Python in a Nutshell [Paperback]

Alex Martelli (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2003 | ISBN-10: 0596001886 | ISBN-13: 978-0596001889 | Edition: 1st

Ask any Python aficionado and you'll hear that Python programmers have it all: an elegant language that offers object-oriented programming support, a readable, maintainable syntax, integration with C components, and an enormous collection of precoded standard library and extension modules. Moreover, Python is easy to learn but powerful enough to take on the most ambitious programming challenges. But what Python programmers have lacked is one concise and clear reference resource, with the appropriate measure of guidance in how best to use Python's great power. Now Python in a Nutshell fills this need.

In the tradition of O'Reilly's "In a Nutshell" series, this book offers Python programmers one place to look when they need help remembering or deciphering the syntax of this open source language and its many modules. This comprehensive reference guide makes it easy to look up all the most frequently needed information--not just about the Python language itself, but also the most frequently used parts of the standard library and the most important third-party extensions.

Python in a Nutshell focuses on Python 2.2 (and all its point releases), currently the most stable and widespread Python release. This book includes:

• A fast-paced tutorial on the syntax of the Python language itself
• An explanation of object-oriented programming in Python, covering both the classic and new-style object models
• Coverage of other core topics, including exceptions, modules, strings, and regular expressions
• A quick reference for Python's built-in types and functions, as well as the key modules in the Python standard library, including sys, os, time, thread, math, and socket, among many others
• Reference material on important third-party extensions, such as Numeric and Tkinter
• Information about extending Python and embedding it into other applications

Python in a Nutshell provides a solid, no-nonsense quick reference to information that programmers rely on the most. This latest addition to the best-selling "In a Nutshell" series will immediately earn its place in any Python programmer's library.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Brave beginners will be well served by this title, which provides an intelligent, fast paced intro to core topics." - Martin Howse, LinuxUser & Developer, Issue 30 "I whole-heartedly recommend this book to all Python programmers. It is a very concise and informative book, and its small size belies its information content. I would also recommend and suggest this book to any experienced programmers wishing to begin programming in Python, who would enjoy a straight-to-the-point manual on the Python language." - Daire Stockdale, Cvu/ACCU

About the Author

Alex Martelli spent 8 years with IBM Research, winning three Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards. He then spent 13 as a Senior Software Consultant at think3 inc, developing libraries, network protocols, GUI engines, event frameworks, and web access frontends. He has also taught programming languages, development methods, and numerical computing at Ferrara University and other venues. He's a C++ MVP for Brainbench, and a member of the Python Software Foundation. He currently works for AB Strakt, a Python-centered software house in Gteborg, Sweden, mostly by telecommuting from his home in Bologna, Italy. Alex's proudest achievement is the articles that appeared in Bridge World (January/February 2000), which were hailed as giant steps towards solving issues that had haunted contract bridge theoreticians for decades.

Product Details

• Paperback: 600 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (March 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596001886
• ISBN-13: 978-0596001889
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,218,724 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

89 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nutshell v. Online Docs (2nd edition too), March 8, 2004

By 

C. Dunn "independent thinker" (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Python in a Nutshell (Paperback)

This is a great book, without question. The question is whether it is worth the price, given the free online HTML reference documentation.

Pros:
+ Very good index; somewhat better than the online index.
+ Helpful explanations.
+ Some examples.
+ Much more advice than the online docs.
+ Very nice typesetting.

Cons (1st edition):
- Does not cover some of the most useful (new) modules: timeit, logging, zipimport, itertools, sets, sum, heapq.
- In particular, I would love to have ADVICE on how to use logging effectively.
- DOES cover the dead (insecure) modules rexec and Bastion.

So take your own decision. Personally, I would say it's not essential, but still worth the price. I go back and forth between the online index and this book.

Addendum:

The 2nd edition covers most of Python2.5. (The 1st covered 2.2 and much of 2.3). It includes most useful modules and excludes the deprecated ones, so it actually adds much more info than its slight increase in page-count would indicate. The only thing I was not able to find was 'meta_path', which is at least mentioned as highly technical.

In general, the 2nd edition is for a more expert user than the 1st. The explanations sometimes include some dense code:

* There is a long example of using meta-classes.
* The explanation of the new try/except/finally assumes that you understand the old (broken) behavior.
* The 'with' statement is explained by way of an equivalent fragment of code.

