
Ask HN: Your favourite tutorial for total beginners? - mcbetz
What is your favourite (video or written) tutorial for beginners – in any technology?<p>Mine is Django Girls Tutorial (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tutorial.djangogirls.org&#x2F;en&#x2F;) because it does not assume any prior knowledge and has a good balance between the big picture and small details.
======
aphextron
Hartl's Rails tutorial. Probably the best intro to modern full stack
development I've ever come across.

[https://www.railstutorial.org/book](https://www.railstutorial.org/book)

~~~
phaus
As a beginner trying to learn to program a long time ago, rails was possibly
the worst resource I attempted to use. You follow a complicated, tutorial to
set everything up so you can actually start. Then you type a few words and
then a bunch of complicated looking files are generated automatically in a way
that it's hard for a beginner to even know what sections he's supposed to be
able to understand.

Maybe it clicks for some, but I had a better time starting with HTML/CSS and
then learning JavaScript before moving on to Python.

~~~
mhartl
We realized the same thing—the Rails Tutorial is a little too advanced for
complete beginners, so we created seven more beginner tutorials that work step
by step to teach the prerequisites for full-stack web development. More info
on the courses is available here:
[https://www.learnenough.com](https://www.learnenough.com)

~~~
phaus
Thanks for the response. Its great to see there's a more gradual way to get
into the Rails tutorial now. I am aware that your original tutorial was
probably not aimed at a complete beginner with no experience at all, but I was
basing my comment off of the thread title which is "favorite tutorial for
total beginners." I know your tutorial is considered by most to be great, I
was just sharing my experience as someone that attempted to go from absolute
zero to the Rails tutorial long ago. I hope I didn't seem like I was putting
it down in general. I mostly work with Python scripting and Jupyter notebooks,
but I've been wanting to get back into web development for personal projects.
I'll check out the new courses.

~~~
mhartl
No worries! Great to hear your perspective.

------
tptacek
Easy:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nfY0lrdXar8](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nfY0lrdXar8)

~~~
jerryr
I also really like his garlic video: [https://jp.foundation/video/garlic-
puree](https://jp.foundation/video/garlic-puree)

~~~
kevinmchugh
This is easily my favorite food video online. Possibly my favorite video
online period. This technique creates a world of possibility since it creates
a smooth spreadable raw allium. I recommend it to every novice and
intermediate cook I know.

------
ohaideredevs
How guns work:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJnhr08aIJs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJnhr08aIJs)

How a car differential works:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI)

Downright the best zero-to-programmer course in the world. Wish I knew about
it when I was starting out: [https://online-
learning.harvard.edu/course/cs50-introduction...](https://online-
learning.harvard.edu/course/cs50-introduction-computer-science)

~~~
iMage
I can certainly vouch for CS50, when I was in middle school I messed around
with programming, but taking CS50x was what made the intuition and process
come together for me.

------
aasasd
More of an explanation than a tutorial, and dunno how it is for total
beginners, but — Intro to Synthesis: The Building Blocks of Sound & Synthesis,
by Dean Friedman:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atvtBE6t48M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atvtBE6t48M)

It explains the things that you'll constantly fiddle with on a synthesizer
(and sometimes even in a DAW with samples: envelopes are likely to appear
there). The series benefit greatly from being three hours long in total
instead of ten or even thirty minutes.

The first vid is followed by:

\- Intro to Synthesis Part 2 - Types of Synthesis & Programming Examples
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJkxGvhOS-M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJkxGvhOS-M)

\- Intro to Synthesis Part 3 - Additional Synth Features, Performance Controls
& Wrap Up
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK3m8sMkTE4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK3m8sMkTE4)

Also, since the vids are from sometime in early 80s, you'll have fun trying to
figure out exactly how high the guy is.

~~~
gregsadetsky
Great one!

