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Hello! And welcome to the online course
for the Austomate the Boring Stuff with
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Python book. I'm Al Sweigart. I'm a
software developer and textbook author.
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Automate the Boring Stuff with Python is
my fourth programming book and now
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I've made an online course that
follows the book's content.
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"Learn to code" has become a huge mantra.
You have sites like Codecademy and Khan
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Academy and a massive online open
courses to teach people the program. You hear
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things like, "coding is the new literacy"
or how everyone in the 21st century will
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have to learn to code.
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And if you want to become a software
developer this course can be your first
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few steps on that path.
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But what if you don't want to change
careers to software engineering. You're
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still getting these learn to code
recommendations from everyone, mostly
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from people with a book to sell.
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(By the way Automate the Boring Stuff
with Python is released under a Creative
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Commons license, so you can buy a print
or ebook or you can read it online for
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free at automatetheboringstuff.com.
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Is there a reason the average office
worker student or administrator should
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learn to code? Yes. Whether you have to
send emails, visit websites, or going
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through a ton of spreadsheets and PDFs,
these jobs use laptops and desktop PCs
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as their primary tool. And sometimes
using a computer means spending hours
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doing tasks that require a bunch of
mindless clicking and typing.
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If you don't have an intern to shuffle this
work off to, you should learn to code so
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that you could program to computer to do
these task for you. Or if you're the
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intern, you should learn to code so that
you can program the computer to do these
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task for you. So how is this course is
different from all the other online
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programming courses? Well, I wrote
Automate the Boring Stuff with Python
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for people who wanted to get up to speed
making small programs that do practical
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tasks as soon as possible.
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You don't need to know sorting
algorithms or object oriented
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programming paradigms, so this course
skips all of the computer science and
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concentrate on writing code that get
stuff done.
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But if you are a computer science
student for budding software engineer,
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this course will be a good first step to
develop your toolkit of programming
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skills. This course uses the Python
programming language. Python is the best
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first language to learn. Many
universities are switching their
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computer science curriculum away from
Java and to Python. It has a simple
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syntax and a gentle learning curve, but
it's still a powerful language used in
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the real world.
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Google, NASA, Yahoo, YouTube and even non-technology companies like JPMorgan Chase
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or Industrial Light and Magic, all used
Python. So learning to code can increase
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your productivity but it's also a fun,
creative skill and unlike other creative
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skills or hobbies, if you have a
computer there's nothing else to buy in
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order to write code. You don't have to
buy paint or yarn or power tools. All you
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need is some free software called the
Python interpreter.
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Sound good? Let's get started. Right now.
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Open a web browser and go to python.org. You'll need to download and install
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Python for your operating system. This is
slightly different on Windows, Mac, and
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Linux, so consult the course notes for
specific instructions. The one thing you
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need to know is that you should download
a version 3 Python, like Python 3.5 and not a
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version 2 Python, like Python 2.7. When we say "Python" we usually mean either the Python
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interpreter software that you've just
downloaded installed or the Python
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language. Python (the software) comes with
an editor program that you type your
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Python (the language) code into. The
editor is called IDLE. Consult the
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course notes for how to start up IDLE on
your operating system. Beginning in the
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next lesson we'll start writing code
using it. I highly recommend that you
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have IDLE open and follow along with the
videos by typing the examples into it.
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Don't just sit and watch the videos. It's
easy to passively watch the videos and
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think you understand the concepts. Typing
the code build your muscle memory and
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forces you to see if you can get the
code working. One last thing that you
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should know from the start:
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Half of the software engineers day is
spent googling for information. Programming can be
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complicated and no one can keep all this
information in their head. So don't feel
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bad about constantly looking stuff up on
the internet. That's exactly what
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professional software developers do
every day. So if you get an error message
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and you have no idea what it's talking
about, a good starting point is copying
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and pasting this message into a search
engine.
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The first 3 results will probably be to a website
called Stack Overflow, which is a great
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question and answer site. So before
asking people for an answer,
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try to find the answer yourself on the
web. One, this will almost always be
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faster because, two, other people have
probably had your question and already
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had answered.
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But when you do ask questions, provide as
much detail as possible
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Here's a few things to keep in mind.
Explain what you're trying to do, not
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just what you did. Your helper can then
tell you if you're on the wrong track.
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If you get an error message, specify the
point at which the error happens. What
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line number does it happen on? Does the
error happen every time or does it just
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happen randomly sometimes?
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Copy and paste the entire error message
and your code to a pastebin site, like
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pastebin.com or gist.github.com. These websites will give you a link
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to your text which makes it easy to
share with other people.
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Explain what you've already tried to do
to solve your problem.
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This trims down the list of possible causes
and tells people that you've already put
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some work into figuring things out on
your own. List the version of Python
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you're using. Also, say if you're running
Windows, Mac, or Linux and what version
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you're running, like Windows 7 or Mavericks 10.9.2.
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Asking effective questions and knowing
how to find answers are invaluable tools
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on your program journey. Let's begin!