
Ask HN: Best programming course for an absolute beginner? - kharak
A friend of mine, who has a banking background, asked me for a code&#x2F;programming course recommendation. He isn&#x27;t technically inclined, but I believe he&#x27;s in the perfect spot to take up something new. Hence, I like to give a great recommendation, but have a hard time judging what would be a good choice for an absolute beginner.
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EdPF
This question almost always needs further qualification, to determine what the
goal is. Learning to program is different from preparing for a new career. You
get the drift.

That said, for "pure" learning to program, I like the DrRacket IDE and the
course book "How to Design Programs" ( [http://htdp.org/](http://htdp.org/) )
because it teaches problem solving with programming. And that's what it's
about. Should give a newb a sense of whether this is something they want to
spend their time doing.

The concept are transferable to other languages; the specific language skills
not so much.

~~~
kharak
Lets say he'd like to explore programming first and take something usable for
his day to day work. I thought about finding something with VBA, as he's doing
a good amount of his work with office products, but Python might be suitable,
too.

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superdeeda
I like recommending “How to automate the boring stuff with Python”:
[http://automatetheboringstuff.com/](http://automatetheboringstuff.com/). And
if they’re still interested after a few chapters of that: Harvard’s CS50.

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t0mmyb0y
Your friend needs to start a few to see if any are actually for a beginner, or
for a beginner with experience.

