A friend who is in the midst of a career change and moving into the GIS world asked me for some pointers to resources for getting started with Python. I threw the question out to Twitter (with a similar variation also posted to Google+):
Can anyone recommend any good online Python training sources for beginners? Asking for a friend in the midst of a career change.
— Bill Dollins (@billdollins) March 17, 2013
I got a couple of requests to summarize any information I received, which seemed reasonable. I got quite a few responses and here are some links:
Learn Python the Hard Way – This one got the most mentions
Invent With Python
Green Tea Press
New Coder
Codecademy
Khan Academy
Dive Into Python – Note: I heard positive and negative on this one.
Real Python
MIT Introduction to Computer Science and Programming
Udacity
Comparitech
I can’t claim to have checked out all of them, but I consider the recommendations to have come from trusted sources. So, if you’re looking to expand your GIS expertise by adding some Python knowledge, these may be a good place to start. Not all of them are free-of-charge since that wasn’t one of my friend’s requirements.
Additionally, Dan Dye informs me that the PyBulls Python interest group at the University of South Florida will take up this question and post a document with a list of resources on GitHub. Be sure to keep an eye on https://github.com/pybulls/ . Thank you!
Many thanks to Hugo Estrada, Don Meltz, Aaron Burgess, Jason Sanford, Dan Dye, Christopher Moore, Shaun Walbridge, Jason Wheatley, Wes Herche, and Jorge Sanz.
If you have any other good online resources for getting started with Python, feel free to leave them in the comments.
