Books to begin learning Python

[Edward Cormier]

Which computer books are the best to begin learning Python 2.5 with?
I've heard that Learning Python 3rd Edition is a good choice - can
anyone give any more advice on this?

Thanks.

 

[Mike Driscoll]

Which computer books are the best to begin learning Python 2.5 with?
I've heard that Learning Python 3rd Edition is a good choice - can
anyone give any more advice on this?

Thanks.

There's lots of good books to read, including a few online ones. A lot
of people like "Dive Into Python" (http://diveintopython.org/). If you
want LOTS of information and some good code examples, Lutz's
"Programming Python 3rd Ed" is great. Chun ("Core Python Programming")
has a book that's almost as large, but it's more text than examples.

If you want just short snippets of code to learn from, try the Python
Cookbook series or just go to the site those books are based on:
http://code.activestate.com/recipes/langs/python/

"Python Power!" and "Beginning Python" are good too with the latter
having some interesting projects at the end. There are a lot of other
topical Python books on XML parsing, web programming, Win32, Tkinter,
wxPython and even SqlAlchemy!

Mike

 

[Beliavsky]

There's lots of good books to read, including a few online ones. A lot
of people like "Dive Into Python" (http://diveintopython.org/). If you
want LOTS of information and some good code examples, Lutz's
"Programming Python 3rd Ed" is great.

I have the 2nd edition. Has the 3rd edition been rewritten so that all
of its code will be valid in Python 3? I'd prefer not to buy Python
books that will become obsolete.

 

[Samir]

There's lots of good books to read, including a few online ones. A lot

I have the 2nd edition. Has the 3rd edition been rewritten so that all
of its code will be valid in Python 3? I'd prefer not to buy Python
books that will become obsolete.

As a relative newcomer to Python, I found that "Dive Into Python" was
initially out of my league. It's written assuming that you have a
good understanding of basic Python concepts. Since I didn't have this
initial mastery of the language, I didn't find it useful.

Now that I've been working with the language for awhile, however, I do
come back and refer to it from time to time.

Some good online tutorials that I found really helpful include:
(1) Python Tutorial
http://docs.python.org/tut/tut.html

(2) A Byte of Python
http://www.ibiblio.org/swaroopch/byteofpython/read/

(3) How to Think Like a Computer Scientist
http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkCSpy/html/index.html

Incidentally, you can find documentatio for Python v3.0 at the
official Python site here:
http://docs.python.org/dev/3.0/

I hope that helps. Good luck!

Samir

 

[Mike Driscoll]

I have the 2nd edition. Has the 3rd edition been rewritten so that all
of its code will be valid in Python 3? I'd prefer not to buy Python
books that will become obsolete.

As Wojtek already pointed out, Lutz's 3rd edition is written with 2.x
in mind. I think it's 2.4 or 2.5, but I forget exactly which. Still,
most programming books are "obsolete" almost from the day their
printed. I'm not aware of any Python 3.0 books...

Mike

 

[Mark Summerfield]

As Wojtek already pointed out, Lutz's 3rd edition is written with 2.x
in mind. I think it's 2.4 or 2.5, but I forget exactly which. Still,
most programming books are "obsolete" almost from the day their
printed. I'm not aware of any Python 3.0 books...

I'm writing a Python 3 book that will be published as soon as possible
after Python 3.0 final is released (so hopefully November). It assumes
programming experience in _some_ language (not necessarily Python 2).

"Programming in Python 3: A Complete Introduction to the Python
Language" ISBN 0137129297

The table of contents and a link to some (out of date) sample text is
here:
http://www.qtrac.eu/py3book.html

 

[Jaime Irurzun]

Hi Edward,

I like "Dive into Python" because it's been written for people who
know programming with other languages. This could be an advantage or a
disadvantage, if you feel really uncomfortable reading Python code (if
you can't imagine absolutly nothing about what it does), my advice is
to choose another book. Otherwise, "Dive in to Python" is a fantastic
choice.

I'll take this opportunity to introduce myself, because this is my
first post. Best regards to everybody from a spanish Python novice and
enthusiast

Jaime