🔒 Learning python(properly)

[safe basin]

So I've been on this server for a long long time and I've seen people asking and suggesting a lot of things. Every time I visit a help channel, I see new stuff from ML, discord bot, CV and whatnot. I had a few projects like python sql, discord bot, ML but I don't feel like I know the language. I see a lot of people suggesting a lot of things in the help channel and though I don't understand the entire thing, I get the gist of what the code would do. I am looking for help here to learn the language better, to write optimal codes, write python like python and not Java/C methodology.

I can elaborate further up next.

[hallow harness]

@safe basin

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[safe basin]

I want to learn python and work on it as it is supposed to do.
I don't want to write

for i in range(len(x)):
    print(x[i])

but

print(i for i in x)

(This code may be wrong but I hope you get an idea what I'm looking to learn)

So should I start with reading documentations, or doing projects of some kind, or anything else?

I kinda wanna master this language but let's be practical it's not possible for me, atleast not in next 5 years.

Any common topics apart from ML, CV that I should look out for a good resume, and maybe a respectable developer job?

Any help and suggestions are welcomed, let me know what I should do to learn python better. I have no worries starting from scratch if it means learning it better.

[formal wadi]

mastering vanilla python without libraries is easy. there is not much it does not take 5 years.
if you are done with the basics you could look at:

• iterators
• decorators
• descriptors
• generators
• list, dictionary, set comprehensions
• generator expressions
• metaclasses
• context managers
  for the advanced things

i mean python has a huge amout of libraries. and then there are also third party libraries which are common to use

things like

• io
• shelve/pickle
• json
• sys
• os
• time
• random
• treading
• multiprocessing
• numpy
• sympy
• pandas

may also be good to know

and then it depends what you want to do? GUI? Web?

[safe basin]

I tried gui by tkinter, I am thinking of doing web now

[safe basin]

That's a great list of suggestions, I've come across a few while trying developing a discord bot couple of years back

[formal wadi]

i find tkinter ugly. PyQt looks nice.

[safe basin]

I'll check it out on my next project, I am thinking of doing something with web now

What about object oriented side? Classes and stuff?

[formal wadi]

well than add the web library of your choice to the list but then if you do know all of the things + the basics (OOP is part of the basics). i think then there's not so much you don't know about python left

[formal wadi]

that is part of the basics

[safe basin]

I'm yet to start that

[formal wadi]

but yes you should know classes, methods, etc

like also all loops, control sturctures and datastructures

list, dict, deque, heap, tuple, set

[safe basin]

It's not about the content I'm missing out, it's python nuances that I'm not getting better
My codes look like I've written C in python format while python offers a different variant, arguments, libraries for the same. There are thousands of one-liner codes for 10 liners in traditional OOPS coding. I'm wishing to learn that, to make the code more pythonic if you understand what I mean

[formal wadi]

much of the pythonic comes with comprehension i guess

also look exactly at what the difference between a statement and a expression is an where you can use expressions

probably start playing around with the fancy features to internalize them

use everything in code

think of fun little programms and then use heaviliy the things you do not know

[safe basin]

Yeah I looked a few examples of it, uses ternary operators, x if x else y and things like that
But I got to know about them while I was learning something else

It makes me feel like I missed out a lot of such things. It there a way to learn python as it is intended to?

[formal wadi]

i do not know how it is intended. you could use a book and follow the order of the book. or you pick a topic that interests you and do research for that and use it in programs

there is also sequence unpacking and dictionary unpacking which can be used for pythonic coding

[forest halo]

Fluent Python by Luciano Ramalho is great if you want to learn some Pythonic Python.
some topics in it may be advanced. feel free to read it in whatever order interests you.

[formal wadi]

understand what an iterable is, that everything is an object and as i told what an expression is and where is can be used does also help

[safe basin]

Yeah, I'm fascinated by the indexing and unpacking of iterables and other objects. It's very lenient and better than C, no shame in it in C//

[safe basin]

I'll check it first thing in the morning

[formal wadi]

then start to put expression in places where you earlier just put a scalar value

use dicts

but get the basics done before you focus on fancy things

[safe basin]

That would be a good start
But there should be more consistency in all code methodologies, I cannot write short codes for syntaxes I know of and elaborated for loops for those I don't
I want to be consistent in many if not all fields. The dictionary packing unpacking etc is a single topic and I wish to cover as many as I could, do you know how do I do that?

[safe basin]

Yeah I know, I'll start within this week, brushing off the basics and then towards the fancy stuff 😅

[formal wadi]

do it step by step not everything at all. that overwhelms you

pick you a thing you want to learn about and do it. also yes the python docs are also very good and can help

try to rewrite things

think how you could do it better

[safe basin]

Yeah I'll do it step by step, but for that I should know what I have to do, and I don't.
So I need someone to tell me what to do to make the code more fancy (pythonic)
There will be a lot of instances where I won't be able to do so, but if I atleast could do it for common syntaxes, it would be a great thing to me

[formal wadi]

try to force you to use the new things until it is normal to you

e.g. comprehensions are fancy

try to use comprehensions as much as possible

(but when they get too long use loops)

[forest halo]

you can post code here (as a help thread) tagged as code review
maybe indicate that you're actively looking to learn advanced features
if someone is free they'll provide specific feedback

[safe basin]

I'll hit the docs and see
I learnt a lot about discord.py (or dpy now, I don't know) by documents and made a lot of changes to my codes, it was fun

I wish to do it with other codes and projects. Make it look like "I actually know python and how it works"

[safe basin]

That may be helpful but I cannot do that all the time. I need to learn things on my own, you see I don't have much time on my hand as I have to prepare for placements from my institute.

[forest halo]

I understand. just try it every once in a while, because peer feedback is valuable when you're trying to learn what's considered natural in a language.

[safe basin]

That's a great thought. I'll try to do it as much as I can. Let's see how I can grow using these tactics.

I believe that's all for now. That's a lot for you time you guys.
Please DM me anything you want to suggest for me to do. I'll gladly look into it and try it if possible. I want to be a great python developer one day😁
Thanks a lot @formal wadi @forest halo

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[hallow harness]

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