Learning Python

This post is from July 2025, I had to update the TIOBE index image to make the post more up-to-date.

If you’re a Software Engineer, you know just how important and prevalent Python is.

Here’s an image of the TIOBE index page from February 2026

I’ve been working on some Agentic AI experiences and after putting out learning the language for a long time, I finally caved and learned the language. Having written Ruby code for over a decade, picking up Python was fairly straightforward.

I’ve written several Python scripts in the past. Even in the recent times, I was able to write a lot of code assisted by LLMs. It’s fascinating knowing how little you need to know to put in a non-trivial amount of contributions towards a project. After a while, I hit my productivity limits and learning the language was the only way to go beyond. It bothered me that I was building software, writing code in a language that I wasn’t fully comfortable writing by hand. So, I decided to change that. I think it’s a valuable investment of time. I highly recommend.

What I like

1. Python’s native support for decorators is such a helpful feature. Many packages use decorators as part of their APIs and it’s nice to use them.
2. Immense support for AI development; this is the main reason I chose to learn the language.

What I don’t like

1. In general, I’m not a fan of indentation/space delimited languages. They just feel weird writing.
2. API names are bad. I’m a big believer in naming your identifiers well in your code.
3. There are ways you can achieve something in very few unreadable lines of code.

Where to begin

There’s a ton of python learning material online. YouTube videos, websites, courses etc. Python’s Getting Started page lists a lot of these resources. Personally, I’ve found the Python Tutorial page very helpful. That was my starting point to learn the language. If you’re more comfortable learning from videos, this video from FreeCodeCamp is also a great starting point.