"Interactive Programming in Python" is one of the best courses on Coursera, and one of the best Python courses. This course uses an interesting way to get you to love Python: videogames. You will slowly work your way up the "Python ladder" by implementing one small project each week, consisting of a videogame. Whether is Black-Jack or Memory or Pong, it's a fun way to learn a new programming language. The most interesting part is that you can actually code your python project online, using CodeSkulptor, an online Python development tool created by one of the teachers on this course, Scott Rixner.
These are the mini-projects I developed during the course.
These are not here for you to copy. These are here for your reference. I strongly encourage you to take this course and work on these on your own. They're especially aimed at the beginners in Python.
- Python 2.7 (they'll probably work in Python 3, but they need a bit of adjusting)
- SimpleGUITk library - the course uses a custom library called Simplegui, but that library is only available in CodeSkulptor
- SimpleGUICS2Pygame - an alternative to SimpleGUITk; used in week 8 because SimpleGUITk on Linux has some problems with loading sound files from URLs
- Week 1: Rock, paper, scissors, lizzard, Spock - a gentle introduction to python and conditionals
- Week 2: Guess the number - introduces the "frame", input fields and events
- Week 3: Stopwatch - introduces the timer and the canvas, and string manipulation
- Week 4: Pong - who doesn't love Pong? Introduces drawings to canvas and collisions. Also, introduces a bit the concept of lists and touples
- Week 5: Memory - nice card game; teaches you how to draw images on the canvas
- Week 6: Black jack - you know what it is
- Week 7: Spaceship - things get serious. You'll learn about movement, friction, sprite animation
- Week 8: Rice-rocks - the final projects is an adaptation of a game called Asteroids.