Good resources for strengthening beginner Python skills?


Just a dude
vpsBoard Founder
I've dabbled with Python, having done about half of 'Learn Python the Hard Way' (

But due to time constraints, it's been well over a year since I've touched Python. I remember it being enjoyable, and perhaps it was the ADD in me found myself venturing off from the coursework to dabble around and create my own things that applied what little I had learned thus far. (Including a quit smoking tool that reminded me how much money and time I was wasting smoking)

Anyhow, I'd like to pick it back up. Any good web resources or books available on Amazon I should be looking at?


Active Member
Books and solo exercises only get you to a certain point.  After that, you have to work on big programs and collaborate with others.  One straightforward way is: find any free/open source Python program that interests you, check its bug tracker and start fixing stuff and submitting patches.  This probably is a bit much for real newbies.

Some solo exercises:  1) the first few dozen of problems (after that they become too much about finding math tricks)

2) had a lot of good exercises.  It's offline now but web search and can find some mirrors of some of them.