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Leanne R
Leanne R

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I have never written a line of Python in my life. And yet, this week I built my first Python project. 🐍

I've kept a reading journal on GitHub for years 📚 (223 books and counting, here if anyone is interested, though I doubt it). Every time I finished a book, I was manually updating the file. Tedious, and I usually forgot to update the book count. So I asked Claude if we could automate it.

First we talked through what I actually wanted.
Then what language to use (Python, apparently 🐍).
Then whether I needed to install Python (yes ⬇️).
Then what a token was and whether it was safe 🔐.
Then why my terminal said python3 instead of python (totally normal, good to know).
Then why there was an extra blank line above the new entry 🧐.

Every step, I asked questions. I learned to do things I hadn't done before:

  1. Add Python to my machine
  2. Generate a fine-grained Github access token and use it in a script

Now I run one line in my terminal with my book entry, and the script:

  1. Automatically numbers the entry
  2. Adds it to the right year
  3. Updates my total count
  4. Opens the repo in my browser. Done. ✅

My first Python project works, and the whole thing took less than hour.

Moral of the story: If you've been putting something off because "that's not really my thing" … maybe give it a go. 💪📚

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