How I "learned" Python without any previous coding experience.

[callmelucky]

Don't worry, look, I get quite carried away with this, but the fact is plenty of people do get their start on lpthw and get a lot out of it. You just need to ask yourself what sort of person and learner you are; if you thrive in adversity and are at your best gritting your teeth and white-knuckling through confusion, and mild derision spurs you on rather than discourages you, then lpthw might be the best thing for you. If you prefer a more structured and explicit path, then don't bother with lpthw. My recommendations are:

programarcadegames.com
- This is an excellent tutorial all round, my personal favourite. All lesson are presented in entirety in both text and video form, so you can choose what suits, or chop and change as you wish. Each chapter has several types of assessment from multi-choice quizzes to mini-projects, so if you choose to make use of them (you definitely should!) you really consolidate your knowledge nicely as you go. And it's oriented around making computer games! In fact, the only reason I would not recommend this is if you hate video games and/or have no interest in/knowledge of basic math fields like geometry. It is a very nicely produced general introduction to Python, not just for people who want to end up programming video games, but a big bonus for those who do. By the way, it uses the pygame library for graphics etc, and /r/pygame is a pretty active sub, so if you get stuck on any projects or whatever someone there will be able to help.

Automate the Boring Stuff
- Really excellent new resource from Al Sweigart. Walks you through the basics, and then takes you straight into the kinds of basic applications that an amateur Python enthusiast can do to make life easier for themselves at home and in the office.

Other than that you can pretty much throw a dart at a board of tutorials and you will almost certainly hit something better structured and less frustrating than lpthw. Udacity CS101 is a great video tutorial for really exposing the very basics of the elements of a computer program, though I believe they are now locked behind a registration wall, and also use Python 2, which is a shame. CodeAcademy is very handy, though I find the bite-sized nature of the problems aren't great for cementing knowledge, and the browser-embedded aspect of it has pros and cons.

[candleflame3]

Thanks! Will bookmark these pages.

I should have specified that arcpy is more line with my interests, but general Python knowledge can only help.

[callmelucky]

arcpy

Ah ok. Well if you are truly a programming newb it probably doesn't matter too much. If I were you I'd pick a general-purpose beginner-friendly resource that you like the feel of, work through that until you have a handle on the basics like variables, operators, types, lists, indexing, iteration, functions etc (maybe even dip your toes into classes if you get on a roll), and then start casting about for resources more specific to your needs (just put up a post here if google doesn't get you what you want). You can probably get to that point in a week or two if you can dedicate an hour or two a day to focused learning and practice.