How to Learn Python from Scratch?
What is Python?
Python is one of the most famous and fast-growing language in the world. Its demand is increasing day by day in the industry. To get a little technical, Python is an interpreted, object-oriented, high-level programming language with dynamic semantics. Its high-level built-in data structures, combined with dynamic typing and dynamic binding, make it very attractive for Rapid Application Development, as well as for use as a scripting or glue language to connect existing components. Python’s simple, easy-to-learn syntax emphasizes readability and therefore reduces the cost of program maintenance. Python supports modules and packages, which encourages program modularity and code reuse. The Python interpreter and the extensive standard library are available in source or binary form without charge for all major platforms and can be freely distributed.
Often, programmers fall in love with Python because of the increased productivity it provides. Since there is no compilation step, the edit-test-debug cycle is incredibly fast. Debugging Python programs is easy: a bug or bad input will never cause a segmentation fault. Instead, when the interpreter discovers an error, it raises an exception. When the program doesn’t catch the exception, the interpreter prints a stack trace. A source-level debugger allows inspection of local and global variables, evaluation of arbitrary expressions, setting breakpoints, stepping through the code a line at a time, and so on. The debugger is written in Python itself, testifying to Python’s introspective power. On the other hand, often the quickest way to debug a program is to add a few print statements to the source: the fast edit-test-debug cycle makes this simple approach very effective.
Why Python?
There are several reasons you should learn python. Without going into much detail about the uses of Python, let’s just quickly mention some of the most common domains where Python is used:
1. Data Science: Data Science is an emerging and comparatively young field. Data Scientist was named as the sexiest job of the 21st century after which it got a lot of recognition. Python is the most popular language for Data Science, almost 60% of data scientists use Python regularly.
2. Web Development: Python can be used to make web applications at a rapid rate. It is because of the frameworks like Django and Flask that Python uses to create these applications. The security, scalability, convenience that they provide is commendable if we compare it to starting the development of a website from scratch.
3. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence: There is a lot of demand for people who have expertise in ML and AI. Thanks to various libraries like sci-kit learn, TensorFlow, etc. Python is the perfect language for these applications.
4. Game Development: Python can also be used to build games using different libraries. Games such as Civilization-IV, Disney’s Toontown Online, Vega Strike, etc. have been built using Python.
5. Web scraping applications: Python is a savior when it comes to pulling a large amount of data from websites which can then be helpful in various real-world processes such as price comparison, job listings, research and development, and much more.
This list goes on and on with some more applications like Desktop GUI, Programming and Frameworks training, Business applications, audio and video application, CAD applications, Embedded applications, etc.
How to Learn Python?
There are four main steps while learning any programming language:
Step1- Learn the basics of the language which includes learning the basic syntax and data structures available in the programming language.
Step2- Learning the concepts of object-oriented programming(OOPs) in that language like classes, inheritance, polymorphism, etc.
Step3- Learning Data Structures and Algorithm (DSA) using OOPs concepts because they will form the basis of any consumer product that you will build in the future.
Step4- Learning libraries that are essential for the kind of work you intend to do with that language.
Now let’s talk about these steps for python:
Basics of Python
The basic syntax of Python is easy to learn and the best method to do it is by reading a book because it strengthens the basics to another level and it proves to be quite helpful in the long run because you don’t want to be clueless in the future if you come across some basic thing that wasn’t taught in you course or something.
I am not at all saying that you shouldn’t get any courses to learn the language but it is always a good practice to read books for learning because it provides a complete package for your needs.
The biggest advantage of python is the robust community and the documentation available on its website. You can always visit the documentation and read about anything related to python’s latest and old versions there.
There is a lot of material available for free on YouTube also, I’ll provide the best resources from books to courses to YouTube playlists that helped me learn the language.
Youtube Playlist: Learn Python for Beginners — YouTube, Python for Beginners — YouTube
Course: Python Bootcamps: Learn Python Programming and Code Training | Udemy
Python Documentation: Our Documentation | Python.org
Practice: Coding Problems by Difficulty Levels | CodeChef
I would recommend investing money in books instead of courses because there are ample free courses available for learning python out there.
Object-Oriented Programming (OOPs)
OOPs is the most important concept to learn, it enables us to map almost every real-world object in our program. The learning method is the same, you have to read books and I would like to mention that the way you can learn the language is if you practice a lot. There are resources available for practicing as well, I’ll mention them below.
Youtube Playlist: OOP in Python | Object Oriented Programming — YouTube, Learn Python for Beginners — YouTube, Python for Beginners — YouTube,
Course: Python Beyond the Basics — Object-Oriented Programming | Udemy
Python Documentation: Our Documentation | Python.org
Practice: Coding Problems by Difficulty Levels | CodeChef
Python documentation is really helpful and you can learn anything about python from here.
Data Structures and Algorithm
Every program is built upon complex data structures so it is important to learn about them. Also, some well-built and useful basic algorithms may be used in any program to make it faster and better. It uses the basic and OOPs concepts that we talked about earlier and is the building block of almost every project.
YouTube Playlist: GeeksforGeeks — YouTube
Course: The Complete Data Structures and Algorithms Course in Python | Udemy
Python Documentation: Our Documentation | Python.org
Practice: Coding Problems by Difficulty Levels | CodeChef
This is the part where you need to pay a hell lot of attention because it will enable you to build sophisticated programs.
Advanced
Now, this is the step that will get you a job or some work if you are a freelancer. The first step is to decide what exactly you want to do like if you want to be a web developer or a data scientist or something else.
Then there comes the research about the libraries that you have to learn for your goal. By this time you will become capable of planning about how and where to study.
I am not associated with any of the YouTube playlists, courses, or the books that I mentioned above, those recommendations are totally based on my experiences from when I was learning Python.
