Hello!
I have no background in computer science, data analytic, or coding at all. I've always been interested in learning how to code. A few days ago I began going through the Scientific Computing with Python (Beta) course(?) on freecodecamp website. I finished the first module and I feel like I haven't really learned anything. I can follow the instructions and go through each module/project pretty quickly but at the end of the day it feels like I don't know what I'm actually doing. I'm just following directions without actually knowing what it does or what it means. maybe a lot of the tasks are common sense to someone who is a CS major but I am completely lost. Is there a website or course or book that teaches the fundamentals?

I started learning Python on my own about a month ago and even did some small projects, a simple calculator, a quiz game and some basic conditional logic programs but I got stuck and felt like I wasn't really learning anything and have been a few weeks without getting back on it.

I want to re-take my journey but I don't quite know how to start, my thought is that maybe I needed a more structured start to then go on off my own to explore the language with a good base established and so I found a 9 hour beginner python course video tutorial from freecodecamp. I would divide it probably in 2 or 3 hours a day and the course goes over a lot of basics and some mini beginner projects, however I don't know if this is the best approach for establishing a good base. Has anyone taken any of these courses and do you have any recommendations to get back at learning Python by myself?

Hey I am new to coding so I decided to start with Free Code Camp because I've heard nothing but good things about it. For transparency I am trying to learn the Godot engine for making games but was told it would be good to learn Python first to understand the syntax of a language (which I agree with after trying it out).

My question is, should I do the "Legacy Python for Everybody" course, or the "Scientific Computing with Python (Beta) Certification" class? I guess my concern is that while the python for everybody class sounds like it is for me, the "legacy" makes me think it is outdated in some way. Can someone clear this up for me? Thanks!

Free Code Camp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/ this place is pretty cool if you follow the main curriculum for HTML/CSS/JAVASCRIPT and go down that route.. but for python, their listings are pretty sub-par.

For now i've been using Codecademy to get the basics down, then I plan on using codeingame, code wars and other similar sites for improving my skills. But the issue with all this is they don't really teach frameworks like django very well or go into a more 'professional' establishment of the skills.

Coding bat is decent-- but it doesn't have as much for python as it does for java. (https://codingbat.com/python)

And I think the best for the late game is 65 Questions (https://www.algoexpert.io/questions) but I can't help but feel like theres a pretty big skill gap going from Codecademy to 65 Questions.

I know that projects are one of the best ways to learn, but I like to have a project alongside training drills. Rn my project is a text based dungeon crawler, but it's pretty complicated and it's going to require a lot of HTML/CSS/Javascript as well, so it's kind of a long term dealio-- so I want some other short term stuff to mix things up a bit.

Any ideas would be appreciated <3

Edit: I don't mean tutorials as much. I know that there are some really good python tutorials like https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html and http://anh.cs.luc.edu/handsonPythonTutorial/index.html but I was hoping for something with a repl and more framework integration like Free Code Camp.

It seems like this course on freecodecamp isn’t as polished as I thought it would be. Is there better free course available for learning python development with focus on machine learning?

I'm not sure which one to use to learn Python

Hi everyone,

I'm thinking of trying freeCodeCamp to learn Python. What I like about it is their "active teaching" style; the short lessons followed by quick questions to reinforce learning. That format helps me stay engaged.

However, after briefly skimming their Python course, I noticed it doesn’t seem to include many (or any?) larger practice exercises beyond the lesson checkpoints. Am I wrong about this? For those who have used it, does freeCodeCamp provide enough practical coding practice to really learn Python well, or is it more just bite-sized theory checks?

If not, could you recommend other platforms that use a similar interactive teaching style but also include more practice problems or small projects? I'm looking for something structured, with frequent checkpoints or quizzes, and lots of hands-on coding.

Thanks!

A lot of people come on this board wondering whether certain programs are worth the time/effort, so I just wanted to give some quick notes on the ‘Scientific Computing With Python” course on FreeCodeCamp.

The series is taught in 56 segments that are made up of 5-15 minute videos, presented by Charles Severance (“Dr. Chuck”). Each segment has a quiz question that you need to complete to move forward, and some of the segments have optional “additional resources” (which I didn’t do at all). At the end, there are 5 projects that need to be completed to earn the cert.

The videos are presented in a lecture style, which I don’t really care for. Previously I had done a long Programming With Mosh video tutorial, as well as some shorter ones by others, where you see someone live-coding. Those are my preferred learning style. Whereas Dr. Chuck presents a series of PowerPoint slides and marks them up with an e-pen. I personally found it much harder to program along with this style of video.

In order to complete the projects, you need an understanding of Python basics. A lot of the lectures are on stuff like APIs, Regular Expressions, Web Scraping, XML , etc. You don’t need to know any of this for the projects. So about half the series content is what I’d describe as “bonus material” that you can just sit back and watch, and I plan to find a different source when I really want to learn that stuff.

Building projects are really where I learned the most, but that’s probably true of most programs like this.

There are 5 of them:

• Arithmetic Formatter was an easy programming challenge, but the output was tedious. It’s one of those where you have to do a lot of white space counting. Any little extra space or dash will cause the program tests to fail.

