Best Books to Learn Programming From Scratch, According to Reddit

Ask for the best books to learn programming from scratch and you’ll get two very different answers: the famous books people name, and books whose cited excerpts address beginner problems directly. We tracked book mentions across r/learnprogramming, r/programming, and r/cscareerquestions, then used the linked excerpts—not counts alone—to build this path.

Updated July 2026.

Start here: the book that assumes nothing

Python Crash Course by Eric Matthes — 107 mentions, 61 in r/learnprogramming alone.

Most tracked mentions of this book are in r/learnprogramming. The displayed excerpts emphasize clear beginner explanations and structured projects rather than exercises that end at “Hello World.” Matthes built it for high school students who kept getting lost, and one displayed r/Python comment about the book is from the author.

The published criticism is that guided projects can hold a learner’s hand tightly enough that they finish without being able to build unassisted. That’s fixable — see Spraul, below — and the excerpt evidence is more informative than an aggregate tone label.

If your target is the web instead of Python, the equivalent slot goes to Eloquent JavaScript (51 mentions, 29 in r/learnprogramming, free online). The ↑128 comment says it plainly: “Read Eloquent JavaScript, that will speed things up.” One displayed excerpt adds an important caveat: approach it “once you have basics.”

The book that fixes the tutorial trap

Think Like a Programmer by V. Anton Spraul — 132 mentions, 126 of them in r/learnprogramming.

That concentration establishes where the title is discussed, not whether everyone approves of it. The useful evidence is the sub’s ↑1038 excerpt, which makes Spraul’s point with a chess game: your bites are too big; break the board into atomic sub-problems before opening an IDE.

r/ExperiencedDevs has one tracked mention of the book in seven years. That low count describes this source set; it cannot show whether individual learners carry the book’s lessons into later roles. The book is designed as a bridge from syntax to problem solving rather than as a senior-level reference.

The book that explains what the machine is doing

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold — 181 mentions, 121 in r/learnprogramming.

Petzold builds a computer from telegraph relays and flashlights, one chapter at a time, until CPUs stop being magic. The ↑270 comment calls it the best book for non-programmers learning computing from scratch; the ↑380 commenter admits parts went over their head and recommended it anyway — which is the most honest endorsement in the dataset.

Fair warning from multiple threads: the electricity and circuits chapters run long before anything resembling computing appears. Push past them or don’t start.

How to study (before what to study)

A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley — 19 mentions, 12 in r/learnprogramming.

Small footprint, outsized claim: one ↑90 r/learnprogramming comment says “95% of the learners in this sub could stand to read it.” Oakley — a failed math student who became an engineering professor — explains the focused-versus-diffuse-mode distinction behind that comment’s advice to stuck beginners. This guide places it before another technical resource when study time is high but retention is low; one excerpt does not establish a subreddit-wide practice.

When you’re ready for algorithms

Grokking Algorithms by Aditya Bhargava — 24 mentions, 21 in r/learnprogramming.

This is an accessible on-ramp to data structures and algorithms, explicitly not a destination. One published r/cscareerquestions excerpt (↑75) gives this workflow: read a chapter, immediately hunt Leetcode Easy problems with matching tags, repeat. It prepares you to open the heavy textbooks without flinching. It will not, on its own, get you through interviews — for that lane, Cracking the Coding Interview is the separate, later conversation.

The first “real developer” book

The Pragmatic Programmer by Hunt and Thomas — 426 mentions, 174 in r/learnprogramming.

It is the most-mentioned book in the tracked r/learnprogramming data. Read it after you can build small things, in your first year or two of writing real code — its vocabulary (DRY, broken windows, tracer bullets) is how developers actually talk, and one displayed excerpt pairs it with Spraul. Its sibling Clean Code (106 r/learnprogramming mentions) is another frequently discussed title; borrow its naming and function chapters, and expect to encounter disagreements about the rest.

The famous books to NOT start with

This is where mention volume can mislead beginners; the cited excerpts, rather than volume alone, supply the caveats:

• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs — 298 mentions, the second-largest footprint in the tracked r/learnprogramming data. The displayed r/programming excerpts (↑2282, ↑1031) illustrate why fame is not the same as beginner suitability. A genuine classic. For later.
• The C Programming Language — 228 mentions, co-written by C’s creator. The ↑683 r/learnprogramming story captures it: bought it thirty years ago, understood nothing, became a professional anyway. It’s a primary source, not a tutorial. It never was.

The path, in one list

1. Python Crash Course (or Eloquent JavaScript for the web) — months 0–3
2. A Mind for Numbers — alongside, when frustration hits
3. Think Like a Programmer — when tutorials stop working
4. Code — when you want the black box opened
5. Grokking Algorithms, then The Pragmatic Programmer — year one and beyond

Every number above comes from the current tracked corpus, and every linked book page shows the excerpts behind it. Counts describe how often and where a title appeared; the specific cited comments are the evidence used to judge its place in this beginner path.