*Advanced* Python book?

[mk]

Hello everyone,

I looked for it I swear, but just can't find it.

Most Python books seem to focus on examples of how to call functions
from standard library. I don't need that, I have online Python
documentation for that.

I mean really advanced mental gymnastics, like gory details of how
Python objects operate, how to exploit its dynamic capabilities, dos and
donts with particular Python objects, advanced tricks, everything from
chained decorators to metaprogramming. Dive Into Python comes closest to
this ideal from what I have found, but still not far enough.

Anybody found such holy grail?

Regards,
mk

 

[Jean-Claude Arbaut]

Hello everyone,

I looked for it I swear, but just can't find it.

Most Python books seem to focus on examples of how to call functions
from standard library. I don't need that, I have online Python
documentation for that.

IMHO, you don't need an advanced *python* book. If you know
the documentation and basic tutorials, then you know
enough python to write almost anything you may need.

The exception may be, again IMO:
- tkinter, that will need some more work,
- and C extensions, that are made easier by SWIG.
But I think these topics are adressed by books
you already found too simple.

What you need next is:
- read code that do something interesting, for example
here http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/PADS/ or in python
sources (or find projects on sourceforge, etc.)
- find a book on advanced *what you want to do*

There are good books on programming, like TAOCP or CLRS,
but it's not necessarily what you are looking for.

You may also find material in university CS sites: there
is sometimes cool stuff. Start with MIT OCW if you want
to try this.

The real question is: what do you want to do with your python ?

And don't forget to check with google if someone has already
had the same idea in the same language, such things happen ;-)
The "filetypedf" trick may help !

I mean really advanced mental gymnastics, like gory details of how
Python objects operate, how to exploit its dynamic capabilities, dos and
donts with particular Python objects, advanced tricks, everything from
chained decorators to metaprogramming.

Dive Into Python comes closest to
this ideal from what I have found, but still not far enough.

I was about to tell you about it

Anybody found such holy grail?

'never found a better grail than source code

 

[Paul Rubin]

I mean really advanced mental gymnastics, like gory details of how
Python objects operate, how to exploit its dynamic capabilities, dos
and donts with particular Python objects, advanced tricks, everything
from chained decorators to metaprogramming. Dive Into Python comes
closest to this ideal from what I have found, but still not far enough.

Anybody found such holy grail?

The favorite ones around here are "Python Cookbook" and "Python in a
Nutshell", both by Alex Martelli, who used to be a newsgroup regular
and still stops by from time to time.

 

[andrew cooke]

not direct answers, but....

reading through the recipes can be interesting -
http://code.activestate.com/recipes/langs/python/

also, reading any good computing book and then wondering how you can
do that in python can help shed a new light on things.

andrew

 

[Michele Simionato]

Hello everyone,

I looked for it I swear, but just can't find it.

Most Python books seem to focus on examples of how to call functions
from standard library. I don't need that, I have online Python
documentation for that.

I mean really advanced mental gymnastics, like gory details of how
Python objects operate, how to exploit its dynamic capabilities, dos and
donts with particular Python objects, advanced tricks, everything from
chained decorators to metaprogramming. Dive Into Python comes closest to
this ideal from what I have found, but still not far enough.

Anybody found such holy grail?

Regards,
mk

"Expert Python Programming" by Tarek Ziadé is quite good and I wrote
a review for it:

http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=240415

There is plenty of info about Advanced Python on the net, much more
than in book form. Come to think of it, there are my Oxford lectures
(the title was exactly "Advanced Python Programming") and I could
republish it on my blog, since I cannot find them on the net anymore.

Michele Simionato

 

[Luis M. González]

Hello everyone,

I looked for it I swear, but just can't find it.

Most Python books seem to focus on examples of how to call functions
from standard library. I don't need that, I have online Python
documentation for that.

I mean really advanced mental gymnastics, like gory details of how
Python objects operate, how to exploit its dynamic capabilities, dos and
donts with particular Python objects, advanced tricks, everything from
chained decorators to metaprogramming. Dive Into Python comes closest to
this ideal from what I have found, but still not far enough.

Anybody found such holy grail?

Regards,
mk

I believe that any book will give you enough information about
python's objects behaviour.
But if you want to understand the more esoteric aspects of python (I'm
in the same situation),
perhaps you should investigate decorators and metaclasses.
A good starting point is the 3 article series in decorators by Bruce
Eckel in Artima ( http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=240808
).

I second the suggestion of reading samples and cookbooks, for example
in ActiveState's site.
I found particularly interesting one that shows how to implement an
ORM under 100 lines ( http://code.activestate.com/recipes/496905/ ).
This script goes deep into black magic and it's clear enough to grasp.

Luis

 

[Simon Brunning]

"Expert Python Programming" by Tarek Ziadé is quite good and I wrote
a review for it:

http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=240415

+1 for this. I'm 3/4 of the way through it, it's pretty good. Covers
many on the important areas that the more introductory books rightly
leave out,

 

[Jeff McNeil]

+1 for this. I'm 3/4 of the way through it, it's pretty good. Covers
many on the important areas that the more introductory books rightly
leave out,

I keep a copy of "Python In A Nutshell" on my desk at all times. Most
of my books are in great shape, but this one is ripped all to hell.
The sign of a good book. It covers just about everything, though not
all in extreme depth. It's a great book!

I've been writing Python for about 4 years now and over the week or so
I've caught the "I should know more about the internals" bug. As a
result, I've been trying to trace the interpreter from the start of
the main function through user code execution. Getting to fully
understand the C API and the actual CPython implementation is
something I wish I would have done years ago. I'd suggest you do that
if you get the chance.

 

[Banibrata Dutta]

"Expert Python Programming" by Tarek Ziadé is quite good and I wrote
a review for it:

http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=240415

Excellent review.

 

[Ethan Furman]

"Expert Python Programming" by Tarek Ziadé is quite good and I wrote
a review for it:

http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=240415

There is plenty of info about Advanced Python on the net, much more
than in book form. Come to think of it, there are my Oxford lectures
(the title was exactly "Advanced Python Programming") and I could
republish it on my blog, since I cannot find them on the net anymore.

Michele Simionato

Michele,

Was wondering if you'd had a chance to re-post your lectures -- just did
a search for them and came up empty, and I would love to read them!

Many thanks in advance!

~Ethan~