[skytwosea]

I used the Runestone book How To Think Like A Computer Scientist (I don't see any difference between the linked book and the Runestone one); completed the full book front to back, and have a deep appreciation for it.

I didn't have any interest at all in programming or computers until my mid-30s, when a colleague in grad school showed me some Python tricks that completely replaced a set of absolutely hideous Excel spreadsheets. My interest was sparked, but I struggled - there was some kind of mental barrier I just couldn't hop over in order to make sense of programming language syntax. This book got me over that hump and sent me on my way. Several years later, I've switched careers and work with Python professionally, and in my spare/hobby time I work on a variety of C, Rust, and Zig projects.

What I liked: there is no barrier to entry. For a person with only the most basic/cursory understanding of, and no real interest in, computers, this was huge: no need to install, get an editor set up, no need to understand anything about the shell, PATH issues, or how to run a script or work with environments or anything like that. All of that came later. I liked the CodeLens diagrams a lot, the visualization was critical to that 'aha!' moment. I think the book is well organized; the flow from chapter to chapter, concept to concept, made a lot of sense to me. Overall, the book gave me a sense of 'making progress', challenging me while keeping things light and fun and interesting.

I don't have any complaints. This book got me to the point where I was just skilled enough to automate basic and useful things, and interested enough to start diving in properly and learn how computers really work. Since completing it, I've been learning pretty much nonstop.