New - Need Help

[Jason Cunliffe]

Hi Doug

Good luck !
Python is a great language and supported by a really nice community.

I have tried a number of Python books, being from an design&art not
programming background.
Here is my take on the books and help for new learners:

The docs and online stuff are great.
Go through all the intro articles you can find...some starters are at
http://www.pythonlabs.com/pub/www.python.org/doc/Intros.html

Cameron Laird is a very good writer:
http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/comp.lang.python/python.html

Stephen Figgins has been active recently:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/q/Python_News

Both of these people's work helps one to see Python in context..

The nicest books I recommend for beginners:
1. The Quick Python Book by Daryl Harms and Kenneth McDonald
2. Python Programming on Win32 by Mark Hammond & Andy Robinson

Obviously #2 is not so good if you are using Linux, but it is a very nicely
written book.
These are very nicely written with good introductory chapters.

There is an excellent cheap little Pocket volume by O'Reilly called 'Python
pocket reference' $6.95

'Learning Python' by Mark Lutz and David Ascher is also good but after the
others, it woudl be appreciated much more.

'Programming Python' by Mark Lutz is far heavier going. I found it much more
confusing than illuminating. There is much knowledge contained within but it
assumes lots or prior experience from the reader and spends a lot time with
comparisons and tricky stuff which were wasted on me. Some others I know
have had same reaction.
Perhaps later on I will appreciate it better...

hth
 Jason
________________________________________________________________
Jason CUNLIFFE = NOMADICS['Interactive Art and Technology'].DesignDirector

<dmw16 at home.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.971927388.1464.python-list at python.org...
> 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?
> thanks,
> -doug wardell
>
>