Python Development

Writing, running and reading code. Nothing assumed.

• Setting up, and running your first program hands on
  Editor, interpreter, and the browser fallback for students on a phone or a shared machine.
• Values, variables and types hands on
  Numbers, text, booleans; why "22" and 22 behave differently and where that bites.
• Conditionals and loops hands on
  Making decisions and repeating work — the two structures most beginner bugs live in.
• Reading an error message hands on
  Tracebacks are instructions, not punishment. Reading the bottom line first, and finding the line number.
• Functions and why code gets reused hands on
  Arguments, return values, and the habit of naming a thing once.

Holding data in memory and getting it on and off disk.

• Lists, dictionaries, sets and tuples hands on
  Which to reach for, and the cost of the wrong choice.
• Comprehensions and readable transformations
  Writing the short form without making it unreadable.
• Reading and writing files, CSV and JSON hands on
  The formats real work arrives in.
• Encoding, and why Urdu text breaks things hands on
  UTF-8 in practice — the bug every Pakistani developer meets and few are taught about.

The difference between code that runs and code that ships.

• Errors and exceptions on purpose hands on
  Catching what you can handle and letting the rest fail loudly, rather than swallowing everything.
• Testing with pytest hands on
  Writing the test that would have caught the bug you just fixed.
• Git, branches and a useful commit message hands on
  Version control as a working habit, not a submission ritual.
• Virtual environments and requirements
  Why 'it works on my machine' happens and how to stop it.

Storing data properly instead of in a text file.

• SQL you will actually use hands on
  SELECT, JOIN, GROUP BY, and reading a query someone else wrote.
• Designing a table that will not hurt later hands on
  Keys, indexes, and the cost of getting the shape wrong.
• Talking to a database from Python hands on
  Parameterised queries — and SQL injection demonstrated so it is never forgotten.

Consuming other people's services and exposing your own.

• HTTP, in the amount you need
  Methods, status codes, headers, and reading an API's documentation.
• Consuming an API, including the failure cases hands on
  Timeouts, rate limits, retries and the response that is not JSON.
• Building an API with FastAPI hands on
  Endpoints, validation and automatic documentation.
• Authentication and keeping secrets out of git hands on
  Environment variables, and what to do the day a key leaks.

Making it run somewhere other than your laptop.

• Scripting real work hands on
  Scheduled jobs, file processing, report generation, WhatsApp and email sending.
• Web scraping, and doing it lawfully
  Technique, plus robots.txt, terms of service and rate courtesy.
• Logging so a problem can be diagnosed later hands on
  The difference between a print statement and an operational log.
• Deploying to a server hands on
  Getting the project onto a VPS, running it under a process manager, and setting it to restart.

Before you start

• No programming experience needed
  This programme starts from the first line of code.
• Free: Python for Beginners
  The free mini-course covers roughly the first week. Useful, not required.

Where it leads

• Advanced Python
  Concurrency, packaging, performance and larger codebases.
• Full Stack Web Development (Python)
  Adds the front end and full web delivery.
• Machine Learning
  Python is the prerequisite; this is the route into modelling.

Roles this prepares you for

• Junior Python Developer
  Backend and internal tooling work.
• Automation Engineer
  Building the scripts and integrations a business runs on.
• Backend / API Developer
  Services behind web and mobile applications.

Interested in this programme?

Try the subject free first — there is no reason to pay before you know you like it.