Python seemed like a good first-choice for getting back into a more formal educational setting, as it visually looked similar to VBA and had some similar functionality in terms of being a dynamically typed language. VBA can act that way with the 'var' keyword, so I thought I would give Python a try. While working through this course I was still coding in VBA, building and maintaining the Excel CRUD application I had began as a grocery store department buyer.
This course proved to be fairly difficult, as it seemed more geared towards a software developer that was adding Python to their repertoire of known languages rather than one that was more-or-less beginning on their journey. I was very driven, however, and the broad range of concepts explored kept me challenged and interested, which allowed me to get through the studies.
The instructor's lectures were further geared towards somebody running Linux, and at the time I only had Windows going. I used VirtualBox to create a virtual Ubuntu desktop, in which I installed the appropriate programs and ran all the coursework through. I wanted to simulate the instructor's experience as much as possible, so at that time I began becoming more and more familiar with Linux as well as learning Python.
- Set up virtual environments to run our projects in
- Created a webserver with Django
- Set up an SQLite database
- Set up an account with Heroku and hosted our app (which was a movie store rental API)
- Explored browser automation with PySelenium
10 hours, 49 minutes lecture runtime
