Welcome to Python Scar Tissue

Python is one of the most popular programming languages in the world today. Whether you're just starting in your coding journey or are an experienced programmer, learning Python can be a valuable asset for your career. But learning Python can be tough. It can take thousands of hours of coding and countless failures to master the language. I would say mastering it goes up to and beyond ten thousand hours. However, the philosophy of building scar tissue when putting in coding hours and failing can help you learn more effectively.

The concept of scar tissue is simple: the more you fail and learn from your failures, the more you develop resilience and problem-solving skills. Scar tissue is the result of repeated exposure to challenges, and it's a sign of growth and progress. When you put in the coding hours and fail, you're not just learning from your mistakes - you're also building up your ability to handle future challenges with more ease.

So how can you apply the philosophy of scar tissue to learning Python? Here is my roadmap and how I am looking at it if you are beginning or struggling to find a path to mastery this might help you get started. I will be writing on each of these in the future adding links to resources and so on so stay tuned and keep following for upcoming posts.

Start with the basics

The first step to building scar tissue in Python is to learn the basics of the language. This includes learning the syntax, data types, and control structures. There are plenty of free online resources, which I am going to list in an upcoming blog post dedicated to that which can help you get started with Python.

Build simple programs

Once you've mastered the basics, it's time to start building simple applications. For example, you could build a calculator or a program that generates random numbers. These projects will help you solidify your understanding of Python and give you the confidence to tackle more complex applications.

Move up the ladder with more complex programs that can be called apps

As you become more comfortable with Python, challenge yourself to build more complex programs. For example, you could build a weather app that pulls data from an API, or a game using the Pygame library. These projects will help you develop your problem-solving skills and teach you how to work with libraries and APIs.

Build APIs

Once you're comfortable building applications, it's time to move on to building APIs. APIs are a crucial part of being a modern Pythonista, and building them will help you understand how web applications interact with each other. There are plenty of online tutorials and courses that can help you learn how to build APIs in Python.

Work on data-driven projects and especially storytelling

As you continue to develop your skills, start working on data-driven projects. For example, you could build a program that analyzes data from a CSV file or a database, or a program that scrapes data from a website. Or as you have learned to work with APIs you can scavenge data from massive amounts of APIs available online for free. These projects will help you understand how Python can be used for data analysis and manipulation. One of the side quests here is to build big data visualization projects building dashboards and websites to tell the story of the data as in the real world quite often the situation is that the stakeholders might be presented with these findings for the first time and if you are not able to tell the story they will not understand and in worst case scenario draw the wrong conclusion. For that reason, just raw data dumps on customers are not a good idea from a career perspective.

A sidequest on data-driven projects building is that you need to be looking into some maths too. All the major libraries you are going to be using in this phase solve a lot of the mathematical heavy lifting but you do have to understand what mathematical prompts you have to use to get the wanted results.

Learn machine learning or data engineering and cloud

Finally, once you've developed a solid foundation in Python, it's time to start learning machine learning. There are plenty of online courses and tutorials that can help you get started with machine learning in Python, which I will be writing about in the future too. By building on the skills you've developed throughout your coding journey, you'll be able to tackle more complex machine-learning projects with confidence. And here whether you like it or not..the math part will intensify. If you are interested to move towards data engineering there are a lot of other different skills to go and learn. And in the end, there will be the stage where you push everything into the cloud so that is yet again another upcoming blogpost when I eventually get there.

So in the end learning Python can be challenging, but by adopting the philosophy of building scar tissue through repeated exposure to challenges and learning from your mistakes, you can develop the resilience and problem-solving skills necessary to succeed.

The reality is that Python is not going to be the only thing to look into. If you go the Data-Route you are going to need skills like SQL, Excel/google sheets and building up pipelines for the data and there are a lot of different programs to learn. Cloud is dominated by the big three operators and you will be looking to choose one to start with. I cannot comment on these here yet as it is a path I have not stepped on.

If you go the Web development route you will be looking into learning Python web frameworks like Django and Flask and learning some front-end technologies like HTML, CSS and Javascript to begin with but this can be taken further on to React Vue Svelte etc. So no matter what you do you are faced with a TON of stuff to learn along with the Python skills.

Look into these steps to start your journey towards becoming a modern Pythonista and see how the philosophy of building scar tissue can help you achieve your goals. As for the series, I will keep publishing my journey here so if you want to follow along thank you and hope you enjoy it.