It might be matter of taste but recommendations given starting from "Understanding the packages" and to "Install packages that need compiling" are almost harmful.
My preference:
* you should not care what is your `sys.path` looks like. You need it for debugging if something goes horribly wrong. A tutorial might mention it but things like `sys.path.insert(0,..)` should be avoided or accompanied with a big disclaimer (don't use nuclear weapons if you care about the future)
* the same goes for `PYTHONPATH`. It is a hack that rarely needed
* don't use `sudo pip`. System packages should be managed by a system packager. Use `pip --user` or create a `virtualenv`
* `pip` can handle tarballs there is no need for `python setup.py install` in this case.
"Code Like a Pythonista: Idiomatic Python" is worth mentioning http://python.net/~goodger/projects/pycon/2007/idiomatic/han...
Some third-party packages that could be listed (it is subjective):
bpython - interactive prompt; something for tests e.g., pytest, tox, selenium; sphinx - docs; lxml - xml/html, werkzeug - if you talking about web-development; SQLAlchemy - sql; Cython - C extension, ~ Python syntax; async. libs e.g., gevent, Twisted.