Must read for beginners:
“Coffee Break Python” by Christian Mayer
This is honestly some decent reading material for learning Python that I would HIGHLY suggest. It focuses on active learning rather than passive. The fundamental objectives it has to absorb the material is quite interesting. The objectives are:
1. Overcome the Knowledge Gap
2. Embrace the Eureka Moment
3. Divide and Conquer
4. Improve From Immediate Feedback
5. Measure Your Skills
6. Individualized Learning
7. Small is Beautiful
8. Active Beats Passive Learning
9. MakeSourceCodeaFirst-classCitizen
10. What You See is All There is
After reading roughly 50 - 60 pages that explained the fundamentals, the real learning began. Basically utilizing the ELO score in chess as a measurement tool in measuring your skills/development while working through simple then complex puzzles.
The first puzzle was “Hello World” figuring out the output:
print(“hello world”)
This took microseconds to figure out. The next was “variables and float division”.
x = 55 / 11
print(x)
and understanding that when division is utilized you get an “xxxxx” output.
After that, it was “Basic Arithmetic Operations”. It brought me back to basic math “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally”
x = 50 * 2 + (60 - 20) / 4
print(x)
The next puzzle for the day was “Comments and Strings”. This one I couldn’t figure out until I was actually writing it out in the terminal itself:
# This is a comment
answer = 42 # the answer
# Now back to the puzzle
text = "# Is this a comment?"
print(text)
Lastly, the final puzzle for the day was “Index and Concatenate Strings” before I called it a quits. I figured it out in an odd way compared to how it should’ve been solved. Then I thought to myself there’s always more than one way to get the answer.
x = ‘silent’
Print (x[2] + x[1] + x[0] + x[5] + [4])
As I don’t want to provide the answer to the puzzles, seems like a fun task for anyone to try. Total there’s 50 puzzles altogether. Give it a shot and tell me what you think.
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