These changes make the 2nd edition ideal for the practicing Python programmer. However, a novice might be intimidated.

I would now increase the rating to 5 stars if I could. Excellent reference work!

57 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic Book, April 16, 2003

By 

Ronald D. Stephens "Book Worm" (Newtown, CT United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Python in a Nutshell (Paperback)

Python in a Nutshell, by Alex Martelli, 2003 O'Reilly, 636 pages.

Perhaps the best book about Python ever written, this book is the perfect capstone to anyone's library of Pythonic books, and also the perfect introduction to Python for anyone well versed in other programming languages. For newbies to programming, this would still be a good second book after a good introductory book on Python, such as Learning Python by Mark Lutz.

Written by my favorite author and Pythonista, Alex Martelli, this book manages to fill three roles in extremely pleasing fashion. First and foremost to me, it is a great read, straight through. Mr. Martelli's prose is always sparkling and always keeps the reader interested. No matter how many Python books you have read, you will learn some nuances from this book, and it is about the best review of the whole Pythonic subject matter that I can imagine. While there is absolutely no fluff whatsoever in these 636 pages, it still makes for rather easy reading because the explanations are so clearly thought out and explored as to lead one gently to understanding, without in any way being verbose. It is obvious that Alex Martelli took his time and put in sufficient thought, effort, and intellectual elbow-grease to make this work a classic for all time.

Secondly, this book is the ultimate Pythonic reference book, the best fit to this role I have yet seen. You will keep this book in the most cherished spot on your book shelf, or else right at your side on your computer desk, because you can almost instantly find any topic on which you need to brush up, in the midst of a programminng project.

Third, Python in a Nutshell is the most up-to-date book on Python (as of April 2003) and includes the best and most complete expositions yet on the new features introduced in Python 2.2 and 2.3. These topics are not only covered in depth, they are integrated into the text in their proper positions and relationships to the language as a whole. They are explained better here than I have seen anywhere else, so much so as to make them not only understandable to me (a duffer), but indeed so that they appear seamlessly Pythonic, as if they had been a part of the language since version 1.0. Topics explored in depth include new style classes, static methods, class methods, nested scopes, iterators, generators, and new style division. List comprehensions are made not only comprehesible but indeed intuitive.

The book is surprisingly complete. It covers the core language as well as the most popular libraries and extension modules. It is difficult to choose any one portion of the book to highlight for extra praise, as all topics are treated so well. It is a complete book, the new definitive book about Python.

Everything about this book speaks of quality. In addition to the top notch writing and editing, O'Reilly really did the right thing and published this book printed on the highest quality paper, paper so thin that the 636 pages are encompassed in a book much thinner than one would expect for such a size, but strong enough to resist wear and tear. The text is most pleasing to the eye. Holding the book, and turning its pages, gives one a feeling of satisfaction.

Any job worth doing is worth doing well. Alex Martelli and O'Reilly have done justice to a topic dear to our hearts, the Python programming language. Perhaps, in years to come, the passing time may make this book be no longer the most up-to-date reference on the newest features added to Python. But time can not erase the quality craftsmanship and the shear joy of reading such a well thought out masterpiece of Pythonic literature.

Ron Stephens

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book can even teach developers of the language!, May 1, 2003

By 

Brett Cannon "incessantranting" (Toronto, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Python in a Nutshell (Paperback)

I bought this book at the PyCon 2003 Python conference mainly to complete my Python book collection. I thought that since it was a Nutshell book and I already knew a ton about Python (I am an official developer on the language) that I wouldn't really pick up that much.

I was wrong. Not only did I learn some new things, but Alex's wonderful way of presenting ideas helped clarify and present a different view of some vital concepts in Python that made them even easier to grasp than I had originally thought. There is a reason why he is called the Martellibot on comp.lang.python and the python-dev mailing list.

I also have a friend who is a programmer who has read the first chapter or so of the book and has also found it a great way to learn Python.

So whether you are a hardened Python programmer or just starting out (as long as you can already program), this book is definitely worth the money. And the Python Cookbook makes a great companion book to this to pick up a few tricks and get even more example code to learn from (especially from my contributed recipes to the book =).