Your first stop

New to Python? Start here.

What do you need to run Python?

Three things:
1. The Python programming language installed on your computer.
2. A text editor to write code in
3. An interactive shell that lets you test and debug your code.

Video tutorials

1. Choosing and downloading a Python version
   Walks you through installing Python on Windows
2. Running Python 2.5 on Windows XP
   Walks you through installing and running Python for the first time.
3. Adding Python to the DOS path
   This is for if you want to be able to run Python right from the DOS command line.

If you like learning from videos (screencasts) I highly recommend these video tutorials. Top notch stuff. Some videos are for absolute beginners, and others cover more advanced topics. The three videos above walk you through downloading and setting up Python.

Written tutorials

General guides
Beginners’ guide for non-programmers
Beginners’ guide for programmers

The explanations and pacing are excellent in the following two tutorials. You will learn a lot.
Pasteur Institute’s tutorial
Dive Into Python.

For a quick taste of Python:
Instant Python
Instant Hacking

Official Python tutorial – Straight from the author of Python. Might want some programming experience under your belt before you go through it though since it is comprehensive and gets into the details of the language.

And beyond . . .

ShowMeDo has many excellent video tutorials on a wide range of Python topics.

If you’re going to be working with Python, make sure you get the IPython interpreter, which you can find more info on elsewhere on this site.