IMO, starting with Django or App Engine or the like to learn Python is like learning to write poetry in French before you have the basics of French. I think it

IMO, starting with Django or App Engine or the like to learn Python is like learning to write poetry in French before you have the basics of French. I think it's best, for N days, to focus just on Python itself. Learn the basics of the language. Then for another M days work on a simple problem that's meaningful to you. Iterate, and play around with different ways to accomplish parts of your program in Python. Then learn a framework or CMS or javascript library or whatever you like. My first Python program extracted email addresses and names out of any of one's imap accounts' messages, and put them in ldif format, ready for import into any email client (that understands ldif). I already knew a bit about imap and ldif. I learned the basics of Python, data structures, list comprehensions, unit testing, etc. As a newbie I went overboard on different coding techniques, but that was partly the point, in addition to creating a working program that was useful to me.