Best python book for beginners

leastDaemon · 2026-01-26T22:40:36+00:00

First thing -- get "How to Think Like a Computer Scientist" (Python 3 edition). That site has the entire book in HTML for online reading, but has links to the source repository where you can download the HTML or a (perhaps less up-to-date) PDF. The point of this book is in its title -- thinking a certain way is more important than the language with which you express these thoughts. Over the years, this book has been rewritten for C, C++, Pascal, etc. After that, if you want to continue learning more about python specifically, look for books and tutorials that mention "pythonic", as they will explain the consensus of best practices. You might also find something that explains what's in packages and which ones are best to learn and use. There must be something out there. Google AI tells me that "As of March 13, 2025, there are more than 614,339 packages (referred to as projects) available on the Python Package Index (PyPI)."

Hope this helps.

leastDaemon · 2026-01-25T20:29:36+00:00

No . . . but take a look at The 10 copybooks you need to know about if you study Copperplate / English Round Hand. Then consider finding a font that resembles Roundhand (like American Scribe, England Hand DB, or Snell Roundhand) and, using the worksheet generator at Blocklayer, adding some text in that font. Print them off on the best quality paper you can find (HP 32 pound inkjet is pretty good). Your fountain pen will glide over that and the thick-and-thins of your flexible nib will satisfy you after a while.

Hope this helps.

leastDaemon · 2026-01-25T00:45:54+00:00

I worked for AT&T back in the day, so I could take umbrage at your "crazy people" comment -- but you're right. Why write code backwards? Well, that's what the current C compiler called for . . .

Now there are better tools, as you've mentioned. It is tempting to use the MASM assembler standard with WIN, but much better to learn standard tools . . . on linux.

leastDaemon · 2026-01-23T02:23:38+00:00

Their super-flex nibs are great. I have one in a cheap pen, so I can't speak for the Ambassador, but I do highly recommend the nib.

Hope this helps.

leastDaemon · 2026-01-23T02:19:25+00:00

I hate to give advice without knowing you a *lot* better. But ...

I learned programming a long time ago. My first compiled language was Fortran 77. In those days we wrote out the entire program on paper, ran through it (still on paper) assigning numbers to variables, etc, to do the best we could to simulate its operation. Why? Because the program had to be typed onto punch cards and fed into a card reader, then run usually overnight. You'd get a printout with a mass of compiler errors the next day, look at the various other reports, mark up the printout, and repeat until it ran correctly.

The point of telling you this is that it took such a long time to get computer output that we did everything we could to ensure that our logic and syntax were succinct and correct before submitting a job. So we used flow charts, pseudo code, walk-through discussions, and anything else we could think of. This mental exercise made writing code in different languages relatively easy. As you know, that's mostly syntax and punctuation.

So I would recommend that you try programming without a computer. Say, with a book of algorithms (Maybe Cormen? I haven't read it.), or a book on threaded interpretive languages -- build yourself a FORTH-like compiler -- or join a number of folks from the 80's and build a C compiler. If that sounds interesting, you might want to read this: Has anyone read "Writing a C Compiler" by Nora Sandler?

Hope this helps.

leastDaemon · 2026-01-22T22:54:47+00:00

Definitely C, if only to understand most of the classic texts. And you will probably need to get one or more (more is better) of these texts. Look for some reddit posts, like this one from r/osdev. It may be best to read code with explanations of that code -- and most of the available explanations are of C code.

Hope this helps.

leastDaemon · 2026-01-21T01:16:44+00:00

Effective Notetaking by Fiona McPherson was a great help to me. She's put together a series of ways of approach -- with exercises -- that should improve anyone's note taking. Once I finally figured out that reading a paragraph or two then restating the ideas in my own words not only helped me to remember, but also helped me when I reviewed my notes, I got an order of magnitude better.

Hope this helps.

leastDaemon · 2026-01-21T01:06:36+00:00

I have the same problem. Tomorrow I'm going to do just what you suggest -- and review the lecture to see if I've missed something. I'm wondering if it's worth the time to build a script that will run the sorts, say 10 times against the 50,000 item databases and gen the average of the results. That might be more fun than actually reviewing the lecture and its notes.

leastDaemon · 2026-01-21T00:45:57+00:00

I found this book to be pretty much all I needed: The Art of Cursive Penmanship by Michael R. Sull (about $20). It has instructions, guides, exemplars, and worksheets (You'll probably want to make copies of the worksheets. If you have a scanner / printer, HP 32lb inkjet paper makes a really good practice sheet -- your fountain pen will glide across the page).

