EH-Net

I am looking for good beginning books for both Python and Ruby, I have done research and found these two:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159059519X/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159059519X/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596516177/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596516177/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER)

Has anyone read these?  If so Are they good?  If these are not good what would you suggest are the best books to learn from?

I heard a lot of good things about these:

http://learnpythonthehardway.org/
and
http://ruby.learncodethehardway.org/

I bought both of them ($2.99 for the PDFs), but have not gone through them, yet.

The python book was missing alot of stuff that I was looking for.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of O'Reilly programming books.  They're all about syntax, with no useful examples.  I haven't read the Ruby book, but I went through the Python book, and although I "understood" everything, I found it somewhat hard to start my first program.  A syntax book would be useful if I was porting something from one language to another, but if I'm trying to learn and understand a new language, I like more examples.

But honestly, everyone's different.  In my experience, as far as programming books go, the style/approach of the book is just as important as the material.  If you can learn Python and Ruby just by looking at syntax, then maybe those books will work for you.

You might want to check your library and see what kind of books they have.  Even if you can't find anything superb, it might help you realize what style of book would work best for you before you shell out 25-35 bucks for something that got good reviews on Amazon.

Interesting, what books would you suggest then?

I don't know, I haven't found any books on scripting languages I like yet!

This is the book I swear by for Ruby. It is the primary language I use as it is very easy to learn and lauds itself as "natural".

http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Ruby-1-9-Pragmatic-Programmers/dp/1934356085/ref=pd_sim_b_6 (http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Ruby-1-9-Pragmatic-Programmers/dp/1934356085/ref=pd_sim_b_6)

personally, I haven't found any really awesome book regarding 'Python'

This is a nice place to start with,
https://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python-class/

Currently I am reading this book,
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Python-Mark-Lutz/dp/0596158106
it's pretty good but didn't cover any basics.

After that I want to finish:
http://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Python-Network-Programming-Goerzen/dp/1590593715

and it flows nice?

Thanks have looked into the first one before.  I will check out the rest thanks again.

I think so. It assumes some basic programming (loops, conditionals, etc) but gives you the basic bare bone examples of them all as it goes into the language. If you did this along w/ the Coding for Penetration Testers hand in hand, I think it would be a good confluence.

Thanks

I have ordered this one to start with as i thought even if you do have a good understanding of programming there is no harm in going back to basics.

I liked the fact that it also teaches you by programming games.

http://www.amazon.com/Python-Programming-Absolute-Beginner-Dawson/dp/1435455002/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323860755&sr=8-1 (http://www.amazon.com/Python-Programming-Absolute-Beginner-Dawson/dp/1435455002/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323860755&sr=8-1)

I just ordered this book l33t5h@rk, hope it's good!

l33t5h@rk I just wanted to say thanks for the book recommendation.  I'm about 100 pages into it, and it's pretty good.  I can still write a C++ or Java program faster than I can script, but I'm learning.

At the risk of being laughed off these boards...if you're a true beginner, some of the Head First books are pretty good. I've used a couple of them and have been generally satisfied. They cover the very basics, in some cases introducing the reader to variables, loops, conditional statements, etc. Plus they give you more or less real world exercises to do. Again, not for the experienced programmer but pretty good for the beginner.

I read a Head First book on data analysis and found the layout hard to read.  There were images with a little bit of text scattered all over the page and I got eye strain from my eyes skipping all over the place trying to find where to read.  I guess the content was okay.

Since I don't see it mentioned already, Google's two-day course is a great way to get started with Python: http://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python-class/