Getting started with Python

1. I want python for free. How can get it ?

Python is free. You can download python from the official python website. Just type python in google and you should have no difficulty downloading it for your platform. If you can't get past this stage then reconsider your option on being a programmer because you lack the bottom line skills of browsing the web looking for basic information.

2. What IDE do you recommend ? 

IDE stands for Integrated Developement Environement. Linux programmers are often very happy with just text editors because the console is their IDE. They can virtually do anything from their console : start their program, see the results printed, launch the python debugger, the python lint checker, a GUI builder of their choice etc. For people not using linux, they generally don't have powerful consoles and thus prefer to have everything they need accessible from one location : the IDE.

You can choose from a list of more than a dozen of IDEs here, depending on your platform, needs and tastes : http://wiki.python.org/moin/IntegratedDevelopmentEnvironments?action=show&redirect=IDE

3. But I need a tool like visual studio to create graphical applications

Actually, you can use Visual Studio to create python application by installing IronPython, which is a version of python that is compiled for the .Net framework. If you don't have Visual Studio, you might want to check 

http://wiki.python.org/moin/GuiProgramming#GUI_Design_Tools_and_IDEs

For a couple dozens of GUI Design tools and programs, most of which are free.

4. My code doesn't work, I have errors

Follow this flowchart to determine the source of most common mistakes done by beginners :

5. What's the best way to learn python online ?

Interactive

• https://www.learnstreet.com/lessons/study/python
• http://www.checkio.org/ (an in-browser game where you need to program things to progress along).

Books (free online books)

• http://diveintopython.org/ (recommended highly)
• http://learnpythonthehardway.org (recommended by the #python IRC group)
• http://www.swaroopch.com/notes/Python (A Byte of Python)
• http://inventwithpython.com/ (more python3 here than python2 - use with caution)
• http://pythonbooks.revolunet.com/

Classes

• http://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python-class/ (googles free python course)
• http://www.cse.msu.edu/~cse231/PracticeOfComputingUsingPython/ (compilation of python programming projects with guide)

Full documentation

• http://python.org (seems reasonable)
• http://www.python-course.eu/index.php (Basic, Advance, Tkinter, Books, and Python3 tutorial)
• http://www.rexx.com/~dkuhlman/python_book_01.html (very thorough and detailed explanation about everything python).

Tutorial

• http://www.pythonforbeginners.com/ (nice little pieces of code with comments and explanations on how to do fun stuff with python, like using the youtube API).
• www.zetcode.com/lang/python/
• http://www.sthurlow.com/python/

New programmers

• http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide (a beginners guide from the above site)
• http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-189-a-gentle-introduction-to-programming-using-python-january-iap-2011/lectures/ (A gentle introduction to programming using python, this is suitable for non-programmers or new programmers).

Specific to modules or frameworks

• http://www.djangobook.com/en/2.0/ (Online book for learning Django Web Framework)
• http://www.lightbird.net (Online tutorial for learning Python and Django)
• http://www.dabeaz.com/pydata/ (learn python through fun public data hacking)
• http://pymotw.com/2/contents.html (Python Module Of the Week is a tour of the standard library. Each module is explained with real-life examples).
• http://rhodesmill.org/brandon/chapters/screen-scraping/ (web scraping with python)

Blogs

• http://www.hdinfoworld.com/category/python/ (Blog containing bite-sized python concepts, non-linear learning)
• http://impythonist.wordpress.com (Very active blog with thorough explanations and code examples for various tasks that you can do with python - network, language processing, android apps etc. -)

Videos

• http://www.youtube.com/user/sentdex/videos (a good collection of videos from installing python to making financial analysis).

6. But I prefer books. Any books ?

A bunch of them. If you're new to programming and want to take python as your first programming language, I recommend "How to think like a computer scientist". If you speak french, Gérard Swinnen has a very good adaptation of the book he entitled"Apprendre à programmer avec python".

If you already know about programming, you can pick "Dive into python".

Other popular books include : 
 - A Byte of Python
 - ...

7. I want to make a windows executable

Try one of p2exe, pyinstaller and cx_freeze

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