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This is really cool. I've found that learning the language is a small part of a larger battle. My new year's resolution has been to learn Python (I'm a JS / no
by theogravity 3y ago
This is really cool. I've found that learning the language is a small part of a larger battle.
My new year's resolution has been to learn Python (I'm a JS / nodeJS dev), and have been studying on and off the past few months.
Biggest hurdle for me has been:
- Understanding venvs. Why can't it just be like how node works? I get you need the venv so you don't use some wrong python version or install stuff into system python global space
- Package management (still struggling with this - for example, downgrading packages seems to be a huge pain compared to node)
- General ecosystem. If I want to trend towards AI / ML, do I need to learn pandas first, then get into jupyter notebooks, etc? Fortunately my work has an education stipend and I've bought lots of books, online courses (datacamp, realpython, manning books), etc, but I haven't found anything that felt "structured" in terms of just getting enough to know to hit the ground running in a productive way. I'm constantly re-arranging my internal course plan.
- Version sensitivity. I'm used to semver conventions from JS, and python and its package ecosystem doesn't seem to practice this at all. It's really strange from my perspective that one package / project only works with python 3.7 but not 3.6 for example, or when a popular package is still stuck on a 0.x.y version
- jonathan_landy 3y agoA couple hours watching a data scientist / ml engineer at work might be a useful way to pick up the work process. I certainly learned a lot by copying my seat mate in my first job.
- lotsoweiners 3y agoI guess that requires that you work somewhere that employs a data scientist/ml engineer and Python programmers. My government job sure doesn’t have that.
- sunshinesnacks 3y agoOn your first two points, I am relate: I had just started getting comfortable with pip and venv, then needed a package that I could only get to work with conda, but then the Anaconda license made me nervous… Finally settled on conda with miniforge, but it has felt way too complicated.
- an_aparallel 3y agowatch Corey Schafer videos on youtube - he's an excellent teacher, and will clear you up quickly on that.
- rossant 3y agoI've been programing in Python for 15+ years and I can relate. I wrote books for your exact use case but they're a bit old. There are many other alternatives now. https://ipython-books.github.io/ https://ipython-books.github.io/