11 tips from 11 months of learning Python

I’ve been learning Python for around 11 months - it’s been a wonderful journey!

6 minute read

I’ve been learning Python for around 11 months - it’s been a wonderful journey! This post is a list of 11 things that I’ve learned along the way.

1 - setup

For many people the hardest thing about learning Python is getting it setup in the first place! I recommend using the Anaconda distribution of Python.

Regarding Python 2 vs Python 3 - if you are starting out now it makes sense to learn Python 3. It’s worth knowing what the differences are between the two - once you’ve made some progress with Python 3.

The installation process is pretty straight forward - you can check that Anaconda installed correctly by typing $ python into Terminal or Command Prompt. You should see something like the following:

$ python

Python 3.6.3 |Anaconda, Inc.| (default, Oct  6 2017, 12:04:38) 
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Clang 4.0.1 (tags/RELEASE_401/final)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> 

Becoming comfortable with using the Terminal is another step where people fail. Understanding that the Terminal can be used to run programs (one at a time!) is a key paradigm that takes some time to get comfortable with.

Part of using a bash based terminal is learning commands such as

$ ls to list files in a directory

$ cd some/directory to move to another directory downstream

$ cd .. to move to a directory upstream

$ pwd to print the current directory

2 - pip

pip is a way to manage packages in Python. pip is run from a Terminal. Below are the pip commands I use the most.

To install a package (Note that the -U argument forces pip to install the upgraded version of the package)

pip install pandas -U

To remove a package

pip remove pandas

To print all installed packages

pip freeze

Often projects will include a requirements.txt file that contains all the packages you need to run a project. You can using this file to install packages with pip using

pip install -r requirements.txt

If you need to create one of these files (i.e. to setup an installation of Python on another machine) you can generate one using

` pip freeze > requirements.txt`

3 - virtual environments

Virtual environments are best practice for managing Python. Different packages will require different sets of packages (called dependencies). By using one virtual environment per project you can ensure that the version of the package you are using is the one you want. This is especially true in the data science and machine learning world where packages are being rapidly developed (see TensorFlow, PyTorch etc).

Combining virtual environments with a requirements.txt file also allow you to quickly setup a development environment on a remote machine (i.e. on AWS or Google Cloud).

There are two main methods for managing virtual environments. Personally I use conda (as I always use the Anaconda distribution of Python). You could also use virtualenv to manage your environments.

On Unix based systems (Mac or Linux) you can activate virtual environments and then run scripts using that installation of Python

source activate yourenv

4 - running Python scripts interactively

Running a script interactively can be very useful when you are learning Python - both for debugging and getting and understanding of what is going on!

python -i script_name.py

After the script has run you will be left with an interactive console. If Python encounters an error in the script then you will still end up in interactive mode (at the point where the script broke).

Another way to run a script interactively is to use iPython (which Jupyter is built on top of).

$ ipython

You can then run a script using an iPython magic command

` In [1]: %run script_name.py`

You can also use bash commands like ls or cd within an iPython session - very cool!

5 - enumerate

Often you want to loop over a list and keep information about the index of the current item in the list.

This can naively be done by

for item in a_list:
    other_list[idx] = item
    idx += idx

Python offers a cleaner way to implement this

for idx, item in enumerate(a_list):
    other_list[idx] = item

We can also start the index at a value other than zero

for idx, item in enumerate(a_list, 2):
    other_list[idx] = item

6 - zip

Often we want to iterate over two lists together. A naive approach would be to

for idx, item_1 in enumerate(first_list):
    item_2 = second_list[idx]
    result = item_1 * item_2

A better approach is to make use of zip - part of the Python standard library

for item_1, item_2 in zip(first_list, second_list):
    result = item_1 * item_2

We can even combine zip with enumerate

for idx, (item_1, item_2) in zip(first_list, second_list):
    other_list[idx] = item_1 * item_2

7 - list comprehensions

List comprehensions are baffling at first. They offer a much cleaner way to implement list creation.

A naive approach to making a list would be

new_list = []

for item in old_list:
    new_list.append(2 * item)

List comprehensions offers a way to do this in a single line

new_list = [item * 2 for item in old_list]

You can also create other iterables such as tuples or dictionaries using similar notation.

8 - default values for functions

Often we create a function with inputs that only need to be changed rarely. We can set a default value for a function by

def my_function(input_1, input_2=10):
    return input_1 * input_2

We can run this function using

result = my_function(input_1=5)

Which will return result = 50

If we wanted to change the value of the second input we could

result_2 = my_function(input_1=5, input_2=5)

Which will return result = 25

9 - git

Like virtual environments git is a fundamental part of the workflow of anyone using Python.

A full write up of how to use git is outside the scope of this article - these commands are useful to get started. Note that all of these commands should be entered in a Terminal that is inside the git repo.

To check the status of the repo

git status

To add files to a commit and push to your master branch

git add file_name
git commit -m 'commit message'
git push origin master

Note that you can do multiple commits in a single push.

We can also add multiple files at once. To add all files that are already tracked (i.e. part of the repo)

git add -u

To add all files (tracked & untracked)

git add *

Sometimes you will add files to your commit you didn’t mean to - this allows you to undo them one by one (ie commit by commit).

git reset HEAD~

Sometimes you will want to undo your local changes to a file - you do this using

git checkout file_to_reset

10 - text editors

There are a range of text editors you can use to write Python

Atom
vi
vim
sypder (comes with anaconda)
Sublime Text
Pycharm
notepad ++

All have their positives and negatives. When you are starting out I reccomend using whatever feels the most comfortable.

Personally I started out using notepad ++, then went to spyder, then to Atom and vim.

It’s important to not focus too much on what editor you are using - more important to just write code. If I was to reccomend an editor to a beginner I would reccomend Atom.