-Time calculator was a fun one. It could be programmed in multiple ways, so I had a fun time trying something unique.

-The Budget App was the bane of my existence while I was working on it. The base functionality wasn’t too bad, but the instructions were confusing. So I had to rewrite it a couple times. And the graph you have to build at the end was a very tedious component. Really hated building this thing. My code is a mess, but it works. Learned a lot about classes writing this at least.

-The Polygon Area Calculator was super easy compared the the other ones. Took me a min to figure out one piece of math, but overall took ~30 min to complete.

-The Probability Calc was my favorite. A super fun “simulate this experiment” project. I misunderstood a piece of it (specifically, what to do when too many balls are pulled out of the hat), so my code is a bit crazy. I basically just patched something on to get it working properly when it would be cleaner to rewrite the whole thing. But it works properly as is, so I didn’t bother making it clean.

So TLDR: I didn’t love the lectures, but I learned a lot from the projects. Even though the projects were sometimes frustrating.

Hello, I am currently trying to learn python through freecodecamp and saw that there were multiple courses on this programming language. Can someone tell me the difference between these courses (like application wise), and which course would be the best for the software engineering field? Thank you for your time

The python courses that I saw were: Data Analysis, Machine Learning, and Scientific Computing.

Hi all,

I started HTML + CSS on FreeCodeCamp long ago, but gave up because I have a full time job and couldn't give time.

I have recently started learning Python on Udemy from Colt Steele. But wanna supplement with some extra exercises and knowledge.

I chose Python because it will help me with some of my personal projects as well as on my job.

I am in need of your assistance here -

• Is the FCC course for Python good?

• The teacher for FreeCodeCamp Python is Dr. Charles Severance, who also has a "Python for Everybody - Specialization" course on Coursera. Is there any difference between the courses on the two platforms?

Thanks

stardust

I already did the first 5 courses of freecodecamp and found them to be great (except for the fact that the react course is a little outdated, it doesn't even teaches hooks). I was about to begin the python course and found out it was a completely different format from all other courses and didn't like it at all. It seems like al the courses from now on are videos with one multiple question at the end. So do you guys recommend it or should I learn python and the rest of the courses somewhere else

Layout is a little weird. All I see are certificates, other websites have course base on language. Should I come back once I learn Python? I just want to learn Python. I have no specific goal in mind so I feel these certificates are not really useful for me

I just finished this free 56 lesson Python course by Dr. Chuck on freeCodeCamp. It’s very beginner friendly and covers Python 3 basics clearly. I wasn’t sure if I’d stick with it, but I did and it actually made Python feel doable.

Just wondering if anyone else here has taken it? Or have other beginner friendly course recs?

Hi all I am a little confused with how to navigate freecodecamp.org.

I want to start learning Python. I typed in Python in the search bar and there are a lot of results. Which is the one that I should be training on and eventually get a certification?

Im trying to learn phython. Is fcc the best to learn phython?

Goooooood morning everyone~!

I am super duper thrilled to announce that the new Python certification is fully live~! This means you can actually complete the certification projects to unlock the final exam, and sit the final exam to get your cert!

Now, you probably have loads of questions. Jessica has done a lovely job putting together this comprehensive article that should cover any doubts you have: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/freecodecamps-new-python-certification-is-now-live/

But of course, if you have even more questions you can always reach out to me.

As always, happy coding!

Like I’m trying to decide between working in smaller projects like number guess or and madlibs generator or going into problem solving with project Euler. I would like to improve my programming abilities. What advice would you give?

The thing that is making me hesitate with freeCodeCamp is that their syllabus involves a lot of not-Python stuff (here it is). Maybe this is actually the better way to learn, but I wanted to check with some more experienced folks before I committed myself to it.

Any other alternatives to Codecademy that you think are better than freeCodeCamp would be appreciated too, if you've got some ideas. Codecademy really struck me when I tried learning before (interrupted by life stuff) because it feels a lot like duolingo. There's a nice sense of progression and the skill checks seemed nicely spaced out. I've tried some programs that seem to throw you into the deep end way too fast, and some others that don't seem to make any attempt to challenge you at all.

But anyway, sorry to ramble - is freeCodeCamp's method of teaching you some things from other languages before getting into Python a positive or a waste of time?

Edit: Turns out I kind of misinterpreted freeCodeCamp's curriculum page - they do have beginner (and beyond) python courses, they're just further down the page, and you don't have to complete other courses to access them. That said, still open to any suggestions!

Hi all,

I started HTML + CSS on FreeCodeCamp long ago, but gave up because I have a full time job and couldn't give time.

I have recently started learning Python on Udemy from Colt Steele. But wanna supplement with some extra exercises and knowledge.

I chose Python because it will help me with some of my personal projects as well as on my job.

I am in need of your assistance here -

• Is the FCC course for Python good?

• The teacher for FreeCodeCamp Python is Dr. Charles Severance, who also has a "Python for Everybody - Specialization" course on Coursera. Is there any difference between the courses on the two platforms?

Thanks

stardust