[portland] Interested in Python Courses

[sean marcia]

Scott,

Let me add my congratulations to Igal's. I, too, am new to python (only about 3 weeks in) and have found that it has a pretty quick learning curve. I know the U of O has python classes (it us CS122) but I am not sure if they offer it at the Portland campus.

I also agree with the book recommendation and would add Power Python ( http://www.amazon.com/Python-Power-Comprehensive-Guide/dp/1598631586 )to the list. They are the two books I bought and they both are pretty easy reads for an absolute beginner. I would also recommend asking a lot of questions in the #python channel, the people in there have been extremely helpful in my learning process.

Good luck! I hope to see you if I ever make it to a meeting!

Happiness,
Sean



----- Original Message ----
From: Igal Koshevoy <igal at pragmaticraft.com>
To: "Python Users Group -- Portland, Oregon USA" <portland at python.org>
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 9:08:05 PM
Subject: Re: [portland] Interested in Python Courses

Scott Henderson wrote:
> I recently have started GUI development job 
Congratulations!

> I'm having to learn Python for the first time.
You may not necessarily need classes because Python is much easier to 
learn than many other languages. The language design is clear and 
straightforward with few gotchas. The online documentation is excellent 
and I learned everything I needed from the following official sources:

* http://docs.python.org/tut/tut.html - The Tutorial
* http://docs.python.org/lib/lib.html - The Library Reference

For day-to-day work, I'd almost always have the Quick Reference open:

* http://benyoonline.com/pqr/pqr25/PQR2.5.html

A friend of mine has used the following textbook for teaching CS classes 
and recommends it:

http://www.amazon.com/Python-Programming-Introduction-Computer-Science/dp/1887902996

It may still be worth taking classes if that's how you prefer to learn, 
but those online references should be a continual help as you work with 
Python.

-igal
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