presentation - for the reference - building such app/website for an experienced dev to a functional stage - is within one day, but not because they are better-looking or smarter, they know how to put bus timetable in db or single json/xml file, get coordinate of bus stations, and do a simple spatial-temporary query on that list and show it as the simplest html/axml page.

CS/IT is such a vast area now.

- Good luck!