hey
I decided to expand on my programming skills to increase chance of employability by learning different python frameworks, I have learned python itself but am going to try and learn 3 of the many frameworks django, flask and pyramid. any advice on making the learning easier, how to follow tutorials, so to learn instead of memorizing it. it is the first time I would be dwelling into web development. the things you have to do.
nice!
well, web stuff is my arch enemy.. i excel more at non-gui backend stuff. but i guess the same techniques apply.
one thing I like to do is find some simple code out there on github, download it, get it to run, then start to pick it apart. So, it could be some simple web app in flask for example. Now, instead of reading a tutorial and simply implementing it verbatim, you now have to do more investigative work. You can also go back through the commit history and "unravel it from the beginning". It's hard to do this with big apps, so find small tools/repositories and read the code, but also mess around with it, making tweaks and such.
I always have some project I implement when learning a new language, or in your case, framework. For most people it's a TODO app (TodoMvc) etc. For backend stuff it could be file parsers, irc bots, etc. As for TodoMVC, you'll probably be interested in this if you havn't found it already:
http://www.todobackend.com/they have backend versions of todo apps written in the frameworks you mentioned. Those would be a good resources. Also, i've done that todo-backend exercise in a few languages, it's actually worth it. They have some nice test page where you give them the url to your app, and it piece by piece helps you code it in a TDD (test driven development) style. So they ask you to respond to a GET / with all todos, and you implement it. Then they give you the next task.
I guess the common theme in those two approaches is the "do/tinker" technique. Memorization is very important, it allows you to just fly through a project when you don't have to check the docs. But in the early stages, writing a small project from scratch where you can't "easily cheat yourself" by looking up the answers, is important imho.
Tutorials are good though too.. After you've messed around and completed some small projects, just going on a tutorial binge can open up all kinds of new ideas/techniques that would have taken you so much longer to find. So I like binging on tutorials, just spending all day going through tons of them and jotting down things I want to really look into.
Lastly, i'd watch/star a few active repositories in github that cover what you are trying to improve. That way you get email notifications and such when people accept pull requests etc. You want to read commits to those projects daily. Even if you don't understand the architecture of the project, you just want to read those commits to pick up on things people who are professional with those frameworks are doing (their style, comments, techniques, tricks, libraries they use etc).
let me know if that helps! that's my 2 cents on it.
pc!
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