Information about how to sign up for my Python course on Udemy for free or at a discounted rate.

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The second edition of Automate the Boring Stuff with Python is now freely available. This blog post outlines the new content in the second edition with links to the content online so that readers of the first edition can immediately find the new content.

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A quick guide to using type hints in Python.

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5 Stars: An excellent project-based book for young readers who want to move beyond Scratch

Code This Game is an excellent book that teaches Python programming by guiding the reader through making a tower-defense game from scratch. This is a book that doesn't shy away from programming detail, but manages to remain fun and engaging. If you have a student or child who wants to move beyond MIT's Scratch programming tool and do "real" programming, this is a great book.

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I'll be doing a live online Python class for beginner- and intermediate-level programmers on Twitch on Monday evening, October 21, 2019.

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Here are all the new additions and updates in the second edition.

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To make errors less intimidating, I've created a "Gotta Catch 'em All" worksheet that lists several common Python error messages. Instead of trying to avoid errors, beginners can try to hunt and collect them all.

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Python dictionaries are a useful part of the language. In addition to having the ability to store keys and values, you can also use dictionary methods to manipulate those values, and you can use dictionaries to write more concise code.

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A recent post to Reddit sparked some comments, so I wanted to clarify: In Python, hashable objects must be immutable and mutable objects cannot be hashable. (With one exception.)

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Alternative Title: The Little Schemer Wears No Clothes

Perhaps a software engineer or MIT professor friend of yours recommended this book to you. “Oh, you want to learn how to code? You should read The Little Schemer,” they’ll say. Your friend means well, but is completely wrong to recommend this book.

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Python's packaging ecosystem contains multitudes. It can be intimidating for new Python developers to try to crack into, especially given the rapid evolution of Python packaging. Writing a *helloworld.py* file and running it on your computer is simple, but getting it to run on someone else's computer (and doing this the "right" way) involves a tangle of terms, tools, and techniques. What are wheel files? What is distutils? Do I use distutils or easy_install or pip?

To get to the bottom of this myself, I've compiled a curriculum of PyCon talks, online documentation, and my own personal notes to finally get a complete handle on Python packaging.

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Programming games are a games genre where instead of playing the game directly, players write bot programs to play the game autonomously. I've created a Zombie Dice simulator, allowing programmers to practice their skills while having fun making game-playing AIs. Zombie Dice bots can be simple or incredibly complex, and are great for a class exercise or an individual programming challenge.

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This page has materials for folks taking my two-hour tutorial, A Beginner's Guide to Tackling Recursion at PyOhio 2018 or following its video recording.

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The Zen of Python by Tim Peters are 20 guidelines for the design of the Python language. Your Python code doesn’t necessarily have to follow these guidelines, but they’re good to keep in mind. The Zen of Python is an Easter egg, or hidden joke, that appears if you run import this.

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In Python, you can increase the value of a variable by 1 or reduce it by 1 using the augmented assignment operators. The code spam += 1 and spam -= 1 increments and decrements the numeric values in spam by 1, respectively.

Other languages such as C++ and Java have the ++ and -- operators for incrementing and decrementing variables. (The name of C++ itself reflects this; the name is a tongue-in-cheek joke that indicates it's an enhanced form of the C language.) Code in C++ and Java could have ++spam or spam++. Python wisely doesn't include these operators; they are notoriously susceptible to subtle bugs.

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Before we can get a nuanced answer to "Are tuples mutable or immutable?", we need some background information.

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I often get emails say little more than "Why doesn't my program work?" Often I can't answer them; either I don't have enough information about your problem or you're asking me about something I don't know anything about.

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This post contains the lessons I've learned and my process for creating video tutorials, and I hope others who want to do the same find it useful. While this post is specific to Udemy and programming courses, the same lessons probably apply to all online courses.

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Django is a web app framework for Python (similar to Rails for Ruby). It implements common web app features so you don't have to write that code. Dreamhost is a web host that offers cheap but reliable web servers. Their shared hosting plan is $11 a month, and provides more than enough disk space and bandwidth for personal sites.

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For the last few months I've been putting together an online course that follows my latest (and free) book, "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python". It is now available.

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