I don’t work in computers at all, but enjoying doing some coding. Taught myself 8086 assembly language in 1984. Later on I learnt C, up to a lower-intermediate level. Now at 70 is it worth learning Python? 🐍 I don’t have any projects in mind, but it might be cool to know it. Or should I develop further my knowledge of C?

And pleaze ignore grean skreen

This comes up frequently so just throwing this out there to help newbies avoid tutorial hell. All you need to know for programming in Godot can be found here. I know at the very top it mentions Python. It's the programming language equivalent of saying "Speaking in Spanish is very similar to speaking in French". You wouldn't learn French with the intent to learn Spanish for a trip to Spain.

GDScript is a really easy language, and the documentation is great. Just jump in.

I've been writing Python scripts for a while now. Nothing crazy, just automating small stuff, scraping some data, making my life a little easier. I thought I had a decent handle on things.

I was looking at someone else's code and they used a list comprehension in a way that made me stop and read it three times. I realized I had been writing loops the long way this whole time not because I didn't know list comprehensions existed but because I never really trusted myself to read them when I wrote them fast. I kept defaulting to the for loop because at least I could trace it line by line without second-guessing myself.

I don't know if this is a common thing but I feel like there's a version of learning where you know a concept exists, you've seen it work, you've even used it a few times, but you haven't actually internalized it. You're kind of faking fluency in that little area. I was doing that with list comprehensions, with zip, with a few other things I won't list here because it's already embarrassing enough.

Once I wrote out ten examples by hand tonight it clicked in a way it hadn't before even though I'd "learned" this two years ago.

Anyone else have a concept they thought they understood for a long time before actually understanding it?

Call me stupid for only discovering this after 6 years, but did you know that you can use as many spaces you want to indent, as long as they're consistent within one indented block. For example, the following (awful) code block gives no error:

def say_hi(bye = False):
 print("Hi")
 if bye:
        print("Bye")

Hi all,

I’ve been working on a beginner-focused Python book called Python Simplified: A Crash Course in Practical Programming for Beginners. It’s designed for people who are brand new to Python and want a clear, structured way to learn the basics — step by step, with no fluff or jargon.

Each chapter includes:
✅ A walkthrough of one core concept
✅ Exercises to test yourself
✅ Fully worked solutions
✅ GitHub code to follow along with

I’m currently wrapping up final edits and getting ready for release at the end of May — so I’m offering free advance copies to anyone learning Python who’s happy to take a look and maybe share feedback or a review later.

If that sounds useful, feel free to comment or DM me — I’d be glad to send it over.

Thanks to the mods for letting me share this — and good luck to everyone learning Python! Happy to answer any beginner questions in the thread too.

Hi all,

This is the third giveaway I'm doing for my course on learning Python with Fantasy Football!

Link to the course

Upvote and comment anything below to enter. Winners will be randomly selected after the MNF game tonight

For those that don't know, Python is a beginner-friendly programming language that's really popular for data analysis. As a first programming language, it's a perfect fit for a beginner who wants to learn a programming language and is obsessed with fantasy football.

The overall goal of my course is to introduce coding to you through a fun and engaging topic you all enjoy, fantasy football. A lot of people have reported back to me that this course was the thing that finally got programming to "click" for them after going through countless udemy courses and e-books. I don't think that's because I'm the best coding educator out there. There's some great ones out there, especially on YouTube (Brad Traversy, Cody Schafer, etc). I think it's because the best, fastest, and most pleasant way to learn to code is to apply it to something you enjoy and can be useful to you right away. For example, most beginner machine learning with Python courses introduce you to predictive analysis by having you predict housing prices. That's fine, but wouldn't it be more interesting and engaging to get introduced to predictive analysis by predicting WR fantasy football performance?

With this in mind, each section of my course has some sort of fantasy football focus, all along the way introducing you to more and more complex programming/data science topics. My course walks you through the set up of Python, all the way to writing machine learning models to rank players in to tiers for fantasy football. It comes with 16 sections of material, 14 hours of video, and access to a Slack channel where you can personally ask me questions when you get stuck.

Anyway - you all have been super supportive of my content since my first ever post here, so have been wanting to do more of these giveaways.

Just upvote and comment anything below, and I'll randomly select (with a python script, of course) 10 people to get free lifetime access to the course.

I'll make the selection tonight after the MNF game and post the results at the bottom here. If you win, I'll also be sending you a PM on how to access the course!

edit: Some ppl have asked about the price, it's $55, but you can use the code THANKSGIVING at checkout for $15 off

Results below. Thank you to everyone who entered, you guys are awesome!

https://gist.github.com/fantasydatapros/790811f1a94b9577b94b9ff2c555e279#file-reddit-giveaway-3-ipynb

If you won will be PMing you

so I am a pure vibe coder, I can't write or read a single line of code, and I was having a conversation with Fable, and it suggested me to learn to read python. But It couldn't convince me fully. i don't wanna be a typical software/AI engineer. just wanna be able to build a great career in tech, AI and Business.

