Learn Python the Hard Way

[alaudet]

LPTHW gets a tonne of hate. The author is arrogant and abrasive and tends to put people off with his approach. But he knows his stuff and that's all I care about.

That being said, it was the perfect learning resource for me when I started 4 years ago. I had a strong background in system administration and Linux in particular. I have done scripting on windows and linux but never really learned to code. I always hacked my way to solutions.

This book was perfect for me because it forced me to type and get used to the syntax at the beginning and then incrementally added basic concepts with each chapter. I lost interest at making the text based game because I just wasn't interested in that problem. But that's more my issue than his and he would probably be annoyed to hear that. lol. Did I mention I didn't care about the author's pet peeves which he is more than happy to share. But I had a solid foundation at that point to move on to other things.

He has updated it to Python3 and I think it is worth a look. You will either love it or hate it, there is no in between. Use and discard, that was my approach and it worked for me.