A wonderful intro/tutorial to synths that was recently posted --
[https://learningsynths.ableton.com/](https://learningsynths.ableton.com/)

~~~
aasasd
Yeah, that's also good for the same reason: it lets you hear the effect of
each control instead of just dumping them at you at once.

------
jonplackett
All the Michel Thomas courses - a true genius of language teaching.
[https://www.michelthomas.com](https://www.michelthomas.com)

I listened to his Spanish beginners course a few weeks before visiting Spain
and successfully talked myself onto a bus I shouldn't have been on in Spanish.
I'm now mostly fluent but would never have gotten over my childhood hatred of
learning languages without him. Thanks Michel. RIP X

Watch the BBC documentary about him where he teaches the worst kids in a
school french in a few weeks.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0w_uYPAQic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0w_uYPAQic)

Also read about him on wikipedia - he was in the french resistance and just
generally awesome -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Thomas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Thomas)

~~~
whycombagator
If anyone is interested in learning Spanish I highly recommend comparing the
above with ProSpanish[0][1]. It aims to get you conversational in Spanish very
quickly. There are some of the videos for free on youtube[2].

[0] [https://www.prospanish.co.uk/](https://www.prospanish.co.uk/)

[1]
[https://www.prospanish.co.uk/?page_id=1783](https://www.prospanish.co.uk/?page_id=1783)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj6pAX7aAkg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj6pAX7aAkg)

------
Exuma
I would have to say the Dr Racket lisp tutorial ... [https://docs.racket-
lang.org/quick/](https://docs.racket-lang.org/quick/)

For anyone who already programs I can't recommend this enough. See it as a 1
hour vacation into alice in wonderland. I don't see myself ever using lisp,
but after using an imperative language for a long time and having it become
second nature, I found it quite a fun mental leap to learn functional
programming. Well lisp is basically a similar mental stretch... you can get a
taste of it in only 10 bullet points (in the link). it will take you only 1-2
hours. I found it wildly refreshing, enlightening... any time you see
paradigms youre used to for 10+ years done a different way there are so many
"ah-ha" moments its like firecrackers going off.

The part that is very cool, is that in lisp there are no statements, only
expressions. So the 'physical limitiation' of writing code almost feels like
theres no rules, such that it just flows effortlessly. Like in English, you
can't end a sentence with a preposition (like a statement, you cant put an if
statement in the middle of the expression 1 + 1). But in lisp, there are no
rules like that.

It's super fun to bend your mind in new ways even if you dont use it. I highly
recommend it, it was really a fun day doing that tutorial.

------
conception
[https://selectstarsql.com](https://selectstarsql.com) \- SQL tutorials for
non-technical folks.

This is an interactive book which aims to be the best place on the internet
for learning SQL. It is free of charge, free of ads and doesn't require
registration or downloads. It helps you learn by running queries against a
real-world dataset to complete projects of consequence. It is not a mere
reference page — it conveys a mental model for writing SQL.

I expect little to no coding knowledge. Each chapter is designed to take about
30 minutes. As more of the world's data is stored in databases, I expect that
this time will pay rich dividends!

~~~
roland35
This is a great tutorial thank you! I did not expect an emotional dataset of
Texas executions and their last words..

------
Zhyl
Jonathan Palardy 'Why Learn AWK' [1]. I'd tried to learn awk a few times but
just couldn't grok it. This essay gave me a lightbulb moment.

Honourable mention to 'Automate the Boring Stuff with Python' [2], which does
what not a lot of tutorials do - motivate programming for non-technical users.

[1] [https://blog.jpalardy.com/posts/why-learn-
awk/](https://blog.jpalardy.com/posts/why-learn-awk/)

[2] [https://automatetheboringstuff.com](https://automatetheboringstuff.com)

------
aasasd
I have two requests in this regard.

\- If there's some way to learn playing chess beyond just the rules without
memorizing an encyclopedia of openings, I'd be grateful for links. I.e. I
currently can stare at a position for a while and figure out a couple next
moves that should be good. I'd like to elevate this to figuring out a bit more
moves. (Though I have a suspicion that it's a question of ‘rinse and repeat
until I remember all the openings anyway’.)

\- Similarly, I'd like to drill music lingo of chord progressions and stuff,
as a total noob, _without_ turning it into a ‘compose by the book’ approach.
I'm actually somewhat afraid to learn about keys and scales since I'll likely
start hearing them everywhere and promptly fall into patterns and academic
ivory-towerity. Is there a way around that while still understanding music
talk?

