Customer Reviews

Beginning Python (Programmer to Programmer)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Python is one of those programming languages I hear about a lot, but I've never taken the time to pick up a book and find out more about it. To fix that, I got a copy of Beginning Python (published by Wrox) by Peter Norton, Alex Samuel, David Aitel, Eric Foster-Johnson, Leonard Richardson, Jason Diamond, Aleatha Parker, and Michael Roberts. Not a bad title to use to get started...

Contents: Introduction; Programming Basics and Strings; Numbers and Operators; Variables - Names for Values; Making Decisions; Functions; Classes and Objects; Organizing Programs; Files and Directories; Other Features of the Language; Building a Module; Text Processing; Testing; Writing a GUI with Python; Accessing Databases; Using Python for XML; Network Programming; Extension Programming with C; Writing Shareware and Commercial Programs; Numerical Programming; Python in the Enterprise; Web Applications and Web Services; Integrating Java with Python; Answers to Exercises; Online Resources; What's New in Python 2.4; Glossary; Index

When I first started reading, I was a little disappointed at the target level. Up through about the Functions chapter, it's information that any programmer should already know (loops, variables, etc.) and would be best used by someone who had never programmed before in their life. While they do say that particular demographic is intended as a reader, I was hoping for more. From Classes on, it's material that squarely hits where intermediate programmers live and breathe, and it's at that point that the book takes off (in my opinion). Using the basic Python skills learned in the first section, you start to see how those concepts are applied in real programs that actually do stuff. And given the wide array of subjects they hit (C integration, GUI development, XML, etc.), you should quickly learn how best to use this language in many of the common situations you'll run into on a day-to-day basis. The writing style and format is consistent, as well as their use of examples throughout the book. You don't find yourself switching gears every few pages for some new contrived example that just came out of left field.

This is a book I'll be holding onto in order to free up time to get some hands-on experience with Python. It gives me what I need to know along with numerous ways to apply that knowledge, and from there I can decide how much further to take my learning...

I did not find this book very helpful for learning Python. First of all the book is not very informative. In each chapter, you are introduced to a new idea (e.g. lists) but you don't really learn much about it, different/creative ways to use it, or why you would want to.

Any book that purports to teach you a programming language ultimately passes or fails based on the examples it gives you in the text and the excercises it gives you at the end of each chapter. This is where the book is especially poor. There is only one example that runs throughout this book: how to make an omelet. On its own, it's not horrible. In general, program is like a recipe: you give it stuff at the begining and instructions and then you end up with a finished product (although, oddly, this analogy is never made in the book). The main problem, though, is that this is the only example. Every new idea is shown only once, in the context of this example, and many tricks that can be done with Python, but are not relevant to this example are not included in the book.

What's more, the excercizes are all keyed to the same example of making an omelet, which gets more and more ponderous with every passing chapter. Worst of all, as soon as your code no longer performs the way they describe, you're out of luck. You can no longer work through the ideas in the book and it is largely useless.

The bottom line is that there are much better books for learning Python. I would recomend getting "Learning Python" by Lutz and Ascher.

My primary compliment to "Beginning Python" is that it makes learning Python seem easy. .

The book covers a lot of Python basics like strings, numbers, operators, variables. It also covers advanced topics like network programming, extending Python through C/C++, threading, GUI programming and Python with XML. In the end it discusses about the new features of Python release 2.4. Last Chapter "Integrating Java with Python" covers - scripting with java applications, Jython, integrating Java and Jython, J2EE servlets in Jython. I find it useful for both python and java programmer.

Book provides exercises at the end of every chapter, which can help you for self study and better understanding of the concepts. The explanations and the code throughout the book are easy to understand

I think this book would be a good choice for someone in the beginner to intermediate range. If you are a programmer (C, C++, Java, Perl) then it may be a little slow for you. A lot of time is put into syntax, control flow, and basic data structures, it can get a little difficult to digest. I thought more could have gone into topics like "Writing Shareware and Commercial programs".

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn Python but is new to programming.

This book is filled with errors and is completely useless if you don't follow the Author's train of thought because they happily jump from one concept to the other without any thought for the concepts that need to be explained in between. Topics are difficult to understand, explanations of the installation of the software they require you to use are limited (and the software is a pain the you know where).

I can't recommend this book to anyone other that the authors, because it seems to have only been written for themselves.

Really?! An Omelette is the best example you could come up with? fridge contents? types of cheese? wanted food? Who programs that stuff? Is that the level of abstract that your brain can handle? What is wrong with you authors?!

Somebody gave me this book for free. I just browsed through its first 70-80 pages. I am afraid I have to through it away! You know?! With the rest of the spoiled food!!!!!

Here is a suggestion to the authors. Pick up a Murach book to see how a programming book is written!!
Here is another suggestion to the authors. How about if you use something close to a real life application? like a teacher wants to keep record of its students grades, or a company needs to keeps track of its emplyees, salaries, etc.

A choice excerpt:

"The best way to start writing a class is to decide what you want it to do. For this, a Python-based model
of refrigerator behaviors, Fridge, is the first thing, and it should be basic. While you're thinking about
it, focus on what you will need a particular Fridge object to do for your own purposes. You want
enough behaviors available that this object can be used to make food, yet you don't want to worry about
aspects of real-life refrigerators that won't be included in a simplified example, such as temperature, the
freezer, defrosting, and electricity--all of these are unnecessary details that would only complicate our
purpose here. For now, let's just add to the docstring for the Fridge class to define the behaviors that
you will be building soon."

Did an editor even look at this?

As you can guess from the name this is an introductory text. Check out Summerfield (Programming in Python 3) and Lutz (Learning Python) for reference texts. As an introduction the book does a good job. It is structured coherently and flows well. The writing style needs some improvement but if you can gloss over that then this book could be for you.

The book is very annoying, actually i found the style of the authors rather heavy,easy topics are explained difficult to understand, which shows the luck of experience in writing technical books.This actually should be the difference between an Internet tutorial and a book.

It may be useful for someone learning Python as their introduction to programming. I've programmed in C for years. I was looking for an introductory book that would also be a good reference to the Python language. This is not it. Every time I go to the book to find something I come up empty and end up looking in the free download version of Learning Python.

Beginning Python is book on programing using the python language. This book serves as a tutorial or guide to the python language for anyone. If all you know is how to save text files,then you can learn python using this book. If you are an expert programmer then this book then this would be great if you love Java, C++, Perl, or any other language you will have a great time learning Python