3 reasons why I enjoy coding with Python, and what I use it for (beginner)

I can’t be called a code monkey when compared to my colleagues, but recently I’ve found Python to be really helpful with some of my work tasks, so I signed up for a Udemy course to learn more about it.

Here’s 3 reasons why I’ve enjoyed learning Python:

Reason #1

It’s basically just regular old English with a bit of flair and some basics from programming.

This has made it very easy to get the hang of with little in the way of what you could call proper syntax. It’s a lot easier to see what issues you have in the code – no more looking for way too long for the missing semicolon!

Reason #2

You can use Python for a wide variety of tasks. Scrape images from the web instead of copy/pasting, automation in Photoshop and the 3D tool Maya – meaning once you have the basics down you can them work on getting more knowledge in the area of your choice.

Python is a multi-tool style language; it’s not the perfect solution for everything, but it can do a lot!

Reason #3

Having tried and failed to learn programming in a few different languages (I think my issue is that I find programming to be really dry), I haven’t had the same issue with Python.

This is probably helped by the Udemy course I’ve been doing was built by a fellow gamer and a big section of learning has been making a game – which means I’m more engaged, because it’s using something I’m already interested in.

What I’ve been using Python for

It’s been a huge help for me to be able to write a script to automate the process of making sure all the links and images on our websites are working and updated.

The script I’ve written goes through websites to not only check the home page, but goes through the entire site, page by page, to check the error status of the page and images. If there are any errors, it prints the page link with error code to a file we can use as a reference to fix the error.

While I’m still a beginner at Python, I have sometimes thought “This is taking a while to get done, I could have just manually finished this task myself by now…”, then I remember that I’ll probably need to repeat this task at some point so I’m better off automating it now and using my new skill. It also helps that the code is finding issues that I missed as you can see in the image below.

Would I recommend learning Python? Yes!

Stay safe, be kind,

Steven.