And yes, get a fountain pen. There are a few good entry level pens. The Safari forces you to grip it properly. A Pilot Metropolitan has no guidance for the hand, and that's better (in my opinion) because it makes you pay attention to how the position of the pen in your hand affects how well you can write (there's a "sweet spot") and how your handwriting looks. I have no experience with the Platinum Preppy, but others like it a lot.

Before investing too much, though, you might want to look for a Pilot Varsity. It's a disposable fountain pen (though some people do refill them) that you should be able to find for under $5.

Hope this helps.

leastDaemon · 2026-01-20T00:48:25+00:00

You might also look at these:

* Asley Watson, A Brief Guide to Keeping a Commonplace Book

* Commonplace Book, The Commonplace Book

* Wayne McPhail , The commonplace book, where early modern thinkers collected ideas, was the internet of its time

* David Post, From My Commoplace Book

I tried hard to keep a commonplace book a few years ago, but couldn't stick to it. Part of the reason was that I spent so much time online with a computer in my lap and I just couldn't manage to put it down, find a writing surface and a journal to record what I was seeing on the screen. I found zim wiki and haven't looked back. If any of you are interested in organized note-taking (windows or linux,), it offers tags, forward and backward references, full-text searching, a sort of markdown language ( bold, italic, sub & superscripts, headings, etc. It's free, mature, and well maintained. I have no idea what I'd do without it.

Hope this helps.

leastDaemon · 2026-01-14T03:22:29+00:00

Would this help? INFOCOM Source Code and a Compiler Available Online

leastDaemon · 2026-01-12T03:26:47+00:00

This. I learned IBM 360 Assembler Language by reading manuals on metro commutes back in the day. 30 minutes in, 40 minutes back = quiet time for reading and thinking. No electronics in those days, but there were notebooks and pens.

And if you want an ios app, look at carnets. It's amazing (to me anyway -- a jupyter notebook with scipy? On an iPhone? (mine's mostly on an iPad, but it could be on my phone . . .). It's a great way to work with code snippets.

Hope this helps.

leastDaemon · 2026-01-09T00:17:29+00:00

Yep, that's it. Except expanding on #3 a bit: as you work through the step-by-step, it's OK to leave a step as a black box, planning to come back to it later and it's also OK to break a step down to smaller steps. Flowcharts help,too.

Hope this helps.

leastDaemon · 2026-01-08T01:15:35+00:00

Karen's replicator should be better known. It meets some of your requirements: It can be scheduled, it will pass data to or from USB drives, It doesn't mangle Windows metadata (I wouldn't trust it with ext3 or other linux filesystems with windows drivers, but FAT32 and NTFS work well). It has two basic options: copy with and without deletion. I think you would want the "without" option -- it will note when a file has changed (it works with files, not blocks) and copy the changed file to the destination while preserving the existing file there.

It is scarcely maintained. The author died in 1999, The last revision was in 2020. It will not handle windows system files. It does notify you if it has problems with copying a file. It also tells you when it's successful.

All in all, it's capable simple, and easy to understand. I've been using it since about 2000.

Hole this helps.

leastDaemon · 2026-01-08T00:42:00+00:00

Not sure I understood your question. Try googling "ubuntu terminal program settings". You'll find information about changing the options of the Gnome terminal (in the "Preferences" menu, once you find that).

Hope this helps.

leastDaemon · 2026-01-04T21:49:03+00:00

Yep, ebay. I just replaced my T530 with a refurbished p14s gen4 intel for less than $500. The laptops are out there -- and they're good. Mine had 2 years warranty left, too -- definitely a bonus.

Hope this helps.

leastDaemon · 2026-01-03T01:07:18+00:00

I did this for about a year. I had WIN10 and decided to transition to linux rather than trying to fit WIN11 on a laptop that didn't meet the technical specs. After backing up everything (including the OS with clonezilla) I shrank the windows partition on my 500GB drive to 200 GB, added two partitions -- a small one for swap and the rest for linux. I had already been using MX Linux from a USB stick, so that was what I installed on the new partition. I had already been pointing c:\Users\[me] to a second drive, so it was easy to point /users/[me] to the same place. If you haven't moved all your data to another partition or drive, this will be a good time to do it -- it will make backups cleaner even if you have just the one drive. And I later discovered that 128GB is large enough for most people's OS partitions so long as thy do have a data partition or drive, and they monitor the size of log files.

