Programming languages are one of those topics that we geeks have some very strong and often rather polarised opinions about. As new concepts in computing are dreamt up, older languages may grow new features, if viable, or get left behind when new upstarts come along and shake things up a bit. This scribe can remember his early days programming embedded systems, and the arguments that ensued when someone came along with a project that required embedded C++ or worse, Java, when we were mostly diehard C programmers. Fast forward a decade or two, and things are way more complicated. So much choice, so much opinion.
So it’s really nice to come across some truly unique and beautifully made Python tutorial videos, that are engaging and fun to watch. Fronted by Canadian actress [Ulka Simone Mohanty] who some may recognise from such lofty titles as the game “Magic: The Gathering Arena” and various films and TV shows, she delivers a dead-pan avatar-like presentation of the most important areas of Python. We were particularly amused by the comment “Loopus Interruptus” as the exception condition iterating off the end of a list.
If you’ve been putting off putting the effort to really get a good overview of Python and get some programming experience, we think this would be a very good place to start. Even if you already use Python, you’ll probably pick up some good insight from these videos. We don’t know how you’re spending your next few hours, but we’ll be learning more Python.
The pithy anonymity of Lambda Expressions:
“We are now going to learn how to create and use lists, and we will do so in a linear and orderly fashion”
And now for something completely different
A man with nine legs.
no, no, stop that. that’s silly.
He ran away.
Thank you!
“Fronted by Canadian actress…………… she delivers a dead-pan avatar-like presentation of the most important areas of Python”
A tad corny, IMO. Despite the fact that YouTube videos are my least favorite way of learning technical topics, there are a few exceptions. I’ve found the channel Python Simplified useful and the presenter isn’t a pretend droid reading off a teleprompter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtvN8ad9N3g&t=38s
What is this trend of everything with sexy girls on youtube ? From drummer/guitarist to python and arduino…
Can’t we have regular hairy geeks in a basement so that we stay focus on the topic ?
Some of us would find hairy geeks in a basement distracting. But yeah, I get your point.
This is nothing new, it has been successfully done on Italian TV for decades. Talks about boring stuff are so much better con una bella ragazza…
Oh I don’t know. YT is good for explaining a single-stage pressure regulator or how to repair a refrigerator.
https://youtu.be/Kf3xc1BGYGo
I thought pretend droid was pretty funny.
But really check out the content. If you’re already good at Python, try checking out the later ones. You’ll really very likely learn something.
And maybe even laugh once. Or twice.
People who put their faces in front of the content and try to be very emotional/distracting when presenting technical topics make the videos a pain to watch.
It just grows stronger the more videos of that type you watch, even if the content may be ok. It’s not a theater performance, the presenter should disappear as much as possible.
It’s a bit like this often cited MS Office assistant, highly annoying and not helpful.
Well, I think some “true” emotion is okay, not forced, not over-the-top.
The instructor (calling it for what it is) needs to be enthusiastic about the subject (again, not in a contrived way) and not deadpan monotone.
I’m sure there are times when only deadpan monologue is proper, but I don’t want to see that all the time
I see a lot of video thumbnails on YouTube with guys making weird faces. Does that sort of thing really increase clicks? It sure doesn’t get any of mine.
I agree. If I really want to learn something, leave the theatrics out of it. Or at least if there are theatrics, have the person teaching it actually understand what they are teaching, not reading a script.
Life is the best python teacher.
More for fans… ;-D
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLih4ch-U2DiBbMoFK4ML9faT3k3MM2UQY
“In computer science, you start counting with 0, not 1”
Um, no, it’s an implemetation choice.
Sure. Because the smallest positive binary number is 1. /s
No, because Fortran. Or in more period-correct fashion, FORTRAN.
Before diving head-first into these “Awesome Python Video Tutorials”, consider these points:
1. What order are these YouTube Python tutorials in? Certainly they are not in logical order. The videos start off with “Learn Python with Socratica” on Mar 30, 2014, next is “Hello World in Python” on Apr 30, 2014, and the latest (#36) is “Iterators, Iterables, and Itertools in Python” on Sep 27, 2021. Huh?
So the 36 videos to-date are in chronological order from Mar 30, 2014 through Sep 27, 2021, that’s 7.5 years or 360 weeks. The tutorials start off logically with an Intro followed by a Hello-World example, then the latest (36th) tutorial is on Iterators (think: For-loops, sort-of). So it took them 7.5 years to get around to Iterators? Man, that is so logically out-of-order in my opinions!
2. Python 2.7’s end-of-life was initially set at 2015 then postponed to 2020. Python 3.0 was released on 3 December 2008 but took a long time to stabilize. Throughout the 7.5 years it took them to make these 36 Python tutorials there was a slow and blurry real-life shift between Python 2.x and Python 3.x. Python 2.x and Python 3.x are significantly different animals. So how about these Python videos, which are Python 2.x based and which are Python 3.x based? I can’t find a simple answer to that question. If the tutorials transitioned from Python 2.x to Python 3.x sometime over the 7.5 years to-date it took to release them, that is really bad for the new learners of today.
If you are a new Python learner, start with Python 3.x. Also familiarize yourself with the differences between Python 2.x and Python 3.x so you can understand and benefit from the huge corpus of legacy Python 2.x code that’s still around.