If you work in any technical field, there is some level of programming knowledge required. Developers program code day in and day out, but even penetration testers, IT helpdesk, or SOC analysts benefit from automating mundane tasks to improve efficiency. If programing is a skill set that you want to improve, how best do you learn? Playing with redstone in minecraft will teach you about some basic logic. Youtube videos can show how to create basic discord bots to roll dice for your DND games. There is even bootcamps and online training available. What if there was a combination of reading, video examples, and challenges that brought everything together? Dr. Chuck provides all of these learning elements in his series of courses called “Programming for Everybody” which he makes available online under a creative commons license. (Python for everyone)[py4e.com] (py4e) is the world’s leading python course created by Dr. Chuck at the University of Michigan.

Course structure

Dr. Chuck provides py4e in a variety of formats. If you have the means to pay for the courses on (Coursera)[https://www.coursera.org/specializations/python#about] then that may be the best way to absorb all of the knowledge. Labs are graded and that service is best provided via Coursera.

py4e Lectures are provided in a Youtube playlist for free. py4e.com/lessons have a lot of written content for each specific lesson. Dr. Chuck also worked hard to provide the courses in a variety of online educational platform integrations so instructors can teach their students.

The best suggestion I can give is to be hands on with the “homework” or labs and examples. Any time an exercise is given, try to have a working script that does the same thing and understand each section. Eventually you will have a collection of code examples that can be referenced while making other scripts or larger applications.

How I heard about py4e

I started watching David Bombal on youtube. He interviewed Dr. Chuck about the course and they discussed the various formats of the course. Dr. Chuck mentions wanting to have students with a fundamental understanding of programming before even starting an ideal computer science degree where they would be able to focus on the theories supporting computer science.

Conclusion

If you have not already taken a course on python, I strongly suggest taking py4e courses or using the included work as a refresher.

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