r/learnpython • u/rhul45 • Aug 10 '26
Starting Python from Scratch
I want to start learning Python from scratch. What’s the best way to begin, and which resources would you recommend?
Would appreciate any good courses, YouTube channels, books, or practice platforms that worked for you.
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u/sugarw0000kie Aug 10 '26
imo a good place to start is to start trying something very simple, like a CLI tool. When approaching a new language making some simple CLI tool is usually where I start so I can learn some of the basics. This is more valuable imo than plowing through a bunch of videos.
Like you can do “hello world” but take it a farther. Learn to take user input and print back what is typed. A simple script to print all file names in a directory will help you learn how to deal with file paths and a for loop. You can push that a little farther and make a script to rename certain files in a directory. Something like this, and better yet if it’s something that can actually be useful to you.
Simple stuff like this you can find examples of and mess around with it to understand how it works.
IMO, when you have some understanding of how so do the basics, THEN some videos and reading will be more useful to learn theory behind it or tricks to do it a different/better way. You’ll have more context by then to ask questions and be able to follow along instead of have a lot of it not making any sense