Anything like "Effective Java" for Python?

K

kj

Subject line pretty much says it all: is there a book like "Effective
Java" for Python. I.e. a book that assumes that readers are
experienced programmers that already know the basics of the language,
and want to focus on more advanced programming issues?

~K
 
J

James Harris

Subject line pretty much says it all: is there a book like "Effective
Java" for Python.  I.e. a book that assumes that readers are
experienced programmers that already know the basics of the language,
and want to focus on more advanced programming issues?

I don't know about the Java book you mention but I find Python in a
Nutshell published by O'Reilly to be a good reference.

James
 
K

kj

oxymoronic, no?
Sorry, couldn't resist ;-)

I hear you, but still: read "Effective Java" some day; it will make
you a better programmer, whatever your language preference. I'm
certainly no fan of Java, but I still rank Effective Java as one
of my best reads on programming ever. I felt that my maturity as
a programmer went up a notch or two after digesting this book.

Cheers,

~K
 
S

Steve Howell

I hear you, but still: read "Effective Java" some day; it will make
you a better programmer, whatever your language preference.  I'm
certainly no fan of Java, but I still rank Effective Java as one
of my best reads on programming ever.  I felt that my maturity as
a programmer went up a notch or two after digesting this book.

I'll second that. I much prefer Python to Java, but Effective Java is
an excellent book.

Many of its topics would be applicable to Python, although the
solutions in Python would obviously be different.

Eliminate obsolete object references (use None to break reference
counts)
Avoid finalizers (use the "with" statement)
Favor immutability
Design method signatures carefully (including the x=[] gotcha)
Optimize judiciously
Don't ignore exceptions
Avoid excessive synchronization

There are also some topics in Effective Java where the advice is
almost the opposite of Python tradition.
 
K

Kevin Walzer

Subject line pretty much says it all: is there a book like "Effective
Java" for Python. I.e. a book that assumes that readers are
experienced programmers that already know the basics of the language,
and want to focus on more advanced programming issues?

~K
I haven't read "Effective Java," but I have found Lutz's "Programming
Python" to be a very useful guide to solving various programming issues
with the language. It's a big, big book, so there's lots to look at.
 
M

mk

kj said:
Subject line pretty much says it all: is there a book like "Effective
Java" for Python. I.e. a book that assumes that readers are
experienced programmers that already know the basics of the language,
and want to focus on more advanced programming issues?

I'm surprised nobody mentioned Dive Into Python:

http://diveintopython.org/

Available for free online. Most Python books contain a lot of 'hello
world' material which for someone who knows at least one programming
language is boring, this one doesn't, it cuts straight to the point. I
found it very readable.

Regards,
mk
 
S

Steve Holden

Neo said:
I have learned java for half a year and now I want to learn Python,
should I learn python 3k or the traditional version?
That depends on whether you need to use specific libraries that haven't
yet been ported to Python 3. If so then start with Python 2. If not,
start with 3 - the differences are small enough that you can relatively
easily fall back to 2 if you need to get access to non-ported libraries.

regards
Steve
 
G

Gabriel Rossetti

kj said:
Subject line pretty much says it all: is there a book like "Effective
Java" for Python. I.e. a book that assumes that readers are
experienced programmers that already know the basics of the language,
and want to focus on more advanced programming issues?

~K

Effective Java is a good book, it is not like most people responding to
this topic a "how to program in Java"
book but a "I know how to program in Python, but I want it to run fast
and use a minimal amount of memory".
I would have liked to have such a book for Python when I was past the
language learning stage.

Gabriel
 
J

John Bokma

Gabriel Rossetti said:
Effective Java is a good book, it is not like most people responding
to this topic a "how to program in Java"

I had more the feeling that these responses were more of the "Look, you
actually need a book to learn how to program effectively in Java
*snigger*" fanboism.
book but a "I know how to program in Python, but I want it to run fast
and use a minimal amount of memory".
I would have liked to have such a book for Python when I was past the
language learning stage.

High Performance Python by Anthony Lewis (Author), et al. (*snigger*!)

might be such a book but we have to wait a few more months:
Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (September 15, 2010)
(It has been on my wish list for several months)

To the OP: right now, Dive into Python is clearly written with people
who have experience with programming in mind. I've both the Python 2 and
Python 3 version (books). You can download a version of each for free:

http://www.google.com/search?q=dive into python
 

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