I Lied

I lied.

Back in Post number one (click here to see it), I implied that I was just another old geezer learning Python. I kind of promised that I would take readers along with me on this senior citizen's journey while learning the language. But then I went off on my own without logging my journey.

It went fast. Part of the reason is that some 40 years ago I was a computer engineer. I coded in something called, "assembly language" (never mind) and even soldered in the digital logic chips into the hardware. So it was misleading to say I knew nothing about computers or software engineering and I would be advancing at the speed of a complete noob.

In 1980 I joined the "Dark Side" as they say in the Star War movies. Rather than staying in the tech world, I went to law school. 

I haven't coded much since then. I lost touch with the coding world. Much has changed in the interim.

Today we have all these free and wonderful YouTube videos that teach all manner of things (e.g. Python for Beginners). Personally, I started off with Nana's Python Zero to Hero course (click here). Soon I found other good lectures for beginners like Indently (click here) and Bro Code (click here). There are too many others to name all here. You'll find your own as you check out all the "Learn Python" videos on YouTube.

Aside from videos, there are numerous coding snippet schools like the W3 School  and Geeks for Geeks

You can also go on various chat forums like Reddit r/PythonLearning.

Best to start with simple string handling like the proverbial: print('Hello World')

Invariably though, you are going to have to learn about an IDE type editor program like PyCharm.

You will ultimately have to Learn about Learning. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Obsidian.

But first things first.

Focus on variables of the type, string. Learn about all the string methods.

Pay attention to the fact that the user_input = input(prompt_string) method allows for only one string argument and returns a string even though the print(str1, str2, str3) function allows for many arguments.

A "for" loop has its own internal index that iterates through the given iterable argument (e.g., a list, a string of characters, a dictionary) and we, the programmers, cannot access it in order to change it. Use the "while" loop instead if you need change the indexer while in the loop --for example if the user inputs an invalid response.

More to Explore
To be filled in at a later time ...