Customer Reviews

Learning Python (Help for Programmers)

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Together with "Perl: the programmer's companion", by Nigel Chapman, this is one of the best introductory book I ever read. If you already know "Programming Python", the previous book of Mark Lutz on Python, and are concerned about the possibility that this book was just another messy collection of concepts and tips, relax: this is a completely different object. "learning Python" is a well-designed, well-written and concise book. It gives you all you need to write system administration utilities, Internet-related programs and other small applications. (Should you need a book on TKinter, the standard GUI module of Python, buy "Python and TKinter programming", by John Grayson, Manning publisher).

Consider to buy this book because:

- It is clear and well written. No struggles to understand the basic concepts and having the first programs running.

- It is well-designed and well-structured. You can find the info you need in a snap.

- You get a real understanding of Python, not only a description of its nice features.

- It is concise. In a day or two you will be coding in Python.

- It is a very good guide to keep on your desk. It is the missing part of the online documentation.

- In describes how to perform the most common task with Python. You will not have to reinvent any wheel.

- It describes a few important modules of Python: JPython, TKinter and COM. You can get a feeling of what you can do with Python (but, to go further, you will have to read the online documentation and perform a few experiments by yourself).

Python is a very smart language and deserved a better book than "Programming Python". This is that book.

I bought this book because I originally bought the author's Programming Python book mistakenly thinking it would be similar to the Programming Perl book (which is a stellar book, where as the Python equivalent is more like a cookbook). It was immediately obvious that I was NOT going to learn Python from that book so I bought this one. Again, a mistake. It may be a fair overview of Python but it did not give me the tools I needed to be productive right away; and if it did have the information that I was looking for it was not obvious. Simple things like writing to standard error, file tests, executing separate programs and saving the output, parsing text, even how to force a script to bloody exit... basically common things people expect from a scripting language right away were given either little, weak, or *NO* obvious treatment. The appendix is no help either, I could not find most of these simple operations listed there under the usual key words. I'm sorry to say but this is the worst O'Reilly book I've come accross and (together with Programming Python) is a black mark on the series.

First off I would like to make a distinction between the Python programming language and this particular introduction to it. Python is a great language and you will enjoy programming in it. This is probably the source of excitement in reviews on this page. Because the book, unfortunately, has a number of flaws.

The tradition of O'Reilly Perl books has been not only to teach you the syntax of Perl, but also to introduce programming techniques and ideas how to make best use of the language features. This Python book scores zero on these points. It focuses on syntax exclusively and this makes it unsuitable for an absolute beginner. The examples are unimaginative. The authors show you how to write correct code for using "dictionaries", but not how to USE "dictionaries". A Perl book author would throw in a program that uses a "hash" to search for duplicate data entries (as they did).

Besides, the flow of the book is uneven. Functions and classes are discussed at length, but built-in data types and exceptions are looked at only briefly. All this is really unfortunate because there are not very many Python books on the market and it is a very good language.

Overall, I think, this book is best for experienced programmers who already know their CS, have to get up to speed with Python very quickly, have $30 to waste, and really love to own O'Reilly books. The rest might be better off by printing out the Python tutorial.

Mark Lutz and David Ascher deliver precisely the needed information to meet the objective stated on the cover of the O'Reilly text, "Learning Python" (Help for Programmers).

A succinct, yet thorough treatment of the Python programming language is presented in some 350-plus written pages that are well organized and facilitate the development of Python programs in a "Read and Code as You Go" fashion.

After spot reading the Chapters on "Getting Started", "Types And

Operators", "Basic Statements", "Functions", "Modules" and "Common Tasks In Python", I was coding and running my first text file I/O Python programs within the first half of a day. The authors concise presentation of the concepts definitely facilitated the "learning curve", which so often is an obstacle when learning a new programming language. The material was also indexed very well with clear index descriptions to easily determine what the topic was and where to find it.

What I found to be the strongest point of the book were the "Gotchas" sections, in which the authors discussed topics such as Python Language Constructs, Program Class Usage and Coding Practices to be aware of. I found the "Common Coding Gotchas" section at the end of Chapter 3 of great benefit in coding and debugging my first self-authored Python programs (As I learned, Python is definitely a language where you want to indent consistently, avoid the mixing of blank spaces with tabs and not forget the use of colons to denote decision logic). The application of these concepts alone were a great asset in reducing the "Learning Curve" for me.

The program examples provided reinforced the clear, concise concepts presented by the authors. The programs that I studied were suited to running in both a Linux environment (using Linux Python Version 1.5.2 for SuSE(tm) Linux 7.0 and Red Hat(tm) Linux 6.1) and MS Windows(tm) NT/98 (using Active State's Active Python(tm) Version 2.1).

Exercises presented at the end of the chapter were effective at reinforcing the programming concepts presented. With some supplemental tutorial material for non-programmers, this book could be used as an educational text for a Python programming class, particularly one geared for programmers with scripting language experience.