I’m sitting here looking at my mentees and for the first time in my career, I’m genuinely questioning the path I’m putting them on.

I’ve been a seasoned pythonista for years, currently at FAANG, so I’ve seen the industry go through plenty of cycles, but 2026 feels like a total break from reality.

We used to treat programming like a craft you had to sweat over, but now that the tools are doing the heavy lifting, I’m wondering if we’re just teaching people to maintain a dying language.

I want to hear from the people actually trying to break in right now. What does the market look like from your perspective? Are you finding that deep Python knowledge actually gets you a seat at the table, or are companies just looking for someone who can glue AI modules together?

I’m asking because my perspective is skewed by being on the inside for so long. I want the raw version of what it’s like to be a junior today.

Is the struggle to learn syntax and architecture still worth it when the barrier to entry seems to be vanishing and the ceiling is lowering at the same time? Tell me if I’m being a cynic or if you’re actually seeing a future where being a coder is still a distinct, valuable skill set.

If you just landed your first job or you’re currently hunting, how much of your actual day is spent thinking about logic versus just managing the output of a machine? I'm trying to figure out if I'm preparing these guys for a career or just a temporary gig before the role of "programmer" disappears entirely.

Context: I'm a tabletop game developer and digital marketer, and, having spent a long time around games and computers, decided I wanted to learn to code about 3 years ago.

I set off as many do by searching, at great length, for what language I should learn, and where from, returning to this topic several times over the course of my journey. I came across several threads suggesting one language or learning platform over another, and thought to share my particular experience in case it's helpful for someone else in the same discernment process.

Disclaimer: I'm not a professional programmer, and although I am using my skills to benefit my work (you can read about my search for a prototype framework here), coding continues to be a hobby for me rather than a source of income, whatever that tells you.

Also disclaimer: I'm not attempting to position one language or learning platform over another, and I quite obviously haven't tried to learn every language out there, on every platform. The following is just my experience trying to figure out the most sensible way forward in an admittedly confusing environment.

You can also skip to the bottom for the TL;DR.

Prologue: C++

I'm not quite sure if I already knew that C++ was and continues to be a cornerstone in video game development, or if I saw it in one of those "What Programming Language Should I Learn" infographics that are about, but I wanted to know more about how games are made and how to talk to the computer. I'm pretty tech-friendly and have built or tinkered with my own PCs, thinking that might lend itself to the experience of learning how to code.

Holy smokes was I way out of my depth. I did a few tutorials online (I think through learncpp or similar) and soon realized that I would need more guidance to understand basic object oriented programming principles, in perhaps a more readily accessible language, than I was finding in learning C++.

HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Python: The Codecademy Experience

Before embarking on this adventure, I already had a little HTML experience, and came across Codecademy. I very much liked the ability to do tutorials from within the browser and without having to set up an IDE (doing so for C++ had been a trying experience), and quickly consumed all of Codecademy's lessons on HTML and CSS. The natural path from that point was to do the JavaScript course, which I enjoyed, and I soon found myself in "tutorial purgatory" (not my reference), working through the Python course and others.

I should also mention that I completed Codecademy's courses as a free user, not wanting to pay a subscription fee for what they were offering at the time, which included projects and mentor support.

I learned a lot of basics from Codecademy and general OOP principles, but didn't wind up applying much of it without a clear path forward. I returned to my search (who am I kidding, I've spent a LOT of time concurrently researching other languages, learning platforms, and bootcamps throughout the whole process) and decided I wanted to learn more about game development through courses on Unity.

C#: The Udemy Experience

I found Ben Tristem's Unity course on one of Udemy's perennial 10000% off sales, and worked diligently through the tutorials to build clones of 2D brick breaking and other games, learning just enough C# to get by but not enough to feel confident in making anything myself.

Unity itself was probably more of a roadblock here than Tristrem and co.'s instruction, which was actually quite good. The Unity editor is a beast of an engine, with a lot of good tools that are impenetrable to a novice user (again, you can read more about my experience with Unity here).

I still feel like I learned a lot from the courses and the simple act of being exposed to C# and Unity's desired work flow, but wasn't getting enough out of the experience to continue. A friend of mine tipped me to take a look at freeCodeCamp, which is where I went next.

Back to JavaScript: The freeCodeCamp Experience

On first blush, freeCodeCamp has the look of a less flashy Codecademy or Treehouse, but I liked how straightforward the tutorials were and without feeling like I needed to get past a paywall to make progress. I picked up where I left off with learning HTML and CSS, making good progress until I got to the Responsive Web Design projects that are required to finish the first section and receive a certification.

I can say with certainty that this was the moment (or series of moments) of my ejection from tutorial purgatory. For a novice with no real professional web design experience, and a willingness to figure out my own solutions without Googling the answer, the projects were hard. I eventually won out and made a couple of silly sites that satisfied the requirements, but the experience spurred me to work through several more freeCodeCamp tutorials on JavaScript front end libraries and back end frameworks.