~~~
filoleg
I cannot help you with (1), but I think I can help with alleviating your fears
regarding (2).

Just by understanding scales and progressions you won't "start hearing them
everywhere" and "fall into patterns". There are no "right" and "wrong"
progressions in contemporary music, they are just there. By understanding the
theory, you will see why you might like certain things and dislike others. It
won't take away your enjoyment from music and it won't change your music
tastes. Whatever progression is "right" in someone's eyes will be "wrong" in
eyes of another person.

Music theory is as close to math as one can get in arts, imo. There are no
"right" or "wrong" numbers, everything is very neutral and non-biased. Yes,
some progressions sound more right or wrong to most people, but that's mostly
because of our collectively shaped taste of music, and learning theory will
not force you into any kind of tastes on its own. It might motivate you to
explore more diverse music, as you will be looking for more novelty in
patterns, but that imo is a good thing and, in fact, is the opposite of being
locked into the "ivory tower".

So my advice on it would be to stop fretting and to just dive deep into the
music theory :)

~~~
scottmcf
Absolutely. Learning about microtones was an absolute game-changer in my
mental appreciation of music.

~~~
aasasd
See, this is really an example of what I'm talking about. You wouldn't need to
learn about microtones if you didn't follow the twelve-tone standard before.
I'm pretty sure that the brain by itself is pretty sloppy in regard to
intervals and even more so with tones and keys.

~~~
Spellman
12-tone standard actually falls nicely out of the natural harmonics inherent
in music though. So there's a pretty good reason for using 12 distinct tones.

That doesn't mean you can't have amazing music once you break away from them,
but just because these deviations are interesting and cool doesn't mean they
aren't useful and normative for a reason.

------
tuvan
This is the one that completely changed my mindset about designing and writing
programs:

What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory - Ulrich Drepper

[https://people.freebsd.org/~lstewart/articles/cpumemory.pdf](https://people.freebsd.org/~lstewart/articles/cpumemory.pdf)

~~~
enraged_camel
It is good for sure, but a white paper isn’t exactly approachable for total
beginners.

~~~
tuvan
Fair, but just understanding the conclusion sections of the first couple of
chapters will have tremendous benefits for an average programmer.

------
Legogris
[http://learnyouahaskell.com](http://learnyouahaskell.com) is a fun and
accessible intro to Haskell that's a great complement to denser material

~~~
mcbetz
Gladly there is an online IDE with compiler
([https://repl.it/languages/haskell](https://repl.it/languages/haskell)) so
you don't even need to install Haskell locally (which honestly seemed a bit
heavy for a starter's tutorial - "First you need Haskell Platform, then you
can start the tutorial")

------
Bjartr
Ray Tracing from the Ground Up, by Kevin Suffern

As a college freshman I started this book with only a passing familiarity to
C++ and was able to follow it to implement a raytracer that supported depth of
field and global illumination, among other things.

[http://www.raytracegroundup.com/](http://www.raytracegroundup.com/)

------
northfoxz
The Rust Programming Language [https://doc.rust-
lang.org/book/index.html](https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/index.html)

~~~
officeplant
Thanks for this. I've been hearing a lot of suggestions of Rust as a beginner
language and also as a language that is progressing nicely over time, but
never any good starting points. If you have any other Rust related material
I'd greatly appreciate it.

------
Loughla
Paul Seller's original how to build a workbench video series. They're so
quick, but he walks you through so much technique in this series. Everything
he says is a lesson that applies to other aspects of building objects with
wood. Everything he does is on purpose. If you're interested in woodworking,
this is where to start.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru2ZiNs_Wek](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru2ZiNs_Wek)

------
CamelCaseName
I asked this exact same question a while back as well, here's a link to that
discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14985057](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14985057)

Glad to see Michael Hartl's book on rails was suggested here, that's what
prompted me to post my thread.

As a summary of that thread:

drracket: [http://docs.racket-lang.org/quick/index.html](http://docs.racket-
lang.org/quick/index.html)

VueJS: [https://vuejs.org](https://vuejs.org) (not a tutorial)

freecodecamp

K&R

Laracasts

------
terlisimo
Design Your Own Computer (fpga/vhdl)

[https://github.com/MJoergen/nexys4ddr/tree/master/dyoc](https://github.com/MJoergen/nexys4ddr/tree/master/dyoc)

See how a cpu gets made from scratch.

