Learning Python (Help for Programmers)

Author - David Ascher ... [Goo?] [Posters]
Author - Mark Lutz ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from O´Reilly was reviewed on 25-Oct-2008.

Search ISBN:1565924649 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Learning Python (Help for Programmers) Reference Book. Classifications : General Programming O'Reilly By Publisher Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books Scripting Languages Programming O'Reilly By Publisher Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books General Unix & Linux O'Reilly . Click the following link to view the cover of Learning Python (Help for Programmers).

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1) Paperback Book Learning Python (Help for Programmers) by O´Reilly. I just spent a few days going through this book and learned a lot. I´ve been working with PHP for years, but never did much complicated code. I studied Java about 8 years ago also and learned a lot about OOP from that. But never did any programming in Java. So it was all concept, no experience.

My reason for reading this book was to start using Python with Django. I wanted to learn Python first so I would understand the framework better.

This book covers in excruciating detail many of the finer qualities of just about everything you can imagine being in the language. I´m sure it doesn´t cover everything the language can do. But somehow it spends 600 plus pages going over details that I wouldn´t expect to find even if I was reading a 300 page book called "What I was thinking when I wrote this particular function on July 3rd 1991"

If something can be explained by 2 lines of example code and a three sentence paragraph about what´s going on, the author does that -after 2 pages of explanation of how this code you are about to see might be a little like C, but it´s a little different too, and how what you are going to learn is really powerful, and how some students might notice that the code is similar in structure to the code that you will see on page 400 later in the book.

If you think my review is way too verbose, read the book.

I give it 3 stars because it was in fact clear and well communicated information. It was just often hard to keep reading past all the unnecessary words to get to the useful content.¤

2) Paperback Book Learning Python (Help for Programmers) by O´Reilly. As a newcomer to Python, I find this book educational but somewhat inadequate for getting one´s feet wet with a new programming language. Essentially all the sample code in the book is in the form of very short snippets run from the command line. There is almost nothing in the way of a full-blown sample Python program showing the reader what it´s all supposed to look like in the end.

Python´s strengths as a programming language are ostensibly its readability and ease of use, but you get no sense of that reading this book. All you get is bits and pieces that you have to glue together somehow. It´s neither a complete technical manual nor a good introductory book for the novice programmer. The book is useful, but I would hope that there are better titles out there.¤

3) Paperback Book Learning Python (Help for Programmers) by O´Reilly. I wanted to like this book. As a general rule, I give the benefit of a doubt to O´Reilly books, and rarely am I mistaken. But this was one of the rare exceptions. In my experience, there are two trains of thought when it comes to learning a programming language:
1) Start right in with a book, using it to familiarize yourself with the language while you use the language to start fleshing out stuff that you learn in the book -- let´s call this the "synergistic" or maybe "complementary" approach: using the book complements the coding you try, which, in turn, lets you put stuff you´re learning into a workable framework.
2) Read the whole book through, and then apply what you´ve learned.

Personally, I don´t know anyone with a good enough memory to really be able to pull off #2. But, honestly, it´s more about patience than memory: people get excited about a language, and want to start using it. Having to (pretty much) read a whole book before you can start digging in is a bit of an anti-climax. The problem is that that´s what you have to do with _Learning Python_. For example, one of the fundamentals of almost all programming languages is how looping is accomplished. In _Learning Python_, looping isn´t discussed in detail until you´re almost *250* pages into the book. Instead, the very, very fundamentals of the language are gone over in excruciating detail. Honestly, if you´d never programmed before, this might actually be a helpful, good thing. If, on the other hand, you´ve had pretty much any other programming experience, the pace is slow and tedious. I found myself yearning to be *doing* something, and instead was just plodding along.

If you have had previous programming experience, and are relatively well-versed with how languages work, I have to recommend _Python Essential Reference_ by David M. Beazley. Just read its first chapter in the bookstore, and you´ll find yourself becoming quickly enlightened.¤

4) Paperback Book Learning Python (Help for Programmers) by O´Reilly. Like my title suggests, if you have programming experience and you do not mind or have little trouble reading the Python documentation in a online fashion then its probably not absolutely necessary that you have to buy the book.

However, the author is very good in instilling the nature of Python programming and he´s good at getting you to think about the concepts but this book is definitely not a cookbook. Last thing is that it doesn´t concentrate on the GUI nor library usage etc as it´s mission is simply to teach you about the core of Python¤

5) Paperback Book Learning Python (Help for Programmers) by O´Reilly. This book is great! Good writing, good exercises. Good for people who have some experience in programming. If you have never had any contact to other languages or logic, consider studying some introdutory topics before reading this book.¤

6) Paperback Book Learning Python (Help for Programmers) by O´Reilly. Learning Python is an introduction to the increasingly popular Python programming language. Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented scripting language. Python is growing in popularity because:

• It is available on all important platforms: Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 98, Linux, all major UNIX platforms, MacOS, and even the BeOS.
• It is open-source software, copyrighted but freely available for use, even in commercial applications.
• Its clean object-oriented interface makes it a valuable prototyping tool for C++ programmers.
• It works well with all popular windowing toolkits, including MFC, Tk, Mac, X11, and Motif.

  Learning Python is written by Mark Lutz, author ofProgramming Python and Python Pocket Reference; and David Ascher, a vision scientist and Python user.

  This book starts with a thorough introduction to the elements of Python: types, operators, statements, classes, functions, modules, and exceptions. By reading the first part of the book, the reader will be able to understand and construct programs in the Python language. In the second part of the book, the authors present more advanced information, demonstrating how Python performs common tasks and presenting real applications and the libraries available for those applications.

  All the examples use the Python interpreter, so the reader can type them in and get instant feedback. Each chapter ends with a series of exercises. Solutions to the exercises are in an appendix.

7) Paperback Book Learning Python (Help for Programmers) by O´Reilly. The authors of Learning Python show you enough essentials of the Python scripting language to enable you to begin solving problems right away, then reveal more powerful aspects of the language one at a time. This approach is sure to appeal to programmers and system administrators who have urgent problems and a preference for learning by semi-guided experimentation.

First off, Learning Python shows the relationships among Python scripts and their interpreter (in a mostly platform-neutral way). Then, the authors address the mechanics of the language itself, providing illustrations of how Python conceives of numbers, strings, and other objects as well as the operators you use to work with them. Dictionaries, lists, tuples, and other data structures specific to Python receive plenty of attention including complete examples.

Authors Mark Lutz and David Ascher build on that fundamental information in their discussions of functions and modules, which evolve into coverage of namespaces, classes, and the object-oriented aspects of Python programming. There´s also information on creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for Python applications with Tkinter.

In addition to its careful expository prose, Learning Python includes exercises that both test your Python skills and help reveal more elusive truths about the language.¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 22-Nov-2008, 1565924649636920924647, 730-590-020-690-070-491-8

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