The Self-taught Programmer: The Definitive Guide to Programming Professionally

I am a self-taught programmer. After a year of self-study, I was able to land a job as a software engineer II at eBay. Once I got there, I realized I was severely under-prepared. I was overwhelmed by the amount of things I needed to know but hadn’t learned yet. My journey learning to program, and my experience at my first job as a software engineer were the inspiration for this book.

This book is not just about learning to program; although you will learn to code. It’s about all the other things you need to know to program professionally that classes and books do not teach you. It’s a roadmap, a guide to take you from writing your first program to passing your first technical interview. I divided the book into six sections:

1. Learn to program in Python 3 and build your first program.
2. Learn Object-oriented programming and create a powerful Python program to get you hooked.
3. Learn to use tools like Git, Bash, package managers and regular expressions.
4. Study Computer Science fundamentals like data structures and algorithms.
5. Learn best coding practices.
6. Finish with tips for working with a team and landing a programming job.

The path is there. Will you take it?

Table of Contents

Part I Introduction to Programming
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Getting Started
Chapter 4. Functions
Chapter 5. Containers
Chapter 6. String Manipulation
Chapter 7. Loops
Chapter 8. Modules
Chapter 9. Files
Chapter 10. Bringing It All Together
Chapter 11. Practice

Part II Introduction to Object-oriented Programming
Chapter 12. Programming Paradigms
Chapter 13.  The Four Pillars of Object-oriented Programming
Chapter 14. More Object-oriented Programming
Chapter 15. Bringing It All Together
Chapter 16. Practice

Part III Introduction to Programming Tools
Chapter 17. Bash
Chapter 18. Regular Expressions
Chapter 19. Package Managers
Chapter 20. Version Control
Chapter 21. SQLite
Chapter 22. Bringing It All Together
Chapter 23. Practice

Part IV Introduction to Computer Science
Data Structures & Algorithms
Chapter X. Relational Database Design
Chapter X. Computer Architecture
Chapter X. Network Programming
Chapter #TK. Bringing It All Together
Chapter #TK. Practice
Chapter #TK. Testing
Chapter  #TK. Best Programming Practices
Chapter #TK. Bringing It All Together

Part VI Land a Job
Chapter X. Your First Programming Job
Chapter X. Working on a Team