Off Topic: What is the good book to learn Python ?

[Katie Tam]

I am new to this filed and begin to learn this langague. Can you tell
me the good books to start with ?


Katie Tam
Network administrator
http://www.linkwaves.com/main.asp
http://www.linkwaves.com

 

[Joe Riopel]

I am new to Python but these 2 have been great resources, so far:

http://diveintopython.org/toc/index.html
http://docs.python.org/tut/

 

[kyosohma]

I am new to this filed and begin to learn this langague. Can you tell
me the good books to start with ?

Katie Tam
Network administratorhttp://www.linkwaves.com/main.asphttp://www.linkwaves.com

Depends on what you like. For easy stuff that's fun, I liked "Python
Programming for the Beginner" by Dawson as it let you create real
applications (mostly silly games).

"Beginning Python" by Hetland and the Python for Dummies book are both
good. Hetland's goes over everything you'd need to know and it has
some pretty cool, albeit complex examples in the last few chapters. If
you want good exercises to go with what you learned in the book, I'd
have to recommend "Python Programming: And Introduction to Computer
Science" by Zelle. It's the only book I've seen with good exercises
(or any exercises) at the end. Most don't have them.

Once you're through all that wonderfulness, I would recommend "Python
Programming 3rd Ed." by Lutz and/or "Core Python Programming" by Chun
for excellent references.

If you have any questions about any of these books let me know. I've
read all of them (except for Lutz's...only halfway done with it).

Mike

 

[7stud]

In my opinion, "Beginning Python: From Novice to Professional" is a
horrible book. I constantly have to consult "Learning Python(2nd ed.)
to clear up all the blunders in Beginning Python. In addition,
Learning Python(2nd ed) has exercises and Beginning Python doesn't.
So I would recommend "Learning Python(2nd ed)".

 

[sail0r]

I am new to this filed and begin to learn this langague. Can you tell
me the good books to start with ?

My favorite is the O'Reilly jython book.
This book is specifically about the python interpreter written in java
but I have always found it to be a well written explanation of python
basics in general.

 

[kaens]

I am new to this filed and begin to learn this langague. Can you tell
me the good books to start with ?


Katie Tam
Network administrator
http://www.linkwaves.com/main.asp
http://www.linkwaves.com

If you're experienced with other programming languages, I'd recommend
python in a nutshell, or perhaps programming python. I personally just
skimmed through the online tutorial, and kept the library and api
references handy.

Orielly publishers almost always have excellent books on learning new
programming languages.

I would also recommend to stay away from any "for dummies" or "in x
(hours/days)" books. They can be decent introductory material, but
unless you are really really new to programming, you probably wouldn't
be getting enough information to justify the cost of the book (and a
lot of times they have a lot of bad practices in them)

Good luck!

 

[Aahz]

I would also recommend to stay away from any "for dummies" or "in x
(hours/days)" books. They can be decent introductory material, but
unless you are really really new to programming, you probably wouldn't
be getting enough information to justify the cost of the book (and a
lot of times they have a lot of bad practices in them)

Maybe you should try actually reading _Python for Dummies_. ;-)

 

[Shane Geiger]

Here are some excellent online books and tutorials to get started with:
http://www.python.org/doc/tut/ http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCSpy/
http://www.python.org/topics/learn/prog.html
http://www.python.org/topics/learn/non-prog.html
http://docs.python.org/lib/ http://diveintopython.org/
http://gnosis.cx/TPiP/ http://rox.sourceforge.net/basic_python.html


Here are some lists of books you can read online:
http://www.techbooksforfree.com/perlpython.shtml
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Programming:Python
http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonBooks


Some books:

Byte of Python
- online: http://www.byteofpython.info/files/120/byteofpython_120.pdf

Quick Tour of Python
- online:
http://stsdas.stsci.edu/pyraf/doc/python_quick_tour/python_quick_tour.pdf

Python in Nutshell
- online:
http://files.nixp.ru/books/programming/python/O'Reilly -- Python In A Nutshell.chm

Python Standard Library
- online: http://effbot.org/zone/librarybook-index.htm

Python tutorial
- online:
http://www.ensta.fr/~enstar/doc/python/Python-Docs-2.4-PDF/tut.pdf

If you're experienced with other programming languages, I'd recommend
python in a nutshell, or perhaps programming python. I personally just
skimmed through the online tutorial, and kept the library and api
references handy.

Orielly publishers almost always have excellent books on learning new
programming languages.

I would also recommend to stay away from any "for dummies" or "in x
(hours/days)" books. They can be decent introductory material, but
unless you are really really new to programming, you probably wouldn't
be getting enough information to justify the cost of the book (and a
lot of times they have a lot of bad practices in them)

Good luck!

--
Shane Geiger
IT Director
National Council on Economic Education
(e-mail address removed) | 402-438-8958 | http://www.ncee.net

Leading the Campaign for Economic and Financial Literacy

 

[kaens]

Maybe you should try actually reading _Python for Dummies_. ;-)

I haven't read it, maybe I will. I have just noticed that the "for
dummies" books tend to be a bit lacking.

That's just my opinion, of course.

 

[Aahz]

I haven't read it, maybe I will. I have just noticed that the "for
dummies" books tend to be a bit lacking.

Some are; some aren't. Like any broad and rapid-to-market series, there
are plenty of books that are pretty bad. But there are also plenty of
good Dummies books -- for example, _Personal Finance for Dummies_.

Speaking as the co-author of _Python for Dummies_, one of our goals was
to write a book that was both different from the other introductory
Python books and managed to match the quality of the best of them. I'm
not sure we succeeded in the second part, but I do think we did better
than the median, if only because between me and David Goodger (our tech
editor), we probably made fewer technical mistakes. ;-)