Python from the Very Beginning: With 100 exercises and answers

I picked up two beginners books on Python programming and this is the better of the two. Starts with the basics and builds from there.

I write Python code professionally and this is now my first recommendation when someone asks how they can learn Python. There are clear code and console examples on every page, so you know exactly what you should see on your computer if you're going through the book on your own. It starts with basic syntax, slowly introducing new concepts like lists, iteration, and the more pythonic things like comprehensions, all in a natural way. The end of each chapter has a "So Far" page with key takeaways from previous chapters, which really helps reinforce the earlier concepts. I was especially pleased to find a project using the turtle library, as this is inspired by the Logo language, which was my introduction to programming. Showing someone how you can turn a sentence in to a list of words is useful, but showing them how to draw a flower by telling a turtle to run around the screen has a bit of magic to it.

Aight

This book is great as a first programming guide to Python. It makes no assumptions about prior knowledge and holds your hand through the first steps. No section is too long and interactive command-prompt outputs are shown at each stage, which helped me understand what to expect for each example. The book seems to cover all the common Python operators and built-ins, extending as complex as 'map' and file processing.There's also quite a big set of exercises included with each chapter, with answers at the end, and some longer 'project' exercises that are still pretty short but let me do something useful with the basic concepts.Overall, it helped me get started with Python and point me to how to build more complicated code using more of the Python libraries. I'd recommend it for new-comers to Python.

Overall, I think this book is ok. I noticed a disbalance between the information presented in chapters vs questions to chapters. I think the questions are bit too advanced while chapter could discuss Python features in greater detail. I don't think this book is for very beginners. It is good if you're intermediate programmer.

This book provided me with an introduction to Python using an incremental building block approach. This book does just that. There are small self-contained chapters that introduce new topics, building until concepts from previous chapters, thus making it easy for the reader learn how to code Python programs

This was my first time with computer programming, other than spreadsheets. I sat down with the book at the computer, and went page by page. I'm up to Chapter 6 now, and doing all the exercises, and I feel I'm learning each time. The paperback version seems well-printed and bound.

Good intro but not very instructive.