Python exercises to hone your skillsIs there a place with little coding projects you can do to hone your skills? Preferably with answers to compare your code to and/or look at if you can't figure it out.
a good example of such a site is http://www.hackthissite.org, which has little web security tutorials to help you learn about vulnerabilities and ways people might hack a (your) website.
For me one of the biggest things when becoming familiar with new modules etc is trying to use them and looking at other people's code. Unfortunately many times there is no sample code in the documentation.
edit: Here's what I've found so far, organized by difficulty...
Havn't found any
ACCEPTED]
Python Challenge [1]
Project Euler [2] - when you answer a question, you are able to see and discuss other peoples solutions.
ACM programming challenges [3]
Some python problems focusing on science / math [4]
[1] http://www.pythonchallenge.com/Pyschools [1]
This website has 100 over practice questions for learning python.
[1] http://www.pyschools.comI honed my Python skills by participating in
PyWeek
[1]. It's a competition to make a video game in one week with Python. It's a friendly competition, the people are very helpful, and its a great way to get motivated to learn general, object oriented Python. Many of the entrants code their games in PyGame, a 2D (mostly) game library for Python.
Most of the programmers I've worked with have at some time entertained the idea of making video games, and it's how a lot of us got into the industry to begin with. Python + game programming = fun while learning.
http://osix.net/modules/geek/ is good for random coding challenges, you also can solve in a language of your choice.
Try to solve Google Code Jam [1] problems in python. Small and big input files. Start with practice contest then move on hardest contest, there are really hard problems ;)
[1] http://code.google.com/codejam/Check out Python Koans [1] !
The idea is to make some unit tests pass, step by step. It is actually quite fun to do (although a bit basic).
Here is the description :
[1] https://github.com/gregmalcolm/python_koansPython Koans is a port of Edgecase's "Ruby Koans".
Python Koans is an interactive tutorial for learning Python by making tests pass.
Most tests are 'fixed' by filling the missing parts of assert functions. Eg:
self.assertEqual(__, 1+2)which can be fixed by replacing the __ part with the appropriate code:
self.assertEqual(3, 1+2)Occasionally you will encounter some failing tests that are already filled out. In these cases you will need to finish implementing some code to progress. For example, there is an exercise for writing some code that will tell you if a triangle is equilateral, isosceles or scalene.
As well as being a great way to learn some Python, it is also a good way to get a taste of Test Driven Development (TDD).
Albeit the ICFP Programming Contest [1] is not really for little coding projects, the last problems were always interesting and you can compare your python program to programs in other languages.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICFP_Programming_ContestFWIW, Google have started a " code university [1]" and it contains a very nice section about python [2], with written material, video lectures and some exercises...
[1] http://code.google.com/edu/Just found this: http://singpath.appspot.com/about
Seems to take you through levels of problems to solve with Python, in a game fashion. Haven't tested it yet.