~~~
non-entity
Wow this looks cool! I will definitely be checking this out. I remember
playing with 6502s a few years back and have been looking for a reason to toy
with FPGA's.

------
IMAYousaf
I am a huge fan of Build Your Own Lisp in C. I knew how to program since I was
a kid. It was all inelegant but working code. Using this website's walk
through helped me to refine my understanding. Anecdotally, I suggested it to 2
beginners I knew, and they found it very intuitive.

[http://www.buildyourownlisp.com/](http://www.buildyourownlisp.com/)

~~~
earenndil
I started going through it, and thought it was nice until the author suggested
using his parser combinator library.

------
nilsandrey
The "The Node.js Handbook" and the "The JavaScript Handbook" from
[https://flaviocopes.com/page/ebooks/](https://flaviocopes.com/page/ebooks/)
Very handy and turned later into official doc at
[https://nodejs.dev/](https://nodejs.dev/)

------
r053bud
Would have to be Nand2Tetris. You build an entire computing system from
"scratch" using a set of emulator tools. You design logic chips all the way to
an operating system. It's a lot of work, but is very self-contained.

[https://www.nand2tetris.org/](https://www.nand2tetris.org/)

~~~
gregsadetsky
This nand2tetris-inspired game is really great too -- it was very hard to
resist and not finish it! [0]. It was posted as a Show HN [1] about a year
ago.

[0] [http://nandgame.com/](http://nandgame.com/) [1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17508151](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17508151)

------
kdamica
I'm a huge fan of Miguel Grinberg's Flask Mega-Tutorial. It's been around for
a while, but he did a major update in 2017 to bring it more up to date.

[https://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-
tutorial...](https://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-
part-i-hello-world)

------
hirundo
Why's (poignant) guide to Ruby

[https://poignant.guide/book/chapter-1.html](https://poignant.guide/book/chapter-1.html)

~~~
Exuma
That is how I learned

------
omarhaneef
This is kind of like picking The Beatles as your favorite band, but I liked:

[https://www.railstutorial.org/book](https://www.railstutorial.org/book)
(Michael Hartl's Rails Book)

And I don't even use rails.

~~~
defterGoose
It's only a cliche because it's so true.

------
zeroego
As someone who was recently a total beginner, I've found two that I have
really appreciated:

1\. Learn to Program, by Chris Pine
[https://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/](https://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/)

2\. The C# Player's Guide, by R. B. Whitaker

~~~
clivestaples
I came here to mention Chris Pine. Amazing book and from my brief
correspondence with him, a great guy.

------
larrydag
Wil Wheaton's TableTop series on how to play various boardgames is really well
done and engaging.

[https://geekandsundry.com/shows/tabletop/](https://geekandsundry.com/shows/tabletop/)

~~~
smrq
They make a _lot_ of rules errors, so it's not necessarily a great way to
learn games. Mad respect for what Tabletop has done in terms of popularizing
the hobby, though.

------
lukaszkups
[https://vuejs.org](https://vuejs.org) \- it's just magic, that's the very
first documentation that hasn't required from me diving into any other
resources while learning.

------
intellectronica
The Emacs interactive tutorial (type "C-h t" to start) is awesome. After you
complete it you know all Emacs basics and can get to work.

~~~
leafmeal
In a similar strain, vimtutor is an excellent intro to vim and probably
already installed on your computer.

------
turingbombe
I would really love one for containers/docker if anyone has a suggestion

~~~
arionmiles
I'd suggest "Practical Docker with Python: Build, Release and Distribute Your
Python App with Docker" by Sathyajith Bhat.

