I'm getting frustrated with learning Python 3

[SolarpunkFan]

So I'm trying to learn programming (for the billionth time it seems...) and I'm really frustrated.

I've had some success in learning concepts (statements, functions, variables, even some rudimentary understanding of arrays and objects, though not the syntactical usage of them via Python 3 yet). At the same time I'm feeling frustration over the fact that I'm not building interesting stuff with what I know.

The book I'm using is Python for the Absolute Beginner (3rd edition) by Michael Dawson. But it's rather verbose and I feel like it's a slog to get through and the challenges at the end of each chapter aren't all that interesting to me. I tried *Learn Python 3 in Y Minutes* but the syntax examples seem a little isolated insofar as where to use them in a program (again, my understanding of syntactical and language-specific quirks/pitfalls are far behind my conceptual understanding ).

Are there any programmers here who can suggest what I should do about these problems? Are there resources out there that can help? Should I do what a friend suggested and switch over to Second Life scripting for a while? Or should I just quit the idea of learning programming altogether?

[TheFeniX]

I took Pascal in High School. Just took a Python intro class which I could have tested out of if I just read up on the syntax changes. I'm probably not the best person to give advice, but any scripting/programming I've learned, I've found my retention is best when I'm making something. I took a programming Logic and Design class in college as well and my Python class went with Object Oriented Programming, which is essentially the same thing. So, that did help as well.

I made Pac-Man in high school. No score board, no ghosts, but you could eat the dots, it counted the dots, and registered (by ending the game) if you touched the walls. That's where most of my learning came from: come up with an idea and figure out what it takes to get that done. Even something as simple as making a calculator. A simple text adventure could work as well, I used to bang those out in my off-time on my TI-85. No parser, just multiple branching choices with some random number generation built in, but it taught me how to (try to) avoid spaghetti code.

You MIGHT be better off with a scripting system, but I can't judge that. Papyrus is a shitheap, but the limited scripting I've done in Skyrim had at least re-familiarized me with the concepts I learned years back. References, objects, modules/functions, that sort of thing. And what helped as well was digging through other, much more competant modders, functioning source scripts, following what they were accomplishing, and doing my own edits or even a parallel script for my own use.

That's how my brain works: reverse engineering something I know works and modifying that. I'm helpless when looking at a blank Notepad++ screen.

Programming, at least the most popular types, is mostly all a matter of syntax and what the language is built to do. So, if you can create something worthwhile in another system, many of those skills should transfer.

[Aether]

Same.

I use Python at work to automate lab equipment for measurements. I was really slow at scripting, and had to remember how to do for and while loops.

I have a Raspberry Pi3 at home and downloaded PyCharm for the IDE. I wanted to develop my own OBD II bluetooth reader for my car. It has certainly helped give me focus on what to learn.

[MKSheppard]

Python 3 is okay. I wish that some of the things that the language does could be clearer -- how to read 1/2/4 byte binary values from a file; etc.

Plus, I wish the executables you could build with Py2Exe or whatever were smaller than 6-8 MB.