It's really surprisingly difficult for someone who has been programming for a long time to write about programming at a level appropriate for real beginners. The first time I taught a class full of beginners at Neumont, I tried to take things as slow as possible. Then I spent the next week covering the material from the first day even slower.
So when the UGIC asked me to recommend a book to get for the participants in the Introduction to Python, I looked at all the ones I could find, but they all either assumed too much existing knowledge or covered material that would just confuse a beginner. Often both. But then Michael Bernstein pointed me to Python for Dummies.
If you're looking to teach beginners, or you're a beginner yourself, Python for Dummies is by far the best option. There's a few sections that are strikingly inappropriate for a book at its level (new-style classes!?) but it's still much, much better than any of the other books on the market in this respect. As a bonus, it's also one of the few that covers Python 2.5.
So when the UGIC asked me to recommend a book to get for the participants in the Introduction to Python, I looked at all the ones I could find, but they all either assumed too much existing knowledge or covered material that would just confuse a beginner. Often both. But then Michael Bernstein pointed me to Python for Dummies.
If you're looking to teach beginners, or you're a beginner yourself, Python for Dummies is by far the best option. There's a few sections that are strikingly inappropriate for a book at its level (new-style classes!?) but it's still much, much better than any of the other books on the market in this respect. As a bonus, it's also one of the few that covers Python 2.5.
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It's free at ibiblio.org, here:
http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCSpy/
Like ESR, I had rejected Python a couple of times in the past because of what I saw as a radically different syntax (the whole indentation thing mainly) but after I read the foreward of this online book, I was hooked. After finishing the book, I was convinced. Python is a keeper--I gave up Java and Perl and haven't looked back (ymmv, and to each his own, and all that)
What's your take on HTTLACS as compared to Python for Dummies?
It also never really covers anything really Python-specific. This is fine for its purpose, but for practical use you'd want something that (eventually) covers things like list comprehensions, generators, etc.
I recently started up with this book, and am posting up my experiences with it in my own blog here: http://cecilsunkure.blogspot.com/
I actually highly recommend this book, it's tiered in such a way that seems perfect. The example code and projects in the book are also exceptionally useful for working on yourself. Since the example code is documented so extremely well, I am able to gain a pretty good understanding of every aspect of the code presented in the book. A must read for anyone interested into coding games.
http://pythonprojectwatch.blogspot.com/2011/06/master-python-and-tdd-through-python.html
The Quick Python Book
It's great for beginners