It’s important nowadays to learn Python since it’s a very powerful yet flexible language that is currently used in a lot of applications, and expanding into the amazing world of machine learning. It’s probable that machine learning will be the next big thing and you don’t want to fall behind. Python is simple to write, and has many libraries dedicated to machine learning, but first you need to learn the language. So let’s dive into these free resources carefully picked so you can start learning it:
- Python for those new to coding
- Python crash course for people with coding experience
- Python exercises for all levels
- Python automation book and course
- Python free books
We’ve chosen resources for different levels so no matter if you’re new to coding and need a thorough course, or a seasoned coder that needs a high level overview, you’ll find something useful in these resources to start learning Python.
Python for those new to coding
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-python
This Python course is nice and very in-depth and it’s aimed towards people with no coding knowledge. It goes from basic details like what’s a variable, how to print stuff to console, to read user input, to functions and classes, file handling and much more. While this free course covers Python 2, it’s a great foundation to learn Python and they also have a paid Python 3 course.
Python crash course for people with coding knowledge
https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/python-crash-course/
While this course looks simple, it’s actually very detailed. It’s aimed towards people with programming experience so it gives you a fast overview of many Python aspects. It covers variables, data types, control structures, functions and more. It doesn’t cover more advanced stuff like file handling but you can use the previous for that.
Python exercises for all levels
Once you learn Python and have a good understanding of the language, you need some practice! This site claims to have more than 300 exercises that are focused on Python. The site is free although you’ll have to register to get access. As a side note, once you register, you also get access to https://js.checkio.org/ focused on JavaScript & TypeScript exercises.
Python automation book and course
https://automatetheboringstuff.com/2e/
This site is actually a paid book to learn Python that you can purchase online and the author kindly gives away this free online version. There’s also a paid course version on Udemy and with this coupon SEP2020 you get a 73% discount! https://www.udemy.com/course/automate/?couponCode=SEP2020
Python free books
Packt publishing has a bunch of free books to learn Python and to come full circle with the initial paragraph at the beginning of this post, here’s this book that covers Machine Learning with Python. https://www.packtpub.com/free-ebooks/big-data-and-business-intelligence/python-machine-learning-example/9781783553112
Bonus
Finally, while talking to some friends about Python resources, one of them pointed me to this quirky site http://www.pythonchallenge.com that has been around since 2005. It has a lot of riddles that can be solved using Python. Definitely fun!