The authors did a good job of covering a number of topics important to application programmers. Object-oriented Constructs, Manipulation of String Objects, Operating System Module Use, GUI Programming Component Frameworks and Applications such as Tkinter and JPython are discussed to provide the reader a good exposure to the extent of the Python language implementation and its strenght as a robust, object-oriented scripting language.

The book is definitely an invaluable resource for providing the essential material necessary to construct your first Python programs, especially if you've had prior programming experience with other scripting languages, such as REXX, Javascript or Perl.

Definitely one of the best O'Reilly publications I've read to date. Kudos to Mr. Lutz and Mr. Ascher for their contribution to making the experience of "Learning Python" a fun and productive pursuit. Five Stars!

I first purchased this book nearly two years ago, but I never got past the first few chapters.

I just picked this book up again, with the benefit of two years' experience programming in PHP and a little but of Java, and I realize why working through this book seemed like such slow going the first time around.

On the one hand, "Learning Python" is written with a lot of hand-holding for readers who may not have much programming experience at all with any other languages; the basic concepts of variables, statements, functions, data types and the like are all clearly explained, which is a good thing for someone just starting out.

On the other hand, there are also quite a few tips and bits of information about memory efficiency, or how certain elements of Python relate to their C underpinnings; things that a rank newbie probably won't understand, and probably doesn't need to know when they're just trying to learn the basics. These esoteric points are probably quite helpful/interesting for programmers coming from low level languages like C, but those programmers will be frustrated by the slow page of the sections covering basic mechanics.

So you've got a book that moves at a beginners' pace that's full of asides targeted towards experienced programmers; beginners will be confused and overwhelmed, and experienced coders will just get frustrated.

For what it's worth, I have the first edition of this book; I'm not sure how the second edition compares.

Having previously read several O'reilly Perl books I thought that learning Python from this text would be straight forward. Unfortunately this book has none of the helpful examples that the Perl books have and also dissappointing was the reluctance to write the code as you might using a text editor. Instead the authors seem to prefer to write code as it would be run from the interpreter on the commandline. This made it really hard to write any Python using the text editor. All in all a complete waste of money.

You can learn Python from this book. However, this is not one of those books which capture your attention, like, say, Kernighan's books, or even "Learning Perl". You have to fight against this book. This is mainly for the following reasons, IMHO:
1. Jargon is used too frequently. If you are not a hacker (in the good, original sense) you have to work against the language (not Python, English!), too. I had to reach for the "Hacker's Dictionary", now and then. For instance, the word "hook" is used in a technical sense without being explained.
2. Object is never defined. In the "official" tutorial, which is much shorter, a clear and concise definition is given. This is badly needed, for "object", in the python world, is different that in
C++, or smalltalk, world, where it is a class instance. In python it is the triple (type, address, value).
3. Phrases like "Classes are mostly just namespace" don't help the beginner who wants to know what distinguishes a concept from another. These abstractions are premature.
4. The too frequent use of Monthy Python terms like "spam" and
"eggs" is ridiculous, and makes the examples seem totally useless pieces of programming.

So, I think this book is perfect for one who is a personal programmer and wants to learn quickly what Python is all about. He will probably like the book for the very reasons I complain against it. The subtitle is correct: Help for Programmers.

Still, you'll learn the language. But with a fight!

If your goal is to get up to speed quickly with Python this might not be the book for you. Especially if you already have programming experience then you are better off downloading the documentation from python.org. That documentation covers the same material but much more succinctly. For example, in the reference manual at python.org, the "while" statement is described in less than a dozen lines of text, while in "Learning Python" it drags on across multiple pages.

The advantage of "Learning Python" is this: (1) the author shares the style and idioms that experienced Python programmers would use; and (2) the author offers insight into the history and design of the language. This allows the reader to "taste" the language as well as learn it. But for a quick path to learning Python, I would recommend using the website's documentation.

Can't really describe precisely what's wrong with this book. I've been programming, and picking up languages, for 25 years. This book didn't do anything for me... so I just started writing some code. At some point the light went on and Python was magically easy. Now, as I need to help some other people learn Python I'm looking back through the book and NOW it looks great - covers the key details, describes them well, warns you about pitfalls, etc. In short, everything I'd like to present as a trainer (and I know it grew out of the authors' experiences as trainers). But it didn't work at all for me as a newbie.

This book is a terribly lazy attempt at writing a Python tutorial.
Sure, you can read it from start to finish, and write yourself some working Python code. However, when you want to write something slightly different to what is covered in this book, you suddenly realise how incomplete this book is.

Eg, it covers the hasattr, getattr, setattr, and delattr built in functions, which is fine if you already know what attributes an object has, but in no way can I work out with this book how, or if it is even possible, to get a list of an object's existing attributes.

It is incredibly frustrating trying to learn Python from this book. I am writing this review because I came online to look for a better Python book. I was hoping to find something by the Wrox publishers, as their Beginning Java2 is excellent, but it looks like I am out of luck...