Python teaching book recommendations: 3.3+ and with exercises

[Chris Angelico]

One of my younger brothers, still school age, is to be studying some
aspect of computing for the next term or two. I strongly recommended
he learn Python (it has a bit more future than studying the internals
of OS/2), and my/his father then asked me what book I'd recommend him
to study through. I know this has come up a few times, but searching
back in my emails didn't give a clear answer.

Whether it's an ebook or in paper doesn't matter, but there need to be
exercises that the student can perform on his own, and then an
external tutor (aka my dad) then check up on. Python 3 is a must;
preferably something designed for 3.3+ as that's what he'll be using.
Beyond that, I was just asked to recommend "the best", which is
unfortunately vague... but I gather they'll be deferring to the
expertise of the list in figuring out what that means

So, within those not-very-many restrictions, what would you all
recommend? Let's get a nice discussion going and see where it leads us
(most likely to a resident troll ranting about a favorite topic, but
hey, maybe Dihedral will come out with some nugget of wisdom for us)!

Chris Angelico

 

[Chris Angelico]

A guy of your abilities & knowledge, why not write your own. you could
use the experience of teaching your brother to hone it to perfection.

Ok this was slightly tounge in cheek ( but not intended to be in any way
offensive). I will now offer to put my money where my mouth is an make a
contribution if you were to put it up on kickstarter.

Not at all offensive... it just implies that I have time to spend,
during the day, somewhere in between holding down my own full-time job
I'm hoping to be involved as little as possible in the day-to-day
of it, though of course I'll be as happy to answer his questions as I
am to answer them here on the list. Also, the suggestion implies that
I'm a Python expert, which isn't exactly true; I actually have not
done many nontrivial Python programs (for instance, I've never used
_any_ of the GUI toolkits available). Hence my hope of finding a book
written by an expert and recommended by experts.

ChrisA