Thoughts on Python? Tips?

I have a HUGE amount of respect for the people on this forum, so I thought maybe I could get your opinions to see how far off the mark I am.

I work in an environment which is becoming increasingly riddled with data scientists. The kind who are in their early-mid 20's and have multiple PHD's. The kind who discuss progress in the neural networks they're programming at home in their spare time. They're everywhere.

The rest of us are being pressed to pick up Python - many of whom are 'getting it' after just series of online tutorials. Many others, like myself, are not. I find it horribly unintuitive and struggle to get even the basic entry level stuff to work without hours of rage inducing focus. I've done numerous tutorials, watched videos, and posted on Python forums, and am really having a hard time. VBA is so much more readable and logical to me.

The only advantage I see with Python is that it can handle large files much more quickly (I'm not talking about using it for deep machine learning here, just processing basic data). I suppose having access to the libraries is nice, but how do you even know what's in them? Ugh.

Anyway, I'm just wondering if the challenges in converting your thinking from VBA to Python has left any of you bewildered, confused, and humiliated, as it has for me. Or have you been able to pick it up and do anything useful with it?

Thanks for any input!

Thanks for the link - and yes, that's part of it. My company is telling us to go to Python training, which I've done, but they have no recommended platform (python version & editor for windows), so I've been through a few trying to find one that works for me. There was no real explanation of the syntax in our training, either. Just "python is better than VBA now go to treehouse.com and do some videos. If you need more help, go to learningtree.com and codeacademy.com or ask somebody here for help."

I can't figure out what libraries have which functions, and what operations can be done on which objects (and because I'm not good with the python syntax and structure, I don't even know the right ways to ask for things -- very frustrating). In the past 3 months, I've been asked to work on 5 different projects, each of which COULD be done in Python, but after a couple of weeks, I'd just give up and do in VBA so they'd be done!

Anyway, I guess I'm in the minority of those people who just have a mental block against it or something. But I'm going to keep trying!
Thanks for your time :-)

AB33 - thank you for your reply. Interestingly, I'm also being asked to pick up Javascript, so I can help support another project. Haven't done much with it yet, and have been so put off of any/all programming because of my experiences with Python that I've been a bit of a procrastinator. I'm not a developer, engineer, or anything like that. I'm a career QA guy, who has picked up bits and pieces of VBA and SQL so I could build little desktop solutions. Until Python came into my life, I loved doing it - now I cringe when I touch the entrance door at the office complex. I just don't get the language!

You know, since I'm going to have to pick up multiple languages, and the UI seems to be pretty robust, perhaps I should go with Visual Studio. I'm lucky that my company has licensing for pretty much all of the more popular IDE's, so I can try out the full version.

Romano,
That would be the icing on the cake. With profession version of VS, you get the full monty.

I've had it for all of 11 minutes and I'm already about to throw my pc out the window!

All I want to do is write a script
print("Hello World") and see "Hello World" it some kind of console window. Not launch a command prompt and 'press any key to continue' - just like an "immediate" window in VBA.

All the new project options are for web development or machine learning - I'm not doing either!
Ugh.

Time to uninstall and keep looking for something that is simple, logical, and easy to use for people without a damn PHD!

AB33, yes, I did, and am grateful. I do apologize. My experience with Python has been an absolute nightmare from start to finish. I like the idea of having one IDE for vb, javascript, and python, so I'm going to try again tomorrow - too angry now to focus and be rational!

I started watching some of the videos on their help page,but none address the issues I'm trying to get past - perhaps I'm not just far enough along :-)

Appreciate your time and thoughts!

Well, I had to go ahead and uninstall it - just couldn't get it to even run the scripts I had already written a few weeks ago in notepad ... back to the drawing board. Again.

Thanks to all for your thoughts and recommendations! The good news is that I was able to preorder my headstone which saved my family a bunch of $. It reads, simply "Thanks Python!"

:-)

That's a very fair and excellent point. The language cannot be anywhere close to as horrible as I've made it out to be in my own head.... it really can't be!

I clearly have a mental block with Python... lately the mere mention of it evokes a visceral and borderline violent reaction (lately = past 14 months). I've tried, sincerely, to get it to work, repeatedly, and just cannot understand it. It's frustrating, humiliating, and honestly, is giving me reason to consider changing jobs (I've been with this company for 12 years, through quite a lot of ups and downs, but nothing comes close to this).

In any event, I am grateful for all of the recommendations from the fine people here - your willingness to spare so much of your time and the benefits of your experiences is inspiring and doesn't go unnoticed. Thank you again and have a great day!

Hi Buran, thanks for chiming in here as well - it's nice to see that there are people who can successfully make the leap between the two languages.

I've decided that it's time to delete everything related to Python from my PC and just walk away from it until I have an actual need. I've dismantled my internal support group, deleted my reference pages, and revoked my registration for additional training.

If my management insists, or if I have a problem than cannot be solved with VBA/SQL, then I may consider giving it another try - but until then, I'm simply done. I tried, a lot, but am sick of the daily humiliation.

I sincerely, and honestly appreciate all of the various recommendations here and on the python forum from people who are clearly better adapted for this kind of stuff than an old hound like myself :-)

Hi Buran,
IDEL is indeed a terrible IDE. This was the point I made in my first or second post. I will not make any further comment on suitability of Python language. I might or might not look in to it in the near future.

Hi Romano,
You may try to learn a different language- like JavaScript (JS). This might help you to release or unlock the mental block you have with Python. You do not need any special IDE or software (compiler) to learn JS. Notepad or Notepad++ will do.