Not the Hello World! version

A list of resources and practices to get python beyond the basics

The book

I am using Fluent Python by Luciano Romalho as the starting point. I bought this book years ago and never really got the best value from it. I skipped too much of it. Now on a revisit some sections are no longer as up to date as I would like, but mostly it is still excellent. There is a second edition (linked) which I am sure brings it up to date. If python is a key skill you should buy a paper copy of this book. It is well worth the money.

My process is to take a chapter at a time and read it in depth - this can take a few hours for the more substantial chapters which in this book is most of them. I have a python repl at the ready to try out some of the examples.

(The new 3.13 repl is great. Simple things like multiline editing that works and colour output are a big step up from the seriously outdated prior versions)

Commit to memory

Then I try to extract anything that I need to remember with Anki. This is a bit of a chore at first, but after a while you notice yourself remembering many more significant things. Working in technology there is a lot to take in and a lot of confusion can creep into your work if you don't make this part of your practice.

Practice with an AI

This kind of interlaces with the reading and memorising sections. I keep a single thread conversation in Chat gpt and tell it what section I am interested in practicing. It usually gives me 'starter code' - the answer - even though I tell it I am trying to learn, but that is no harm as I just ignore that until I have given my stuff a go. I find this a very effective way to learn as I can ask questions for clarificaiton, but am not looking for the bulk of the material to come from the ai.

As I progress with this I will share photos of the contents pages of the book with the model to see what else it can come up with.

So far I have been at this for a couple of weeks - in my spare time with a good bit extra at the weekends. A mixture of glad that I am learning this important skill at last and disappointment that I have let this lie for so long without skilling up properly.

Regular practices to keep up

There is a lot of useful information in the python docs. From the whats new sections to the PEPs (both new ones and older ones). The bar is high in these docs, so they are an opportunity not to be missed. There is so much here that it is almost always time well spent.