Hello! My name is Mikhail Emelyanov, I am embedded software engineer, and I was inspired to write this little roadmap on the capabilities of Python language by a certain commonality among the existing Python tutorials found on the web.
The usual suggestions to study, say, “Algorithms and Data Structures” or “Databases” are especially jarring. You can spend years studying these topics, and even after decades you'd still be able to find something you didn't know yet even without ever venturing outside the scope of Algorithms!
Using video game analogies, we can say that novice programmers often stand on the shore of the lake of boiling lava with an island with the ever-coveted jobs in the center, while the islands in between, which you have to jump on, gradually increasing your skills in successive mini-quests, are either missing, or arranged haphazardly, or their fairly smooth sequence breaks off, never having managed to get you any farther from the shore. Let's try to build a path of hint islands, a number of which, although not without effort, will finally allow us to reach our goal.
The roadmap is very easy to use. Just as you would in a normal text, go from left to right and from top to bottom. If you're just starting to learn Python, follow the green sections of the roadmap. If your accumulated experience, curiosity, or necessity pushes you deeper, start exploring the sections marked in gray. Orange marks the topics that require in-depth study, those are better to tackle (at least without digging especially deep to begin with) on the third pass.
This article definitely contains mistakes and inaccuracies of different calibers, and of course, many required subsections are missing; so, if you notice any of these, feel free to comment, and if you feel the Force, you're welcome to fork the GitHub repository with the roadmap's source code and contribute whatever you feel is necessary; all corrections and additions are strongly encouraged. It also contains all the parts of the map in Mermaid diagram format, as well as png/svg illustrations.
When diving into Python, don't forget the excellent official documentation at docs.python.org. By studying it, at least in brief, and gradually reading deeper into the right sections, you will be able to see that many of the “hacks”, “findings” and other obscure matters have long since been considered, described and have detailed examples of use.
I would also recommend leetcode.com for learning basic Python syntax to the fullest extent. If you filter the tasks by “Easy” level, and then add an additional sorting by the “Acceptance” column, you'll be presented with a straightforward primer with smoothly increasing task difficulty, rather than the intimidating competitive platform.
Well, that’s enough stalling for the moment. Let's get started!