[Tutor] Python Resources

[Mats Wichmann]

On 12/30/19 7:10 AM, Aaron Black wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I’m brand new to python and I’m trying to build a resource library and find
> the best books and online sites for learning python.
> 
> Can anyone recommend good books or web sites/blogs for learning python?
> 
> My general interest in learning this programming language is for work. The
> focused area would be around automation in dealing with files, some machine
> learning, and data analysis.
> 
> Any helpful resources in these areas, or for learning in general, would be
> greatly appreciated.

any general Python book would give you a good start - there are a ton to 
pick from, here's a place the Python community records ones they know about:

https://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonBooks

You can also browse around there and find other resources.

It's actually kind of daunting because there are so many it can be hard 
to pick.  Websites will pop up with titles like "18 Python programming 
books for beginners and veterans ..." instead of "The Three best Python 
books..."

In the list on the wiki there are some publishers that seem to publish 
an inordinate number of titles.  I'm going to be a bit rude and say 
quantity does not necessarily correlate with quality (there's a story 
behind that dig, but I'm not sharing it here).

It would probably be useful to have a curated site of the best of the 
best.  And there are such, but then you have to decide you trust the 
curators :)


For more advanced stuff, "automation ... files" might be something like 
Python for Devops, while there are numerous books and tutorials on 
Python for Data Science and Python for ML.


It's actually hard for us here to make any particular endorsements. 
Plus some list participants are authors themselves.  And we don't want 
to come off as favoring some over others, really - picking the right 
learning materials when there's so much choice does give you the chance 
to pick the ones that suit your learning style best [note: some course 
providers and book publishers allow a limited preview for free, which is 
nice to try out; others just plain are free but you have the option to 
buy a nice printed copy to support that author). For example, I 
personally just get irritated by courseware that wants to give you 
badges, set off little fireworks when you answer five in a row 
correctly, that kind of stuff - so I steer clear of those.  But that's 
just personal choice.