Learn Python The Hard Way is not the best book to start programming with; it's better suited to people who already know how to code and want to learn Python. Py

Learn Python The Hard Way is not the best book to start programming with; it's better suited to people who already know how to code and want to learn Python. Python For Non-Programmers is my recommendation: it has stood the test of time pretty well and it introduces things in a nice gentle way. It's linked to from the Python homepage, I seem to remember, and there are PDF and HTML versions. Experienced programmers forget what it's like to be inexperienced. You need to generalise and don't dwell on the things you don't understand. Effectively, the only way to really learn how to programme is to do it because you enjoy it. As you pile on the experience, you'll learn everything you need to learn out of sheer curiosity. When you're experienced you DO want to understand every single line of code, because that's what interests you. As a beginner, the magic of seeing something come to life, even if you don't fully understand it is often enough. That's certainly how I felt when I started out all those years ago. Rails is awesome too -- not least of all because 'Agile Web Development with Ruby on Rails' is one of the very best programming books written. It's actually readable. Rails is a fantastic tool that lets you to create first-class web applications without needing to know everything about the framework upfront. That means you get results fast, and you learn the details only when the time is right. You also learn some very valuable conventions to do with code organisation, testing, DRY etc that so many corporate programmers never seemed to have grasp (and are never going to be great programmers as a result). Also, if you seriously want to learn, don't follow HN. Get programming and get in the zone. Every minute spent reading stuff like this is a minute lost.