Diving in to Python - Best resources?

[Rustom Mody]

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 1:04:16 AM UTC+5:30, Matt Watson wrote:
> Getting in the habit of dropping in a google group for any new project - 
> everyone tends to be so helpful.

> I work in the automotive sales industry(management) and find myself
> doing so many day to day tasks that could easily be automated. I'm a
> very tech saavy person, but after running in fear from a Javascript
> class in undergrad 8 years ago I haven't ever looked back. I simply
> had no interest because I saw no applications.

> Now that I have a solid career I see SO many applications for
> programming in my industry alone. Automating data
> movement/calculations from websites, spreadsheets, pricing, etc will
> be my primary use.I'm OK saying I didn't retain 1% of what I
> learned in the Javascript class, I've dabbled in HTML, I've tweaked
> code in Excel macros or AutoIt scripts, but I'd classify myself as a
> complete beginner in programming.

It looks like 
1. You are familiar with spreadsheets
2. Your work is spreadsheet-like

Why not develop that into a bigger strength?

Most people -- even those using spreadsheets -- dont seem to think of
the spreadsheet macro language/VBA as a programming language but it
is and it may well be all you need.  This is written by one of the
biggest names in programming languages today

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/simonpj/Papers/excel/excel.pdf