[Tutor] Non programmer wanting to become programmer

[Corey Richardson]

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On 05/26/2011 03:36 PM, amt wrote:
> First of all, hello!  I want to start learning programming. I'm looking into
> becoming more than a hobbyist programmer. I searched a lot on Google on what
> programming language should I learn first and I see a lot of good words
> about Python so I decided to go for it but have some questions:
> 
> 1)What book should I start with?  ( I have checked Python for non
> programmers but there are a lot of titles there, what should I pick first?I
> was thinking about Invent your own computer games with Python.)
> 

I used Alan Gauld's tutor when I was first learning to program, it's at:
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/tutor/index.htm

Many of the other books listed on that wiki are great too, I've heard
good things about Python the Hard Way and How to think like a Computer
Scientist.

> 
> 2)Version 2 or version 3? What should I go for as a beginner and why? ( I
> ask because some books in the Python for non programmers section are for
> python 2, Invent your own computer games with Python is version 3.)
> 

For now, I'd say 2. It has more libraries available, and you won't be
missing much. Once you know python using the other version should take
you about 30ish minutes to figure out.
See http://wiki.python.org/moin/Python2orPython3
> 
> 3)Algorithms, memory management, data structures, when is the right time to
> learn them?
> 

Python does memory management for you, so you don't need to worry about
that. As for data structures, there's not much complex that you need to
know about that in python either, unless you are doing more advanced
things (like graphs!) Algorithms are good to learn too, but don't worry
about them right away.

For things like this I would recommend getting very familiar with
Python, and then picking up a bit of C.

- -- 
Corey Richardson
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