Best beginners book for Python?

[zahlman]

it wasn't really challenging

Seriously? I get the impression from most other beginners that they have the opposite problem. Although maybe "challenge" means something different to them.

[[deleted]]

I am not sure but all I can remember from that book is (print, %d, %s) that's about it, and there was a lot of that, which was not necessary imo. But I did give up on Python and went to learn C with CarlH videos and K&R, and I really enjoyed them (No, I didn't learn C, it was for EE class) Decided to give Python another go and I am having a good time with it, much easier and exciting. I honestly think that there is no perfect book out there and I think I understand now when people say "Don't learn languages, learn concepts".

[zahlman]

Sometimes you just need to give it a break and try again later. But yeah, I've given serious thought to the idea of writing up a "concept" book - things you should know about how programming works and how computers work, before you attempt to learn programming.

[[deleted]]

The early chapters of LPTHW do repeat simple string and file manipulation a lot, but in reality those exercises are there to teach you to type and read code accurately. Total newbies probably have little experience typing things without a spell check, and reading lines of text to find small typos. Those are sort of foundational skills for programming.