A few years ago I started learning Python and applied that knowledge to write control software for SGVHAK rover. I haven't done very much with Python since, and my skills have become rusty. Since Python is very popular in modern machine learning research, a field that I am interested in exploring, I knew I had to get back to studying Python eventually.

I remember that I enjoyed learning Python from Codecademy, so I returned to see what courses had been added since my visit years ago. The Codecademy Python catalog has definitely grown, and I was not surprised to see most of it are only accessible to the paid Pro tier. If I want to make a serious run at this, I'll have to pay up. Fortunately, like a lot of digital content on the internet, it's not terribly difficult to find discounts for Codecademy Pro. Armed with one of these discount venues, I upgraded to the Pro tier and got to work. Here are some notes on a few introductory courses:

  • Learn Python 2 was where I started before, because SGVHAK rover used RoboClaw motor controllers and their Python library at the time was not compatible with Python 3. I couldn't finish the course earlier because it was a mix of free and Pro content, and I wasn't a Codecademy Pro subscriber at the time. I'm not terribly interested in finishing this course now. Python 2 was officially history as of January 1st, 2020. The only reason I might revisit this course is if I tackle the challenge of working in an old Python 2 codebase.
  • Right now I'm more interested in the future, so for my refresher course I started with Learn Python 3. This course has no prerequisites and starts at the very beginning with printing Hello World to the console and building up from there. I found the progression reasonable with one glaring exception: At the end of the course there were some coding challenges, and the one regarding Python classes required students to create base classes and derived classes. Problem: class inheritance was never covered in course instructions! I don't think they expected students to learn this on their own. It feels like an instruction chapter got moved to the intermediate course, but its corresponding exercise was left in place. Other than that, the class was pretty good.
  • Inheritance and other related concepts weren't covered until the "Object-Oriented Programming" section of Learn Intermediate Python 3, which didn't have as smooth or logical of a progression. It felt more like a grab-bag of intermediate concepts that they decided to cut out of the beginner course. This class was not terrible, but it did diminish the advantage of learning through Codecademy versus reading bits and pieces on my own. Still, I learned a lot of useful bits about Python that I hadn't known before. I'm glad I spent time here.

With some Python basics down -- some I knew from before and some that were new to me -- I poked around other beginner-friendly Codecademy Python courses.