A Collection Of Python Programming Resources For Beginners

(Originally published on https://github.com/prahladyeri/CuratedLists/)

Python Programming Resources

Official docs and other resources

• Python Official docs
• PEP-8 - Guidelines for writing python code
• Python Package Index - The official python package repo
• /r/learnpython wiki
• Unofficial Windows Binaries for Python Extension Packages - Must have resource for Windows users of Python. Provides all the compiled package files in pip installable(*.whl) files.
• Python Zeef List

Libraries

Database Connectivity

• mysql-connector-python - Official mysql client library by Oracle.
• PyMySQL - A pure-Python MySQL client library, based on PEP 249. Apparently faster than the official driver
• mysqlclient - Another mysql client library implementation. Apparently, the fastest implementation as it is C based. Django's recommended, also used by debian and ubuntu repos for python3-mysqldb package.
• psycopg2 - Most popular postgresql driver for python.
• SQLAlchemy - The "bread and butter" ORM library in the python world. Extremely versatile and flexible enough to work with almost any RDBMS known to mankind.

Scientific/Statistical

• scipy - Important python package for mathematicians and statisticians.
• numpy - A package for scientific computing.
• matplotlib - A 2d plotting library.
• pandas - High performance Data Analysis library for Python.
• nltk - Widely used Python library in the field of Natural Language Processing.

Machine Learning

• gpt-2 - Neuralnet/AI library, Code from the paper "Language Models are Unsupervised Multitask Learners".
• scikit-learn - A free software machine learning library for the Python programming language.
• tensorflow - A free and open-source software library for dataflow and differentiable programming across a range of tasks.

Networking/Scraping

• requests - A popular library for handling HTTP requests.
• Twisted - An event driven networking engine written in python. Twisted is to python what System.Net is to C# or java.net package is to Java.
• Mechanize - A fully-fledged web-scraping framework written in Python.

Spreadsheets/Documents

• openpyxl - A pure python library to export/import data in Microsoft Excel format.
• xlrd - A pure python library to read Microsoft Excel 97 (*.xls) format workbooks.
• python-docx - Python library to write to work with Microsoft Word Documents.
• markdown - Python library to work with markdown format.
• Pandoc - Wonderful tool to convert document from one format to another, supports markdown, reST, doc, docx, pdf and a number of other formats.
• BeautifulSoup - A mind-blowing XML parsing library that is widely used in web-scraping scripts and applications in python.
• lxml - Library to process xml/html with python.

Build and DevOps

• Twine - Utility for interacting with PyPi packaging system.
• PyTest - Perhaps the De-facto testing module in python world.
• sphinx - The standard documentation tool for python.

Others

• Pelican - A static site generator that supports markdown and reST syntax. Written in python.
• pygments - A syntax highlighting package written in Python.
• pygame - A popular python gaming library.
• panda3d - Python graphics library.
• pyglet - Python graphics library.
• Kivy - A modern GUI toolkit for building apps, works seamlessly on Linux, Android, Windows and Mac.
• PySide - Alternative GUI toolkit in Python, the open source version of PyQt which is commercial.
• PySimpleGUI - Another GUI toolkit similar to PyQT and tkinter.
• Tweepy - Library to access tweets using the twitter api.
• pytz - Library to work with time-zones.
• tqdm - Instantly make your loops show a smart progress meter.

Web-Frameworks

• Django - A popular web framework written in Python. Often touted as the web framework for busy journalists with deadlines, Django is very flexible and can be adapted to any web project needs.
• Flask - A minimalist web framework. While not as popular and stuffed as Django, Flask follows a more lego block approach to development - starting from a minimal core, and keep adding as needed. An excellent framework, nevertheless.
• Bottle - A single module web framework for Python.

Online tutorials, books, puzzles

• Dive Into Python - Mark Pilgrim - Must read for all python learners and enthusiasts.
• Web Scraping 101 with Python
• Writing a Virtual Machine in Python
• Coding Bat - Python
• Simple Python Programs
• Beginners Guide to Python
• Learn Python, Break Python - A beginners guide
• Automate boring stuff with Python

Popular Youtube channels

• Corey Schafer
• Engineer Man
• Real Python

Comments

[MikeTheWatchGuy]

Since this is a list of resources for beginners, I think PySimpleGUI is an excellent choice for GUI frameworks to consider for beginners.

I don't know of many "beginners" that's have less than 9 months to a year of Python that's can pull off a Qt based program of any magnitude. Nor Flask & Django.

PySimpleGUI works on both ends of the difficulty scale, runs on multiple GUIs and has a ton of Documentation, a Cookbook, Demo Programs. In other words, an excellent resource for beginners.

[Prahlad Yeri]

Thanks, I've added it to the list.

[MikeTheWatchGuy]

Thank you!!

[Vicente G. Reyes]

I'm not quite a fan of Real Python; I never was able to run anything from them. Corey Schafer is the man when it comes to Python.

[Prahlad Yeri]

I'd actually got it confused with Full Stack Python! Have you used that as a reference?

[Vicente G. Reyes]

Yes I've used it to learn React and Vue with Django and Flask.

[James McPherson]

I'd add in stackoverflow.com, the Python interpreter REPL and suggest that if you really want to learn a new language then mucking around with it writing code is essential.

[Alexandra Grazhevskaja]

I would also add "Dive into Python" by Mark Pilgrim as a must-read for everyone learning Python.

[Prahlad Yeri]

Thanks, I've added it to the list.