python resources

I am learning python to work with texts.  I’m not a programmer, but since I want to be able to do simple things that a computer can do way faster than I can (like, for example, count words), I am picking up some new skillzzzzz.  Here’s what I’ve been using:

tutorials
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/python
(+) free, thorough, and straightforward.  The forums are helpful and when you get stuck there are several solutions on github.
(-) sometimes there are concept jumps that aren’t explained, but the Q&A forums were super helpful for this.  This course might benefit from extra breakout lessons/projects that illustrate key concepts.  They seem to have a few of these if you pay for the pro upgrade, but even these don’t seem to be very thorough.

https://www.udacity.com (Intro to Computer Science)
(+) free, thorough, and you make a web crawler! teacher is great and does a great job breaking things down
(-) no complaints. Although sometimes it’s both overly broad and a bit *too* thorough, and you have to code using their online interpreter, which sometimes doesn’t seem to be running.

http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/
(+) free, thorough, and all done through the command line and TextWrangler (also free).  Plus, the author is kind of mean and hilarious in a great, angry gym coach kind of way.
(-) no complaints–not enough text-based examples for me personally, but that’s not the purpose of the book.

http://nealcaren.github.io/python-tutorials/
(+) free, a great list of projects to try
(-) geared more towards social scientists than humanists

text analysis
http://nealcaren.web.unc.edu/an-introduction-to-text-analysis-with-python-part-1/
(+) free, quick, fantastic.  Exactly what I was looking for.  While slogging through the Python courses listed above, I despaired that I would never learn what I wanted to learn.  I feared I would need to learn the whole dang language to do some simple text analysis.  This changed everything! I learned in ten minutes how to do sentiment analysis from the command line.  Neither of the other tutorials really touched on this. THANK YOU.
(-) None.

http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/How%20to%20Do%20Things%20with%20Words.ipynb
(+) free, quick, and this:

(-) maybe a bit too quick.

beginner projects I want to try but haven’t yet had time:
https://www.reddit.com/r/beginnerprojects
https://www.thinkful.com/learn/intro-to-python-tutorial/#Conclusion-and-Resources

Five mini programming projects for the Python beginner


solutions to the above:

Other useful resources:
Python for beginners:
http://www.pythonforbeginners.com/files/reading-and-writing-files-in-python

Practice Python:
http://www.practicepython.org/

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