Good introductory book?

[Ken D'Ambrosio]

Hi, all. I'm getting ready to do some projects in Python, and I've cut my
teeth a little bit, but I've found the "Learning|Programming Python" books
from O'Reilly to be more-or-less useless (to my surprise -- I'm usually an
O'Reilly fan). I really, really like "Python Essential Reference", but
it's -- well, more of a reference than an intro. So, an introductory text
that actually assumes some previous programming experience (as opposed to
"Learning Python" which must be the most slowly-paced programming book
ever) would be terrific.

Thanks for your suggestions!

-Ken

 

[Kottiyath]

Hi, all.  I'm getting ready to do some projects in Python, and I've cut my
teeth a little bit, but I've found the "Learning|Programming Python" books
from O'Reilly to be more-or-less useless (to my surprise -- I'm usually an
O'Reilly fan).  I really, really like "Python Essential Reference", but
it's -- well, more of a reference than an intro.  So, an introductory text
that actually assumes some previous programming experience (as opposed to
"Learning Python" which must be the most slowly-paced programming book
ever) would be terrific.

Thanks for your suggestions!

-Ken

Dive into python is a very good one. It is free too.
http://diveintopython.org/

Try it out.
If you want more of examples of how everything is done, then Python
Cookbook is another one.
You can get many recipes at http://code.activestate.com/recipes/langs/python/
too - the book is just selected recipes from this site.


Regards
K

 

[Banibrata Dutta]

1+ for "Dive into Python"... get's you started very fast.

After you are thru with DiP book, it's time to keep google (or ur
favourite search engine) handy... search at the ActivePython site in
the cookbooks, PEP's, mailing-list archive... the answer is generally
found within first 4-5 hits. And then, a good Language Reference is
indipespensible... for which the standard Python docs are pretty good.

 

[pruebauno]

Hi, all. I'm getting ready to do some projects in Python, and I've cut my
teeth a little bit, but I've found the "Learning|Programming Python" books
from O'Reilly to be more-or-less useless (to my surprise -- I'm usually an
O'Reilly fan). I really, really like "Python Essential Reference", but
it's -- well, more of a reference than an intro. So, an introductory text
that actually assumes some previous programming experience (as opposed to
"Learning Python" which must be the most slowly-paced programming book
ever) would be terrific.

Thanks for your suggestions!

-Ken

I had the same experience as you had and almost gave up on Python. I
had programmed in other languages before and found the Programming
Python book very tedious to read. I just wanted to learn the syntax
and library to start writing my own stuff. Luckily, I found Guido's 12
page tutorial (http://www.python.org/doc/2.5.2/tut/tut.html) and that
plus the online library reference and Google was everything I ever
needed since then. That said I looked at O'Reilly's "Python in a
Nutshell" and I thought it was really good. It is a mix between
introduction, language and library reference. I should have gotten
that instead of Learning/Programming when I started and I probably
would have been much happier.

 

[Mike Driscoll]

Hi, all.  I'm getting ready to do some projects in Python, and I've cut my
teeth a little bit, but I've found the "Learning|Programming Python" books
from O'Reilly to be more-or-less useless (to my surprise -- I'm usually an
O'Reilly fan).  I really, really like "Python Essential Reference", but
it's -- well, more of a reference than an intro.  So, an introductory text
that actually assumes some previous programming experience (as opposed to
"Learning Python" which must be the most slowly-paced programming book
ever) would be terrific.

Thanks for your suggestions!

-Ken

I liked "Beginning Python" by Hetland. There's also "Python Power!" by
Telles, which I think was pretty good. Note that there's not much out
for the 3.0 version yet other than the official docs. You'll probably
have to wait until next year before much is really written/published
about that.

Mike