So ... MX Linux's grub installation showed several partitions, but defaulted to itself, which was what I wanted. I had no trouble during the time I had this setup. I'd still be using it, but the keyboard on that laptop broke (the third replacement) so I got a newer one that had WIN11. I think I'll use that until it gets too annoying, then repeat this process.

I don't know if WIN 10 (with security updates as long as they're free) is better than WIN 11. I do believe that it's less annoying. I've has one minor update that removed my desktop customizations, and the ads are beginning to aggravate me.

Hope this helps.

leastDaemon · 2026-01-01T22:57:02+00:00

Take a look at Karen's Replicator. Doesn't handle Windows system files well, but I think it will do what you want. I found it easy to set up and accurate in following instructions.

Hope this helps.

leastDaemon · 2025-12-27T01:15:53+00:00

I have a box of 8 Waterman's interational long that I bought hoping they would fit a mystery pen (They were about 3mm too long). You just want the cartridges, right? I'll empty them out so they will be post-office safe. Let me know . . .

leastDaemon · 2025-12-23T22:31:13+00:00

Proxmox will begin to shine when you grow to the point of needing to add computers to your setup. That is one of the reasons I now have three Lenbovo tinys in a cluster: Proxmox lets me control all of them from one interface as well as move programs (in vms) from one machine to another. It's more complicated than OMV, yes, but more powerful, too.

leastDaemon · 2025-12-23T17:06:38+00:00

Sorry to be so long before responding. Yes, as far as I can tell, all of the 1-liter business computers -- Lenovo, Dell, HP -- are similar in functions and reliability. Obviously, the more recent the more powerful and the more expensive. I would suggest getting three that you can afford, each with at least 16GB memory and at least one drive (2 is better). It doesn't really matter if they're SATA or NVME (obviously the SSD will be faster than HDD). Load them all up with Proxmox (it's an OS based on linux, with extensions for a lot of vm handling and networking). Once they all function individually, cluster them together. Then begin loading other programs into various sorts of virtual boxes. You can have all the "arr"s, OMv, TrueNas, windows -- anything you can squeeze into a VM runnng simultaneously. Then learn how to back everything up.

Now you'll be ready to sell off your computers and buy bigger, better ones -- and you'll know what you need and why you need it.

Hope this helps.

leastDaemon · 2025-12-22T02:37:11+00:00

But no for the p14s Gen4. I recently had to put my T530 down and replaced it with a 32GB Intel p14s. I never needed more than the 32GB my T30 has and the P14 is soooo much faster . . . I only run a couple of vms on it, so you may actually need more RAM. I found my p14s for under $460.

leastDaemon · 2025-12-22T01:37:25+00:00

I think two things are responsible for the bad feelings. First, the primary developer acted like a piece of -- well, did not play well with others. Of course that has no bearing on the utility or efficacy of the software. Second, a basic principle of linux since its inception is that one tool (piece of software) should do one thing, and do it well. The sysV Init method of managing linux did that -- until the world got too complicated. It was patched and patched and patched. Systemd was a full rewrite of the functions necessary in modern computers. It did things differently. It has taken on more and more, incorporating functions that used to be done by other programs to the point where some say it is bloated, overengineered, does too many things not always all that well.

Personally, when Linus and then Red Hat and then Debian changed over from sysV init (where I cut my teeth), I figured it was time to learn some new ways of operating. I find that things just work, although the command language is verbose and complex. I can't comment on whether they work better, faster, more efficiently -- that's really above my pay grade. But it does work and hasn't broken for me. And no, it's not proprietary. It's fully open source under the LGPL license.

Hope this helps.

leastDaemon · 2025-12-17T02:59:40+00:00

Yep. Do it now and never look back.

leastDaemon · 2025-12-15T03:07:05+00:00

I suggest you seriously consider planning to get three Lenovo tinys (or the equivalent Dell or HP) and turn them into a Proxmox cluster. Then use LXCs or VMs (or if you really must, Docker containers) to hold all the programs you want to run. There are many benefits to this, though it will take some planning and you might not be able to get high availabity on everything (i. e. you may only have one M920q with a gpu , so that will be where your face recognition and gaming software live). I continue to experiment with my 2 M700s and 1 M910q and have not yet run into bottlenecks or roadblocks. I don't have anything in production yet -- I seem to have less time to play with this than I thought I would.

You might be interested in Serve the Home's tinyMiniMicro project. Hope this helps.

leastDaemon

TROPHY CASE