I have often heard programmers recommending Zed A Shaw‘s book Learning Python the Hard Way as an excellent way for a novice programmer to build a firm foundation not only in Python, but in coding as a discipline. The “hard” part is the insistence that the student type in all of the exercises by scratch, forcing a little muscle memory, in addition to learning to solve problems as efficiently as possible.

I encourage you to consider picking up the physical book as well, but those who want to check out this resource before buying will be happy to see that the HTML version of the book is free online at the book’s website.

It occurs to me that uniting the Hard Way with the Adafruit Raspberry Pi WedbIDE — the easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi — might be a killer combination.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.