Very beginner friendly.

~~~
numbers
thank you! I've been looking for something like this too.

------
nrjames
Learning Processing (book), by Daniel Shiffman. Here's the Amazon link.
[https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Processing-Beginners-
Program...](https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Processing-Beginners-Programming-
Interaction/dp/0123944430/ref=dp_ob_title_bk)

------
TACIXAT
I'm getting started making a computer security course. Right now the material
is very beginner focused.

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpCBa7DpNda1mNKLCb2K8zQ/pla...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpCBa7DpNda1mNKLCb2K8zQ/playlists)

~~~
Shosty123
Awesome, looks really good so far.

~~~
TACIXAT
Thanks!

------
dkarl
The Little Schemer is my favorite, especially if you regard The Seasoned
Schemer as part of it. It takes you amazingly far for a self-contained
tutorial.

------
Causality1
Bell Labs' 1959 video "Similarities of Wave Behavior." By far the best
introduction to the subject of waves of any sort.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DovunOxlY1k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DovunOxlY1k)

~~~
mal10c
Thanks so much for posting this link! I've been trying to wrap my head around
SWR for a long time and this made it so simple to understand. Thanks!!!

------
gen3
I have recommended bandit to many people wanting to learn Linux tools and how
the shell works:
[https://overthewire.org/wargames/bandit/](https://overthewire.org/wargames/bandit/)

~~~
kristofferR
Is it down?

Using "ssh bandit0@bandit.labs.overthewire.org -p 2220" I just get "ssh:
connect to host bandit.labs.overthewire.org port 2220: Connection refused"

~~~
gen3
I'm getting the same thing. It's always worked for me before. It might have
gotten hugged to death.

~~~
cozuya
Save Bandit! (sorry)

------
f3f0
Web Programming with Python and JavaScript
[https://cs50.harvard.edu/web/2019/spring/lectures/](https://cs50.harvard.edu/web/2019/spring/lectures/)

~~~
nestorherre
By chance do you know how can I access the lectures of other harvard courses?

------
wallflower
To teenagers or adults who would like to get started with coding, I always
recommend Khan Academy’s “Intro to JS: Drawing & Animation“ as it is an
excellent suite of lessons that introduces beginners to the most important
fundamentals of coding, like variables and loops. Everything runs in a
browser, with immediate feedback via Processing.js.

[https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-
programming/p...](https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-
programming/programming)

------
quadcore
Paul Graham's tutorial on arc/lisp:
[http://ycombinator.com/arc/tut.txt](http://ycombinator.com/arc/tut.txt)

 _oh the link is broken :)_

~~~
arayh
No worries. I got your back.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20190212201350/http://old.ycombi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190212201350/http://old.ycombinator.com/arc/tut.txt)

------
jolmg
Spinning Levers - How A Transmission Works (1936)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOLtS4VUcvQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOLtS4VUcvQ)

~~~
ohaideredevs
Good stuff. Edit: But I still don't get it. Would need to spend some time with
it. Can't help but feel like the goal back then really was to educate, whereas
now it's to fill pages and sell new editions.

Dramatic, but CS50 is a good example of it - it starts of super simple, but
builds on that simplicity. Same with these videos.

------
ghostpepper
[https://www.learnenough.com/command-line-
tutorial/basics](https://www.learnenough.com/command-line-tutorial/basics)

Learn Enough Command Line To Be Dangerous is an introduction to some basic
bash commands, but more than that it's an introduction to questions like What
is a command line, how do I use it and why would I want to communicate with my
computer using text rather than a GUI

------
h3mb3
Flexbox Froggy, a short game that teaches the basics of CSS flexbox:

[https://flexboxfroggy.com/](https://flexboxfroggy.com/)

------
gambiting
LazyFoo's introduction to SDL - the style of writing is perfect for someone
who is new not only to SDL but also to programming, I have to confess that's
probably one of the major reasons why I wanted to do games programming when I
was a kid:

[http://lazyfoo.net/tutorials/SDL/index.php](http://lazyfoo.net/tutorials/SDL/index.php)

------
jauco
Jeff duntemans book on assembly language. It used the 386 processor under DOS
which was way more approachable than what we currently have, but it really
taught me how a computer works from the bottom up.

Edit: apparently there’s now a third edition for recentish computers:
[http://duntemann.com/assembly.html](http://duntemann.com/assembly.html)

------
slifin
Interactive drawing tutorial:

[https://www.maria.cloud/intro](https://www.maria.cloud/intro)

------
open-source-ux
Repeating something from a previous Hacker News thread...

