Recap: Python 101

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After completing your automation project with pathlib, you've successfully cleaned your Desktop and completed the first module of your Python course. Congratulations on your progress :)

What You've Done

You've taken your first steps in learning the Python programming language, as well as programming concepts in general. You can now:

• Install Python
• Understand what programming is and why it is useful
• Read, write, and understand Python code
• Use Python as a scripting language
• Write Python in the REPL and as a script
• Create variables and assign values to them
• Work with text and numbers
• Identify and use common data types, such as:
  • int
  • float
  • str
  • bool
  • None
• Plan out your task with pseudocode
• Document your reasoning and decisions using code comments
• Write loop logic to tackle repetitive tasks
  • for loops
  • while loops
• Make comparisons and calculations with operators
  • Assignment operator
  • Arithmetic operators
  • Membership operator
  • Relational operators
  • Logical operators
  • Identity operator
• Make decisions with conditional logic and control flow
  • if, elif, else statements
  • Looping keywords: break, continue, and return
• Collect user input with input()
• Format your strings with f-strings
• Automate repetitive tasks on your file system using the pathlib module

You've also learned about additional concepts and techniques that are important in your day-to-day work as a software developer, such as:

• Growth mindset: you'll have to always keep learning, and that's a good thing
• Error messages: friendly messages from Python or your operating system that help you to identify any miscommunications you had with your computer
• Operating systems: they are different from each other, but there are also many similarities
• Development environment: installing and working with the tools you need to write code productively on your local machine
• Version control: keeping a history of changes to your code project locally and online so you can time-travel back to previous states of the project and collaborate with other programmers

At this point, you know enough Python to write scripts that can automate tasks on your operating system. You've trained your skills with the lab exercises and with a variety of projects.

Projects

You've also applied code logic concepts, correct Python syntax, and your creativity to build projects, such as:

• File Renamer: Move and rename files in a folder on your file system
• CLI Games: Build CLI games (e.g.: Guess My Number and Hangman)

You've already created fun games and useful automation scripts that you can be proud of and that you can share with others.

Next Steps

The next course in this series is Python 201, which continues to focus on Python as a procedural programming language. You'll expand your knowledge with additional data types, and advanced Python concepts, such as list comprehensions. And you'll learn about writing and using functions to generalize your code.

You'll also learn about software development concepts that are not specific to Python but are important to become a well-rounded programmer. You'll learn about:

• Virtual environments
• Debugging
• Interacting with APIs and databases

You'll also keep building new projects and revisiting some of the ones you've worked on in this course module, which will help you train to refactor your code. Completing the next course module will build your Python ability to a degree that will make you ready to work on a wide variety of projects and challenges.