[NFBCS] Learning Programming

[Curtis Chong]

Hello Joe:

 

The decision only you can make about learning programming, let alone a programming language, is whether the amount of effort required to learn what you need to learn is sufficient given the amount of automation you are hoping to achieve. The amount of effort you need to expend is greater if you yourself have never written a computer program or learned a programming language to begin with. I know some folks on this list are suggesting learning Python right out of the box. I do not dispute the notion that Python is a language that works. What I want to be sure of is that you yourself understand the kind of automation you need and the amount of effort you are willing to make to achieve this automation. Once you have made that personal decision, then you can begin charting a course towards learning what you need to learn in order to achieve the automation you want.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Curtis Chong

 

 

From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Michael McQuaid via NFBCS
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2025 1:03 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Michael McQuaid <mickmcquaid at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [NFBCS] Learning Programming

 

Joe -

 

I wonder if the Beginner's guide to Python at https://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide would be a good resource. This is part of the official Python documentation and looks screen reader friendly. Many of the other resources I found seemed questionable, but this may be reliable.

 

- Mick

 

 

On Tue, Sep 23, 2025 at 1:50 PM Brian Buhrow via NFBCS <nfbcs at nfbnet.org <mailto:nfbcs at nfbnet.org> > wrote:

        hello Joe.  There are a lot of books on Bookshare purporting to teach you Python
programming.  I've read some of them, and they are a mixed bag in terms of their usefulness
from Bookshare, primarily because for the ones I selected, the illustrative examples were not
included in the Bookshare package.  What I suggest is combing through that list and downloading
ones which look interesting and keep working through the list until you find one where the
examples are accessible and the prose makes sense to you.  Some of the books assume you already
know how to program in other languages and some will teach you basic programming skills, using
Python as a starter language.  If you are not already a programmer, I suggest one of these
beginner books.  To make it more interesting for yourself and to help you focus on what you
need to learn, I suggest thinking of a small scope task you'd like to automate and reading with
the intention of learning how to complete that task.

Hope this is helpful.
-Brian

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