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.
General Certification : CPT Practical Submission