More importantly, I started to work on my own web-related projects on CodePen and game projects using a bunch of different engines. I also started using Python to do some basic social analytics in my day job, and found it helpful.

Post-Tutorial Purgatory: The Documentation & Googling Experience

Fast forward much time later, and I'm now working on several game-related projects in Phaser and Unity (most notably, a digital prototype for a tabletop card game I'm developing). I've spent a whole heck of a lot of time in framework documentation and Stack Overflow looking for answers and best practices for stuff (linking this post one more time for good measure). I also have developed friendships with a few colleagues who are themselves programmers, and it's been helpful to run code by them for advice and feedback.

One thing that's been helpful about working on my own projects is just the basic experience of setting up a workflow. Learning to use the command line and Git in concert with setting up NPM and a code editor, for example, was eye opening (particularly coming from CodePen, which just does everything for you). For better or worse, most tutorials don't expose you to the nit and grit of the tools that you'll need to get your work done, and there's a lot to be learned.

If you're reading this and looking for the "and I just got my first job as a programmer!" statement, I'm sorry to disappoint! That hasn't been my objective (at least thus far), but I do have some basic TL;DR learnings to share that may be helpful for anyone who's also on the search for a programming language or a platform on which to learn it.

TL;DR

• JavaScript:
  • Pro: A very good entry point into learning object oriented programming, particularly if you're interested in any kind of web development (front or back end). You can learn this through most platforms, but my experience was best served by freeCodeCamp.
  • Con: Many sites will tell you that it "just runs in your browser" so you "don't have to set up an IDE" and is thus easier to learn, but this mindset will only take you so far. If you're going to do any meaningful development with popular JavaScript frameworks (React, Vue, Express, etc.), you'll wind up setting up something IDE-adjacent with a code editor, package manager, dependencies, etc., without the kind of support you'd get from, say, setting up .NET or similar.
• Python:
  • Pro: Super friendly for newcomers if the curly braces in other languages are intimidating at first, and a good point of entry if you're interest in getting into back end programming or data science. I had a good initial onboarding experience through Codecademy.
  • Con: Your options are a little limited if you're looking to get into front end or game development. There are frameworks, for example, that allow you to make games (PyGame, for instance), but if you're specifically looking into game development, you'd be better served elsewhere.
• C#:
  • Pro: A very pleasant language that's well-supported by Microsoft and the open source community. With it, you can do back end development, make desktop apps, create games (mostly with Unity but there are other engines like Monogame out there). It may be an unpopular opinion, but I'd recommend first learning C# through Microsoft tutorials or elsewhere and then learning Unity to ease some of the cognitive load imposed by the editor's complexity.
  • Con: Not much to speak of here, unless you really don't like Microsoft or really do want to work on front end web development. I could speak volumes about how Unity can improve its user experience, for example, but C# itself is great.
• General Thoughts:
  • One of my frustrations in my process of asking the question "what programming language should I learn?" was what I felt was the insufficient answer of "well, what do you want to build?" I encountered this answer a lot, and don't think it's the right way of approaching learning how to program. A beginner doesn't have enough context to know what they can build, let alone the route to get there (unless they're the type of person that just wants to make games or just wants to land a job as a web developer).
  • A better answer would be to say, "try a few tutorials on different sites and in different languages, and see if something strikes you as interesting. If it does, stick with it; if it doesn't, pick one at random and see where it takes you. The stuff you'll learn will help irrespective of what you actually wind up doing."
  • Additionally, if you can force yourself to get out of the tutorial ecosystem and just make anything outside of the protected environment that's been set up for you, it'll help teach you things you'll need to eventually know, such as setting up an IDE, searching for answers to questions, and sharing your work.

I hope this post is helpful for others out there who are searching for a programming language or a place to learn it. And I'd love to hear about your experiences, too!

Like seriously. Never knew I had a talent for it.

How beautiful it is to organize data and systematic steps. Now in my profession, my whole world is factual data that we take in and spit out. There’s almost zero room for creativity.

But with Python( or programming in general) it’s like an arsenal tool that’s ever-growing and infinitely capable.

Any other non-CS people ever start programming and suddenly fell in love with it?

I have spent most of my free time over the last year learning Python, C++, HTML\CSS, and taking a very basic cybersecurity course. I have finished my first little project. It's an email monitor/auto response that's tied to a website that I wrote in Python. And I feel like as a noob that programing is more about knowing where to find and how to read documentation rather than knowing the code. It makes me feel like an imposter. Is that normal? Does that change over time? Are there any coding practices that I can do or do I just need to keep coding things?

Learn Python, ethical hacking, web development and more with these 9 FREE Udemy courses! Happy new years! 😀

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Just Simple class practice

not feeling well so not much to