New - Need Help

[Thomas A. Bryan]

ahopkins at dynacare.com wrote:
> 
> In comp.lang.python, you wrote:
> >I dont have any prior compiled language programing experience(I know
> >HTML, that is it) and I am looking to start learning a language. I
> >was planning on making python my first. Is this a good idea? If it
> >is, does anyone know of any good beginnering online tutorials and/or
> >books?
> 
> There is a Python tutorial at the Python web site (www.python.org).
> A good book to start with is _Programming Python_ by Mark Lutz.

If HTML is his only experience, I would imagine that _Programming_Python_ 
would be much too steep.  My wife has found _Learning_Python_ to be rather 
difficult, too.  I would never recommend it to a beginner who does not have 
an experienced programmer at hand to answer lots of questions.  I think that 
_Learning_Python_ is a good introduction to Python, but it is IMHO a lousy 
book for someone who needs an introduction to programming.

Does anyone know whether the Sam's (Python in 24 Hours?) book is any better 
for a first-time programmer?  If not, I'll can post a bunch of notes and 
exercises that I wrote to supplement _Learning_Python_ for my wife.  

If interested, send mail to me.  tbryan at python.net

---Tom