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Is learning programming worth it? Outside of a career, what can I do with programming? (self.python)

submitted 1 year ago by pedantichedgehog to c/python

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I learned a little bit of python back in college with the hope that it would give me a competitive edge in the field I hoped to enter. Lo and behold, I got a job in a different industry entirely and any knowledge of coding I once had became irrelevant.

Would it be worth it to pick up my python textbook again and self-teach in my free time if I don't want to make a career of coding? What exactly can python be used to create?

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[–] Killer_Tree 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I would argue it's worth having at least a passing knowledge of how Python works. It is a very simple yet powerful language that is used for a lot of applications.

Personally, I've utilized it at work to process data for reports that I would otherwise be doing in spreadsheets by hand. If you learn how to import .csv files, manipulate rows of data, and export back to a new .csv file then you will probably eventually find a use in any office you end up working at.

As a hobby, if you have any interest in AI art or AI large language model projects then knowing some basic python will be a huge help. Most of the open-source projects and their extensions use Python, and there are many times I've tried to use a GitHub tool but gotten an error. Knowing Python, I am able to track down and fix small issues about 80% of the time, which feels pretty cool.

Finally, even if you don't get much/any use out of Python, it's probably worth learning just so you understand how scripts, imported libraries, and basic programming logic works. Just having that baseline understanding will make you look like a rockstar when dealing with a companies proprietary software in many office settings.

[–] pedantichedgehog 6 points 1 year ago

Interesting food for thought, thanks!

[–] MoistBalls 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm still very new at Python but would it be possible to use it to automate updating Excel from a company website (sorta like JIRA or Projects) and vice versa?

[–] Killer_Tree 6 points 1 year ago

I don't use JIRA myself, but after a brief search it looks like you can use the JIRA Python library or pull data directly from the REST api fairly easily. I know there are several libraries and methods to interact with Excel using Python, so I am fairly confident your user case would be doable with some scripting.

The userbase of Python is so large that for almost anything you might want to do it's likely someone else has already worked out a solution and created a library for it. For everything else, you can make your own solution and share it for the next person with that same problem.