Learning Python, Second Edition | 
 enlarge | Authors: Mark Lutz, David Ascher
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  128 reviews
Sales Rank: 77669
Format: Illustrated
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 552
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7 x 1.3
ISBN: 0596002815
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.133
EAN: 9780596002817
ASIN: 0596002815
Publication Date: December 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
The authors of Learning Python show you enough essentials of the Python scripting language to enable you to begin solving problems right away, then reveal more powerful aspects of the language one at a time. This approach is sure to appeal to programmers and system administrators who have urgent problems and a preference for learning by semi-guided experimentation. First off, Learning Python shows the relationships among Python scripts and their interpreter (in a mostly platform-neutral way). Then, the authors address the mechanics of the language itself, providing illustrations of how Python conceives of numbers, strings, and other objects as well as the operators you use to work with them. Dictionaries, lists, tuples, and other data structures specific to Python receive plenty of attention including complete examples. Authors Mark Lutz and David Ascher build on that fundamental information in their discussions of functions and modules, which evolve into coverage of namespaces, classes, and the object-oriented aspects of Python programming. There's also information on creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for Python applications with Tkinter. In addition to its careful expository prose, Learning Python includes exercises that both test your Python skills and help reveal more elusive truths about the language.
Product Description
Thoroughly updated, Learning Python, Second Edition introduces the basic elements of the latest release of Python 2.3 and covers new features, such as list comprehensions, nested scopes, and iterators/generators. Beyond language features, it also includes new context for less-experienced programmers, including fresh overviews of object-oriented programming and dynamic typing, new discussions of program launch and configuration options, new coverage of documentation sources, and more. There are also new use cases throughout to make the application of language features more concrete. The first part of Learning Python gives programmers all the information they'll need to understand and construct programs in the Python language, including types, operators, statements, classes, functions, modules and exceptions. The authors then present more advanced material, showing how Python performs common tasks by offering real applications and the libraries available for those applications. Each chapter ends with a series of exercises that will test your Python skills and measure your understanding.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 123 more reviews...
 Is this really from O'Reilly? January 5, 2009
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the first O'Reilly book that I will say that I regret purchasing. Coming from Perl and now trying to see what the hype with Python is about. I know Java as well as C++, so I understand OO and all it is supposed to do.
So far I am on page 200 and I still can't do a darn thing with the language. Instead the author chooses to spend pages explaining how python handles objects in memory (not sure how I supposed to understand what an object is if I never did another language). It is now page 200, I have no idea how to do loops, no idea how to accept input or even how to print a string. This book is terrible. My learning Perl book is only 200 pages long and packed with useful information. This book just goes into detail about the language and how it operates internally. That would be fine towards the end of the book, but as it stands this is the only O'Reilly book I can't recommend.
 Wordy December 31, 2008
This book should be called "Learning Python for people who have never programmed before". The author states in the preface that no assumptions have been made about the reader's programming background. I think that this is why this book is so wordy.
Amazon's opening statement: "The authors of Learning Python show you enough essentials of the Python scripting language to enable you to begin solving problems right away..." Well, not right away. You have to read half the book first. The book delves into the details of data object types before even talking about basic programming features such as for/while loops (pg. 248). This book is an obvious outcropping of the author's classes on Python. I would think that the author's approach would be fine in a classroom setting, but this hand-holding approach in print is laborious.
The book also has altogether too many references to later chapters. I got tired of reading "X will be covered later in chapter Y". If you aren't going to talk about it now, don't waste the reader's time talking about how you are not going to talk about it now.
That said, I found the information in the book to be useful.
I just received "Programming in Python 3" by Mark Summerfield. This book takes the approach I wish that "Learning Python" had.
Comprehensive but rather wordy December 16, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have learned Python through this book, but to be honest, it wasn't very pleasant (although that's mostly because I was impatient). The book is comprehensive, but it's rather wordy. The two combined mean that it becomes one really huge book. Due to the length, it will take commitment to read through the whole thing, and in my opinion, for the first time learning, there's no need to go through this much detail. That said, I much prefer reading something easier like Byte of Python and use this book for supplement details.
Another issue about this book is its bottom-up approach. To some, it isn't an issue, but the bottom-up approach to learning isn't exactly everyone's thing.
I might have sound negative, but my score should indicate that I find this book an adequate buy. I personally like how the author mentions some common mistakes beginners make while going through certain language features, and I did learn a lot from this book even if it took commitment.
The Ultimate Reference For A Python Learner December 10, 2008
This book with its well organized, top-down, explanatory approach is the ultimate reference for the student new to the Python Language. For each major feature of the language a complete explanation is given including a description of why this feature is implemented in the way that it is, and a "Brain Builder" set of thought questions to reinforce this knowledge. In taking this complete explanatory approach to explaining Python this volume may not offer the most efficient tutorial path for a new learner, like other volumes which take us from a simple explained program to gradually more complex examples. But it provides a reference to why Python does it the way that it does. The next edition should also give an explanation and rationale for the changes in Python 3.0, but in the meantime this is the best reference for the Python Learner.
 Best Book For Python Beginners November 30, 2008
Very well written and easy to understand. One of he best introductory programming books I have read. If you want to learn Python this book will help. However to master any programming language you need to practice and write programs. I would recommend opening python and following along with the author.
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