Python Learning Resources

Programming with Python Resources

These are for beginners and focus on teaching programming and computer science
as well as the Python Language.

Think Python
o An online book based off How to Think Like a Computer Scientist that covers
everything from expressions to data structures to inheritance. Broken down into
sub-topics with practice problems for each.
Non-Programmer's Tutorial for Python
o python tutorial for non-programmers. really good explanations of the basics:
conditionals, loops, etc. Has exercises in each chapter (it's actually a pdf. Also
available as a wiki.
Python Tutorial (for Civilization IV Modders)
o Written pretty clearly and isnt too long. Written for non-programmers who want to
modify Civilization 4, but the game (Civ 4) doesnt come up in the tutorial.
MIT OpenCourseWare Introduction to Computer Science and Programming
o MITs course for beginner programmers, more like 15110 than 15112, but has lots
of resources: lecture notes, assignments, readings, video lectures.

More advanced:
Functional Programming with Python LG #109
http://westciv.com/xray/Object Oriented programming with python

Language-Learning Resources
These are aimed at people who already know how to program and want to quickly
learn the Python language.

Google's Python Class

o From Google, this is a free class for people with a little bit of programming
experience who want to learn Python. The class includes written materials, lecture
videos, and lots of code exercises to practice Python coding.
The Python Tutorial
o Part of the documentation for the Python language. More in-depth, reads like
documentation.
IBM developerWorks : Open source : Technical library: Discover Python
o From IBM, aimed at developers, very object oriented, for someone who knows at
least one (more like two or three) other languages.
Dive Into Python
o for very experienced programmers, compares the python to many other languages,
doesn't focus as much on programming concepts
Beginning Python Tutorial
o Written by someone with experience programming in C. Good but dated (from
2005)

Practice Problems
These are tutorials that present a problem or problems to solve using Python, rather
than going into explanation about concepts.
Sites with many problems

CS1 Python Programming Projects Archive

o Many practice problems sorted by concept and increasing in difficulty. Some are
simple, but there are also more involved practice problems like making games or
applications (e.g. Auto Mileage, TagCloud). [no answers]
The Python Challenge
o An online game where you figure out the challenge, use Python to solve it, enter
your answer. Only get if its correct/incorrect, though. Like project Euler, but less
mathematical. Of course, Project Eulers still good too.
Python Tutorial
o Really good python practice: a whole sequence of problems that you can complete
on their in-site IDE.
CodingBat Python
o simple python practice problems for strings, booleans, loops, lists.. with solutions
available
Python:Tutorials - Progzoo
o Practices simpler problems. Drawing flags, using conditionals, functions, strings, for
loops, parsing xml. The tutorials on the site are actually available in multiple
languages: C#, C++, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Visual Basic. Helpful for people who are just
learning and who already know another language.
Python Course
o Practice problems on basics, CGI, regular expressions. Has answers available to
check your work.
practice problems in books/resources listed above (especially Think Python)

Single problems/case studies

Build a flash card app
o good practice for file I/O
Use weather for wallpapers
o cgi, regular expressions, file I/O
create a Python Twitter bot
o APIs
Build a Space Invaders clone with pygame
o simple loops and conditionals
Operator Overload! Learn how to change the behavior of equality operators.
o advanced, digging into how the language works
Iterators, Iterables, and Generators! Oh, my!
o advanced, sophisticated
An Introduction to Google Calendars
o apis