Automate the Boring Stuff with Python
by Al Sweigart
Key Concepts
Task Automation
Learn to write simple Python scripts that perform repetitive actions faster and more reliably than manual effort.
File Management
Programmatically organize, move, rename, and search through thousands of files and folders.
Web Scraping
Extract data from websites automatically, turning unstructured web content into usable information.
Data Manipulation
Automate interactions with spreadsheets, PDFs, and text files for efficient data processing.
GUI Control
Simulate mouse clicks and keyboard presses to automate interactions with any desktop application.
Action Items
Identify your most repetitive data entry or file organization tasks and write a script to automate them.
Use Python to clean and reformat messy datasets from various sources before analysis.
Automate the collection of public data from websites for your data science projects.
Generate automated reports by pulling data from spreadsheets and compiling them into PDFs or emails.
Set up scheduled Python scripts to run data processing or backup tasks automatically overnight.
Core Thesis
Python empowers anyone, regardless of programming experience, to automate tedious computer tasks and reclaim valuable time.
Mindset Shift
The book transforms your mindset from passively using software to actively programming your computer to work for you, making you a more efficient problem-solver.