Children's publisher Usborne have made available for free some classic
computer books from the 1980s aimed at kids that use text and illustrations to
clearly explain computer concepts.

These books have been discussed a few times before here on Hacker News. Scroll
down to the bottom of the link below to the section 'Usborne 1980s computer
books' for the free PDFs.

[https://usborne.com/browse-books/features/computer-and-
codin...](https://usborne.com/browse-books/features/computer-and-coding-
books/)

You might be thinking, why would I read books aimed at kids? Not only are
these books well written with clear, concise explanations, they are also more
readable and enjoyable than many programming books published for adults today.

Anyone writing a technical guide (of any kind) would benefit from reading
these as a source of ideas and inspiration.

~~~
yorwba
Non-truncated link: [https://usborne.com/browse-books/features/computer-and-
codin...](https://usborne.com/browse-books/features/computer-and-coding-
books/)

~~~
open-source-ux
Thank you :-) I've edited my message to include the correct URL.

------
mslev
Not technology, but a great video for absolute beginners who want to get into
drifting, or just improve their on-track car control.

"The Drift Bible" with the Drift King, Keiichi Tsuchiya
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPQyQgyuNMI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPQyQgyuNMI)

------
emsal
The one I learned programming from first is A Byte of Python by Swaroop CH:
[https://python.swaroopch.com/](https://python.swaroopch.com/)

Really concise introduction to programming in Python; easy enough for someone
to absolutely devour and learn incredibly quickly.

------
curo
Not technology but science:

Feynman's QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter. You can have zero
physics background (like me) and still understand a bit about quantum
electrodynamics. If ever I had to distill a complex subject, I'd try to first
dissect how Feynman is able to do so.

------
zengargoyle
Leo Brodie's Starting FORTH book. Thirty years ago, sixteen year old me
learned to use that FORTH thing found on a public domain Fred Fish disk.

[https://www.forth.com/starting-forth/](https://www.forth.com/starting-forth/)

~~~
dwheeler
+1 for "Starting FORTH". FORTH is very different from any other programming
language (system), so creating a tutorial for it was especially challenging.
Brodie did an amazing job of turning it into something clear. I don't think
FORTH is a good match for many problems today, but I think the _book_ would be
a useful example of how to explain things clearly.

------
ergo14
[https://docs.pylonsproject.org/projects/pyramid-
blogr/en/lat...](https://docs.pylonsproject.org/projects/pyramid-
blogr/en/latest/) \- because I wrote it.

I've found that newcomers struggle with many concepts during presentations so
I wrote my own tutorial for beginners.

On many meetups and hackathons I've noticed people break their environments or
Linux installations. It's a bit much but we try to start from scratch
showcasing how to use venv to get things going and create a small application
demonstrating different concepts of web development, from templating, to DB
migrations, business logic and auth.

I've ran few workshops with this tutorial and we had very good results.

~~~
cookingrobot
FYI the first link is broken.
[https://docs.pylonsproject.org/projects/pyramid-
blogr/en/lat...](https://docs.pylonsproject.org/projects/pyramid-
blogr/en/latest/docs.pylonsproject.org/projects/pyramid/en/latest/)

~~~
ergo14
Thanks, looks like I pasted something incorrectly while over phone :( It is
working now - maybe someone edited it?

------
Jach
Zed's Learn Python the Hard Way.
[https://learncodethehardway.org/python/](https://learncodethehardway.org/python/)

It wasn't what I used to first learn (Larry Ullman's first PHP5 & MySQL book
which I still have, with a spine held together by duct-tape) but it showed me
a simple method to help absolute beginners (and helped me realize my ideas on
teaching concepts in an unorthodox manner don't work at all for that target
group) and to refer to acquaintances whose intro programming course professors
were failing them in acquiring understanding.

------
therealmocker
The first level of Super Mario Bros is a great example of learning by
exploration.

------
RosanaAnaDana
Introduction to Bayesian Data Analysis:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OJEae7Qb_o&t=4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OJEae7Qb_o&t=4s)

------
wilsmex
CSS Grid -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPFDLHNm5KQ&t=879s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPFDLHNm5KQ&t=879s)

------
inancgumus
Learn Go the Complete Bootcamp course teaches to a complete beginner step by
step with easy to understand animations, and 1000+ exercises.

To me, Go is a great starting language because it's in the sweet place between
high-level and low-level.

[https://www.udemy.com/learn-go-the-complete-bootcamp-
course-...](https://www.udemy.com/learn-go-the-complete-bootcamp-course-
golang/)

Shameless Plug: I'm the author :)

------
Gabriel_Martin
why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby:
[https://poignant.guide/](https://poignant.guide/)

