So you want to learn to code

Connect with resources that will help you learn Python & Django

I don't have a formal coding background. I have a Bachelor's and a Master's in English. My first job out of college was selling wedding dresses. My first job out of grad school was selling books. I don't do a ton of coding in my spare time. I was incredibly fortunate to find a job that paid me for the time they spent teaching me to code, and then placed me with a department in that organization. Even though positions like that are rare (though they really shouldn't be), I learned that you don't need to have a formal computer science education in order to build websites. Now, I give talks at tech conferences about how my background in the liberal arts makes me a better developer.

📚 In fact, many of the core developers of Python and Django don't have a formal CS education!

A thing that happens a lot is this:

  • 😁 A friend learns that one of their friends or colleagues is interested in getting into tech.
  • 📱 That friend asks me if they can connect me with this person.
  • 👋 I say, Of course! I love getting to know new people and helping them break into a new skill and possibly a new career.
  • 💌 I write an email that contains much of the information you see on this site. This usually involves digging up the last time I wrote an email like this, so I don't have to hunt for all the links again.

So I thought, Why not make a website with all that information on it? Why not just point people to this page, and let them follow up with me if they need to after that? So here we are!

Inspiration comes from the What's Next? chapter of the Django Girls tutorial, and from the PyLadies Resources page.

Situations you might be in

You have no prior coding experience

TAKE SOME TUTORIALS

Take some tutorials. All of the ones listed below are free online (though feel free to buy the book, when it's available, or make a donation to the author for their work).

  • 💖 Django Girls Tutorial → Start with this one. It assumes absolutely no prior knowledge, and will teach you how the internet works, HTML, CSS, Python, and Django. By the end of the tutorial (which takes about 8 hours start to finish) you'll have a fully working blog written in Django!
  • 🦄 The Django "Polls" Tutorial → Assumes some prior knowledge of Python and HTML. Some of this will be review from the Django Girls tutorial, but a lot of it will be new, or will go a little deeper than the Django Girls tutorial.
  • 🐍 Learn Python the Hard Way → This pure Python tutorial will teach you the parts of Python you didn't learn in the prior two tutorials.
  • 📈 Automate the Boring Stuff with Python → This book is free online (and also available for purchase as a hard copy), and will show you some ways you can use Python to make your life or current office job a lot easier.
  • 🌻 This Twitter Bot tutorial is a fun way to learn some Python and do something totally frivolous with it.
  • 🐐 Obey the Testing Goat → This is the online version of Harry Percival's Test-Driven Development with Python book. The online version is free but the hard copy book is excellent and well worth it.

ATTEND SOME MEETUPS IN YOUR COMMUNITY
  • 🌎 Meetup is your friend! Search for "Python" or "Django" in your city and see what comes up.
  • 🙋🏽 Find out if your city has a PyLadies chapter.
  • 📢 No luck? PyLadies Remote has monthly free online workshops!
  • 🗣 Get together for a Weekly Python Chat

ATTEND A TECHNICAL CONFERENCE NEAR YOU
  • 🌏 The PyCon website has a list of all the Python conferences worldwide.
  • 🔔 DjangoCon US and DjangoCon Europe are friendly, accessible, small Django conferences that offer significant financial aid to attendees who are underrepresented in the tech industry. DjangoCon US generally happens in mid-to-late summer, and DjangoCon Europe is generally in late spring.

ATTEND A FREE OR LOW-COST WORKSHOP IN YOUR COMMUNITY
  • 🙆🏻 You know what's better than doing the Django Girls tutorial online? Doing it in person with friends! Sign up for the Django Girls mailing list to be notified when there's a new, free workshop in your city.
  • 💻 See if there's a Girl Develop It chapter in your city. Their whole mission is to provide low-cost programming workshops for women.

LISTEN TO A PODCAST ABOUT PROGRAMMING & DEVELOPMENT
  • 🎧 The Talk Python To Me podcast is a great way to hear how other developers talk about their work and to learn more about the Python language.
  • 🐍 Trey Hunner's Weekly Python Chat is a live chat for Python developers.

START ASKING QUESTIONS ON TWITTER, IRC, OR SLACK
  • Use the #python, #django, #djangogirls, and #pyladies hashtags to ask questions!

CONTRIBUTE TO AN OPEN SOURCE PROJECT

Start by making corrections to documentation & tutorials.

  • 💡 The Don't Be Afraid to Commit tutorial will guide you through making your first commit to an open source project. All you'll do is add your name or initials to the list of everyone else who has done this tutorial, but along the way you'll learn about branching, pull requesting, merging, and using git and GitHub!
  • 💾 Check out this writeup of an Open Source workflow for tips on taming git when contributing.
  • 🐝 PyBee is an open source Python project, and its maintainers are eager to mentor new developers.
  • 🍪 Cookiecutter is a set of open source projects that provide awesome templates in several languages for different kinds of projects. Its founders also wrote Two Scoops of Django, and would love to mentor you through your first commit.