Complete Coding Noob

[Paul Farrar]

Hi

I am a complete coding newbie except for some .bat and bash scripts here and there and some use of basic many many years ago. 

After 30 years of work in IT both hardware and OS or application support(servers, networks and data centres) I thought I would try my hand at coding - for my own amusement more than anything. 

After reading a lot of stuff online Python seemed to be the way to go, so I installed it. I have followed some online Python Tutorials, completed the hello world and other simple examples but decided that to learn I needed to do more.

One suggestion was to join a local user group, and this group is the most local to me although, as I live in Dunstable, it is not on my door step so I may not be able to attend all meetings but will try to come to some. So I can tick off join a group.

I do not want to make myself a complete pain in the backside, but another suggestion was to find a "coding buddy" who was willing to guide me along the way.

Is there such a web site where I can submit code for helpful critique or ask stupid questions ? 

Do you have any recommendations for good learning resources, either online or books, that are good places to go. Unfortunately I cannot pay for an evening class or something similar as I have been made redundant and at 58 it seems nobody wants to offer me a job so free is good.

Thanks 

Paul Farrar

[Tibs]

I don’t know how any people pay attention to this google group anymore, so it might be worth hanging out on the meetup site as well (https://www.meetup.com/CamPUG/)

If you can make a meeting, then one of the “come and do coding” meetings would probably be a good bet - we try to program in pairs, and that works quite well with people of different experience. The March meeting may be one of these (not quite confirmed yet).

I’m not a particularly good resource myself on what to do when starting out, but it might be worth looking at https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/ - the sidebar on the right hand side of the page seems to explain itself quite well, and has some other links which may be useful - the https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/wiki/index page in particular has links to various resources.

Personally I’d say you should choose to learn Python 3 and ignore Python 2 - they’re close enough that you can change your mind later, and Python 3 is better in various ways.

Another way to get into Python is via the RaspberryPi, if that’s at all interesting, and there are RaspberryPi Jams (get togethers) in various places - including, of course, in the same offfices where we meet. If the RaspberryPi is attractive, there are blogs and resources with many examples, starting from simple “flash a light” and getting slowly more complex.

The very first resource I used when learning Python was actually the on-line tutorial, and I still recommend it, if it’s at the right level for you - see http://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/

Hope that’s of some help,
Tibs

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[Joe Metcalfe]

Hi Paul,

I am an experienced developer but wanted to learn Python a few years ago. I joined several (somewhat) local Python user groups including CamPUG - they are a very friendly lot but mostly experienced. It might be worth trying to get along to the London Python Dojo (even closer to Dunstable) but you'll need to be quick off the mark to get tickets (announced on Python-uk mailing list - sign up to get the email). I think this would also be a good networking opportunity. Try to get to PyConUK (September in Cardiff).

Joe

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[Paul Farrar]

Hello Tibs

Thanks for the reply. I am also hooked into the meetup.com/CamPUG but posted here first. I will try to get to come and do coding meeting, and also some others but will probably not be a regular due to time and distance.

I have chosen Python 3 to learn. I also have Raspberry Pi's. I have 4 in fact and they are part of the reason I want to learn. I like the idea of "home automation" and intend to use a Pi as the central control unit. I am leaning towards the HomeAssistant software for the Pi as the main application but also think I will add to that and have stuff self written (in Python I hope) running.

As I said, I have followed the online examples in some of the video's but I was advised to think of a real thing I want to do and try to write a program to do it. 

So my first stab is a program to extract data from my solar panels fitted to my house and record the output from them to a db and then display that data in a graphical form on a "house/family" web page hosted on the Pi.

I have made a start, what I have done works so far. I cannot help but feel it is over complicated and I am sure with experience I could do what I have so in less code and probably neater but it works.

Paul