~~~
jkcchan
+1 +1 +1 Amazing guide

------
grepthisab
Agree with the Django Girls tutorial in OP. I ran into them at Pycon and
expressed my appreciation for helping me learn Django. Was really exciting
stuff.

Does anyone happen to have a good resource for learning GoLang? It's nearly
impossible to find good tutorials (outside of the golang site's tutorial)
because the name Go is super common and "GoLang" isn't used by everyone.

~~~
gen220
Not necessarily a collection of beginner tutorials, but for what they're
worth, these are some very high quality in-depth articles on pieces of the
language:

\- [https://dave.cheney.net/practical-go](https://dave.cheney.net/practical-
go)

\- [https://www.ardanlabs.com/all-posts/](https://www.ardanlabs.com/all-
posts/)

If you're looking for more high-level, "get-things-done" stuff, this has been
a great resource for getting off the ground:

\- [https://github.com/astaxie/build-web-application-with-
golang](https://github.com/astaxie/build-web-application-with-golang)

------
meej
The second edition of Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist is the best
introduction to RDF, OWL, and SPARQL I've seen.

[https://www.amazon.com/Semantic-Web-Working-Ontologist-
Effec...](https://www.amazon.com/Semantic-Web-Working-Ontologist-
Effective/dp/0123859654)

------
cristaloleg
Go by example. Simple and linear.

[https://gobyexample.com/](https://gobyexample.com/)

------
codazoda
I took a whack at trying to teach programming to complete beginners in the
same way that I learned years ago. I give people a listing of type-in
JavaScript code that creates a generative art project. You can get all the
electronic issues free.

[https://splashofcode.com](https://splashofcode.com)

------
cake_42
nand2tetris.org Haven't finished it yet but it's all about building a full
computer from a NAND to other logic gates (mux, dmux, and, or, etc) to higher
level things like assembly, memory, cpu, and it keeps going to a tetris game.
It's challenging, comprehensive and builds upon itself. It's awesome

~~~
soVeryTired
It doesn't actually keep going to a tetris game :). The final project is to
build an OS that you _could_ run tetris on if you were so inclined.

Cool course, but I bailed at the compiler stage because it feels like you hit
diminishing returns for the work you need to put in ( _lots_ of tedious regex
and text processing work for relatively little learning).

------
nullandvoid
[https://frontendmasters.com/courses/javascript-hard-
parts/](https://frontendmasters.com/courses/javascript-hard-parts/)

Will has a way to explain things is such a concise and clear yet entertaining
way he's who I aspire to teach like

------
tvegesna
A movie about "how internet works" from early 2000s:

[http://www.warriorsofthe.net/](http://www.warriorsofthe.net/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBWhzz_Gn10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBWhzz_Gn10)

------
percentcer
Ray Tracing in One Weekend
([http://www.realtimerendering.com/raytracing/Ray%20Tracing%20...](http://www.realtimerendering.com/raytracing/Ray%20Tracing%20in%20a%20Weekend.pdf))

I love that it just sidesteps OpenGL/DirectX entirely

------
werber
[https://eloquentjavascript.net/](https://eloquentjavascript.net/) , I love
giving this to creative people who are interested in coding. The literary
reflection of coding concepts is really great

------
enriquto
If the question was "what is your second favourite tutorial?" it would be very
difficult to answer.

But, since the question is about _the_ favorite, the answer is,
unsurprisingly, "The C programming language" by Kernighan and Ritchie.

------
pvorb
SQL Island is a very nice text adventure game that you play by typing SQL
queries.

[http://wwwlgis.informatik.uni-
kl.de/extra/game/](http://wwwlgis.informatik.uni-kl.de/extra/game/)

~~~
gregsadetsky
The game did not work for me under Chrome (it does work on desktop Safari). Is
it available in English, or in German only? Thanks!

