I wanted to learn how to code but I have a very specific goal in mind. Now I’m happy to put the hours in as I do find this very interesting but this truly will be more of a hobby for myself.
I am specifically looking to try and build a bot that can look at past football(soccer) data and try to predict the outcome of future matches. I’ll be looking to try and refine this over time to make it as accurate as possible (if at all possible).
The problem I’m having is knowing where to start! I have a very basic knowledge of HTML5 but beyond that I’m a complete novice. I do struggle with adhd but have become somewhat fixated on this idea over recent months and would feel a great sense of accomplishment in seeing this project through to completion.
Please if anyone could give me an idea on where to begin and which courses to choose I would be eternally grateful!
With the caveat that what you’re trying to do is impossible to any degree of accuracy beyond extremely obvious probabilities* any programming language is fine. It maybe seems like a good task for learning to program. Historical data is fairly easy to get hold of, in particular recent data (2000s onwards basically) is extremely easy to get hold of. Python, JavaScript and Java probably have the most amount of learning materials, though just SQL would work (you probably want that data shoved into a database). But then you need to figure out how you’re going to analyse the data, which isn’t programming (it’s statistics). Then that informs how you structure the data so that you can ask questions of it using programming.
* Just to stress: there are basically only two exceptions to prediction being impossible beyond “the much more well resourced team will probably win”:
you have the ability to bribe players & refs with impunity
you are a dictatorship and you control the domestic league
Nothing else works; even if a team has access to, say, the full resources of a rich nation state, if they play fair they can only weight things in their favour.
Hey there, Dan and thank you for your reply! I recognize that building a bot with any degree of real accuracy is virtually impossible but I thought it would just be fun to try regardless. I love football and figure this would just add another layer of enjoyment to the game for me from a different angle.
Python seems to be the most accessible language from what I’ve seen and since it was on your list I figure I’ll give it a go!
I’ve decided to just start from the beginning and actually try to learn python in earnest then use that knowledge to build the bot. I see it as a win win because I will hopefully have a much better understanding of python even if the bot I attempt to build fails miserably!
It’s a good project! Actually having something that functions once complete is impossible, but getting to that complete point is extremely doable and seems like a really good task (covers a fair few concepts and should keep interest). Python seems a v good choice as well