A review by larry1138
Learn Python 3 the Hard Way: A Very Simple Introduction to the Terrifyingly Beautiful World of Computers and Code by Zed A. Shaw

4.0

This book is great up until the later exercises when the learning curve gets extremely difficult, and even with drilling I feel like I wasn't prepared to continue on. Nevertheless, this book did exactly what I wanted it to do: provide a good solid introduction to Python and programming in general. Plus it has a handy command line crash course at the end. I look forward to exploring other programming books that go more in depth with the language, with perhaps a better learning curve, such as Python Crash Course by Eric Matthes and Automate the Boring Stuff by Al Sweigart. Shoutout to Zed Shaw for giving me a better programming introduction in one book than 1.5 years of university classes.

Zed also makes you use the Atom IDE, which quite frankly is the quickest, cleanest, beginner-friendly IDE I've ever used besides maybe Notepad++ which is hilarious. Highly recommend Atom! atom.io for download!