~~~
pvorb
I think it's also availabe in English. You can switch in the menu, but
unfortunately the link doesn't change, so I could not link to the English
version and expected it to auto-detect your browser language.

I once played it in desktop Firefox, which worked fine. I'm not on a desktop
right now, so can't try. On a phone it's almost unplayable.

------
albanlv
Flutter in practice, by Zaiste
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhXZp00uXBk5TSY6YOdmp...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhXZp00uXBk5TSY6YOdmpzp1yG3QbFvrN)

------
marai2
Can someone recommend an easy tutorial for beginners for getting into
electronics?

~~~
MikeTheGreat
There's "Make:Electronics". It's a book but it's good.

~~~
larrydag
Unfortunate what happened to Maker Faire and Maker Media. Hopefully revived
somehow.

[https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/07/make-magazine-maker-
media-...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/07/make-magazine-maker-media-
layoffs/)

------
mayankkaizen
What a thread! So many awesome recommendations. I too wanted to ask this exact
question.

Anyone reading my comment, please do post your favourite beginner friendly
tutorials/blogs/books irrespective of the field.

------
johnx123-up
Old favorite for Turbo C / DOS programming
[http://www.guideme.itgo.com/atozofc/](http://www.guideme.itgo.com/atozofc/)

------
anupsurendran
My favorite ones are the data science and AI video tutorials (actually meant
for kids) @ [https://www.Pathway.ai](https://www.Pathway.ai)

------
landonxjames
I'm looking for good tutorials for getting started with DSP stuff (in Rust if
possible although I know that may still be too niche) if anyone has
suggestions

~~~
buzzier
[http://sam-koblenski.blogspot.com/2015/08/everyday-dsp-for-p...](http://sam-
koblenski.blogspot.com/2015/08/everyday-dsp-for-programmers-basic.html)

------
effnorwood
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-GMzB31yAbM](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-GMzB31yAbM)

~~~
fao_
You've been showdead for over 6 months (which isn't surprising to me given 99%
of your comments are the equivalent of just saying "no"), I'll vouch for this
one though so people can see it.

------
abledon
[https://www.w3schools.com/python/](https://www.w3schools.com/python/)

------
sam0x17
player1: how do I change weapons?

player2: ALT+F4

player1 has disconnected

This regular exchange is the most concise and hands-on tutorial on life ever
conceived.

On another note, this is a pretty damn good tutorial for learning how to write
shaders in opengl: [https://learnopengl.com/Getting-
started/Shaders](https://learnopengl.com/Getting-started/Shaders)

~~~
aasasd
It's said that in the times past, putting an ‘Any key’ sticker on the ‘Reset’
button greatly increased a secretary's knowledge of computers on the following
day.

------
underdogadmin
Udacity Intro to Javascript course for learning the fundamentals. It also
sprinkles in exercises that really help you push further.

------
gregsadetsky
Shaders -- [https://thebookofshaders.com/](https://thebookofshaders.com/)

~~~
jonplackett
Second this - I went from not even knowing what a shader was to writing some
pretty complex stuff in a few weeks.

Some of the later tutorials are still a work in progress though, hope they get
finished soon!!!

------
chdlr
learnxinyminutes.com

------
abra_cad
Any good recommendations for beginners to digital marketing/SEO?

------
dmead
the Haskell gentle intro is very well written.

[https://www.haskell.org/tutorial/](https://www.haskell.org/tutorial/)

------
tjr
_The Little Schemer_

------
DubiousPusher
The later tutorials are behind a paywall but the free stuff is more than
enough to get you going with low level 3D.

[http://www.directxtutorial.com/](http://www.directxtutorial.com/)

------
marknadal
An interactive tutorial that teaches HTML and JS!

[https://gun.eco/docs/Learn-Code](https://gun.eco/docs/Learn-Code)

I've had complete non-coders and kids take it, and learn to build their first
Todo App in less than 45min!

------
acollins1331
[https://youtu.be/d4EgbgTm0Bg](https://youtu.be/d4EgbgTm0Bg)

3blue1browns video on quaternions is amazing

