Python Practice Resources

Learning to program is like learning a musical instrument, a martial art, or any other skill or sport. After gaining the initial mastery over concepts and syntax, practice is key in reinforcing the knowledge as well as building on it by attempting problems of increasing challenge.

Here is a curated list of free online resources and books that you can borrow from the library or buy. These have programming exercises of varying levels and most also have solutions. Note that this list is more geared for practicing Python and exploring it further rather than learning it from scratch.

  • Introduction to Python Click on “Python Essentials.” Basic and intermediate concepts are briefly explained along with examples and exercises.
  • Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python More suitable for the intermediate level. Guides reader to develop interactive games of medium and high complexity. It can be fun to download the source code, make changes and improvements. No exercises.
  • Snakify.org  Website with concise explanation of Python concepts and syntax which are followed by byte sized exercise problems. Create a free account to save work done. A good practice site for those planning to take part in competitive programming later.
  • Practice Python Interesting exercises with creative description of the problem. Basic to intermediate. The projects make you write small exercises that get re-used in a bigger project.
  • codingbat.com This is a project by Nick Parlante, a computer science lecturer at Stanford. The site has live coding problems to build coding skill in Python or Java. Create a free account to save your work. Solutions are not provided in the website but it has some summary of concepts and videos explaining the trickier problems.
  • Coding Projects in Python – This is a book that has examples and guided projects ranging from easy to medium. The projects are text-based and graphics based (IDLE, turtle, tkinter). The book is also available in the San Jose Public Library (only print version). Suitable for beginners and ages 10-13 years.

If you need help such as deciding which resource to start with, or are looking for a different kind of practice program set, send email to code@evcomputing.com. I would be happy to help.

Have fun coding! Seeing the program instantly output what you instruct it to can get addictive!

– Fatima Dash