On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 3:46 AM, Je Ph <contactus77gr...@gmail.com> wrote: > Ethan et al, has anyone completed the oreilly python 1 through python 4 > training courses (part of their Python Certificate track)? Looks like it > will take over 2 months to complete it and it's expensive. > > I'm trying to decide if it's worth the investment. With a full time job, it > would take me a lot longer than contiguous 2 months to go through the > training. My objectives are A) to gain more python experience, B) while > gaining more programming exposure. Although I have my CS degree and can read > and understand code well, I haven't had to write many programs yet. > > Will this course help with both objectives?
I can't tell you about any specific course, but I will tell you this: There's no shortcutting it. You're going to need to put in some serious hours before you can gain true competence. Every language you know makes the next ones easier, and when you know 99 languages you can probably learn the hundredth in a weekend, but that weekend would still have a lot of work in it. So don't be put off by the two months; if this is important to you, it'll be worth it. One suggestion: Have an "excuse project". [1] I didn't learn any of the Python web frameworks until I decided that it was high time to rewrite one particular web site of mine from the PHP that it had originally been written in (to make it compatible with the dirt-cheap web hosting that I was looking at at the time) into a language that I can actually be proud of. Took me 6.5 hours to learn and deploy, because I was already highly familiar with the language, and was just learning the framework; having an actual goal in mind stopped me from meandering into random "hey this looks cool" territory and getting lost there. It doesn't matter if your excuse project is recreating something that already exists, just as long as it's something you're trying to accomplish. Also: Have fun! Don't make this the drudgery, the "grind for levels so you can get what you want". Enjoy the journey too! [1] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExcusePlot ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
