I'm looking to learn to program, the right way. I don't want to pick up bad habits and I'm hoping there is some good guidance out there that will help.<p>Currently I know the following: HTML, CSS, and some Javascript and jQuery. That's all front end though and I want to start to learn how to get the back end going.<p>While I want to understand the big concepts, I ultimately learn by doing. I get to a problem, and figure out through trial and error, research, or even questions here... and once it's solved, I've learned something. So, if I could learn by building up my startup, that would be great. The only thing with that though, I know that certain (if not many) aspects of my startup are not new and I don't want to approach writing things from scratch when it's already been done well (certainly better than I could currently manage) already and available in some framework (i.e. Django). However, I don't want to rely on frameworks either to solve all my problems... so I would like to find a balance between building efficiently (using/learning a framework) and learning to code from scratch (i.e. Python).<p>Anyway, help here would be greatly appreciated. Also, guidance on other topics in regards to building a website (since I know there is more than just the code) would be great. Thanks!
I suggest Zed Shaw's Learn Python the Hard Way (<a href="http://learnpythonthehardway.org/" rel="nofollow">http://learnpythonthehardway.org/</a>) which is free online and focuses on having you type the code and getting it to work. This is what I used to learn basic Python and it sounds like it fits your learning approach as well.
For an great introduction to programming in general try to learn <a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/" rel="nofollow">http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/</a> or <a href="http://www.htdp.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.htdp.org/</a>
Both are great books, but they require a lot of resilience if you want to get the most out of them.<p>One of the best introductions to Python is <a href="http://www.diveintopython.net/" rel="nofollow">http://www.diveintopython.net/</a> but it's not in introduction to programming in general.<p>If you want both try: Core Python Programming <a href="http://corepython.com/" rel="nofollow">http://corepython.com/</a> - but it's not free.<p>For learning a Python framework I would recommend the web2py book: <a href="http://web2py.com/book" rel="nofollow">http://web2py.com/book</a>
web2py makes you very productive, imo.<p>You can find a great list of free programming books here:
<a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available-programming-books" rel="nofollow">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-ava...</a>
Consider looking at well-written Python code. Try to understand exactly how it works.<p>Example, django source: <a href="http://code.djangoproject.com/svn/django/trunk/django/" rel="nofollow">http://code.djangoproject.com/svn/django/trunk/django/</a>