Diving in to Python - Best resources?

[Terry Reedy]

On 1/21/2014 11:00 AM, Rustom Mody wrote:
> 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

Definitely. I once worked out how to do nonlinear regression with a 
spreadsheet, after doing it with Basic (and later C).

> 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

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy