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Comment by JulianWasTaken

So, just for a bit of (opinionated) guidance, since the question of "What book should I read to learn Python itself" will never go away, if you are a beginner, I would recommend Zed Shaw's book there, or if you try it and don't like its style (or want to compliment it), then Downey's How to Think Like a Computer Scientist is also pretty good.

If you're already coming from some other language, or would classify yourself as something other than a beginner, the best resource is the official tutorial (http://docs.python.org/tut), which isn't listed on that list.

Also since it comes up so often, Dive Into Python is not a resource that I would recommend. From what I've seen, Google's video series is mediocre, and an OK intro if books are not for you. The recent Udacity course hasn't been too great from the small samples I've seen from it either, but I can't say that's enough to say "skip it" conclusively. I also was recently made aware of KOANS for Python (https://github.com/gregmalcolm/python_koans) which, though I haven't gone through it, I'd very much agree with ideologically as a good beginner's resource to complement a book.

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