There are practically infinite resources to learn Python, from Coursera courses to YouTube tutorials to browsing through GitHub repositories.Your time, however, is finite, so it’s crucial to find the courses that’ll make a difference. Now, you can use the same Python training materials used by the National Security Agency — the secretive US government agency.

Backstory

The NSA is notoriously tight-lipped, so how is it that we can access their Python training materials?Chris Swenson, a software engineer, filed an FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request with the NSA for access to its Python training content, receiving a 400-page document of their training course.

The Course

You can access the scanned, OCR’d documents on the Internet Archive.You can complete the COMP 3321 training course through a “full-time, two-week block,” with 10 modules a block.The course has a very rich table of contents, highlighting the great depth you’ll go into. You’ll start with Python basics, making your first program in week 1. You’ll learn about topics like:

• Variables and FunctionsFlow ControlContainer Data TypesFile I/ODevelopment EnvironmentsOOP

… and more, just in the first week. A number of external resources are given in the course, making it pretty comprehensive. In further weeks, you’ll learn about topics like collections, command-line arguments, logging, hashes, regex, SQL and Python, and so much more.

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