Introducing: PyMentorAI

I love computer programming. I do it for work, for personal projects, and even for fun. I love the feeling of being able to harness the power of technology to do amazing things, like making daunting tasks effortless and accomplishing huge results with lightning speed.

People see me code. Some of them are coders themselves. Many are not. I’ve frequently been told variations of: “It’s so cool that you can do this. I wish I could code. I wish I knew how.“

I never thought I would have a way that I could actually help these people. Although I love to teach, I simply don’t have the capacity to tutor everyone. But one day, I thought: maybe there was something I could actually do. It wasn’t long before the idea of PyMentorAI was born.

The concept is straightforward: an online course where self-paced learners read through pre-written lessons and absorb a curriculum. (I decided early on to have no videos; I knew from experience that would be way more time-consuming both to prepare and to learn from.) But there are a few things about PyMentorAI that make it different from a textbook on a screen:

• The main flagship feature: you have a personal AI tutor by your side, ready to assist you as you learn. Sure, you can ask it questions if something in the lesson confuses you. But it can do so much more. The tutor can:
  • Expand on content beyond what’s in the lesson
  • Suggest practice problems and challenges
  • Offer assistance when stuck on a programming exercise
  • Give stories and jokes related to the topic
  • Provide tips and caution points where learners typically get stuck
  • And more…
• Not only that, but you get to choose your tutor too, from a selection of different personalities. All are fun in their own way!
• There are practice exercises everywhere, in every lesson, complete with a box to write your code in right there and get instant feedback on whether it works or not (and why).
• There are more lengthy review quizzes spaced across every few lessons, with a wealth of personalized feedback from your tutor (who, by the way, remembers your results and can make reference to it in the chat as well as future quiz feedbacks).
• There is an in-built gamified progression system where you can earn badges for achieving different accomplishments (not all of them related to your ever-advancing programming skill!) which, in turn, allow you to progress in ranks and levels.
• All in all, it’s actually really fun!

I really tried hard to make the experience as delightful as possible. I’ve gone through too many online tutorials and classes where the user interfaces, however functional, made going through the content a dreaded and cumbersome experience. My goal was to stay as far away from that as possible, while never compromising on content.

I worked really hard on this. I am having a lot of fun doing it and I’m learning a tremendous amount myself along the way. I would love it if this tool would actually help people learn to write code.

Check it out yourself! www.pymentor.ai

P.S. Tell Ray I said hi!