Sams Teach Yourself Python in 24 Hours (Teach Yourself -- 24 Hours) [Paperback]

Ivan Van Laningham (Author), Ivan Van Laningham (Author)

Book Description

Series: Teach Yourself in 24 Hours | Publication Date: May 15, 2000

Sams Teach Yourself Python in 24 Hours presents 24 hands-on, one-hour lessons that guide you through all the steps needed to learn the Python programming language. The lessons begin with basic Python syntax and language features, and move up through object oriented design and programming. The book ends with a series of chapters covering GUI programming (using Tkinter), Python as a system administration tool, and Python as a programming language for CGI applications.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the crowded field of scripting languages, Python has found a niche as the best tool for learning object-oriented design principles. Several elegantly produced books in the past few years, notably David M. Beazley's thorough Python Essential Reference and John E. Grayson's durable Python and Tkinter Programming, have established a foundation of documentation that makes Python a buildable platform for rapid prototyping, as well as good programming practice.

The appearance in April 2000 of a Sams Teach Yourself Python in 24 Hours is evidence of mainstream support. Author Ivan van Laningham has the happy task of teaching an eminently teachable language, and his passion for Python is evident throughout. The 24-chapter recipe is arbitrary, but the book has a well-chosen tripartite subdivision into sections on basic operation, object-oriented design, and GUIs, each of which fulfills its mission. Each "hour" chapter ends with a summary, a Q&A period, a quiz with answers, and, for the ambitious, exercises.

The first hour asks the essential question, "Why Python?" The answer is a collection of flattering adjectives--flexible, extensible, embeddable, elegant, clear, simple--but the author fails to provide a comparison of Python with Tcl, Java, and Perl. Python has a competitive advantage, as found in Part II on object-oriented design basics and strategies. While other languages use o-o principles, none has subsumed it into the mind of the language as much as Python.

Van Laningham's book is illustrated with visually uninteresting black-and-white screen dumps from his Windows Python shell. An early lesson on adding '1' to the decimal representation of a googol (10^100) reveals that Python can print the answer in decimal notation. (Try it with Perl to see what happens.) The modular nature of Python is introduced transparently by incorporating the trigonometric math library.

Teach Yourself Python in 24 Hours is weakest in its editing. Mistakes in cross-referencing are distracting, and Van Laningham's loose, informal English often obfuscates his points. Code snippets in the early chapters grow into major listings by the middle, and proper annotation begins to slacken. A 950-line listing in chapter 16--which is downloadable from the inscrutable www.pauahtun.org--has few annotations. May future editions be shorter, sharper, and cleaner, but just as passionate. --Peter Leopold

From the Back Cover

Sams Teach Yourself Python in 24 Hours presents 24 hands-on, one-hour lessons that guide you through all the steps needed to learn the Python programming language. The lessons begin with basic Python syntax and language features, and move up through object oriented design and programming. The book ends with a series of chapters covering GUI programming (using Tkinter), Python as a system administration tool, and Python as a programming language for CGI applications.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Pearson Sams Publishing; 1st edition (May 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672317354
• ISBN-13: 978-0672317354
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #783,350 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars You'll need more than 24 hours, May 16, 2000

By 

Maria Erb "redwing" (Keene, New Hampshire) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself Python in 24 Hours (Teach Yourself -- 24 Hours) (Paperback)

I bought this book hoping it would be a gentle yet thoroughintroduction to the Python language which I had hoped to use for webapplications. And the book started out along that track. Easy to read and lively and with lots of examples. The big problem I have with the book (and I only made it to hour 12 before I had to quit) is that there is no way for the reader to practice and learn the concepts in the book. There aren't any practice exercises or drills. There are screen dumps of code, but I didn't find the examples useful since I was looking for web-based applications rather than more mathematical types of examples. The examples also get very big and complex early on in the book. Experienced programmers will probably be able to follow along, but then they might not be buying this book in the first place. I'm still looking for a good, step-by-step way to learn Python.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well written for a beginner book, May 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself Python in 24 Hours (Teach Yourself -- 24 Hours) (Paperback)

What I like: - Easy to understand. The author did a good job. - Casual writing style. (You learn a thing or two about Zen.) - Includes enough ref info on its topics, but not too detailed/technical.

What I don't like: the editorial works. - Sample codes/output are presented as computer screen dumps. The color (gray scale) is hard to read, and characters are small. - The book description touts CGI as one of the book topics, but it's only covered lightly and briefly to add much value. - Chapter/hour 1 and 2 should be combined as 1. Too brief & too light.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Need an Aneurysm, this book should do the trick..., February 2, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself Python in 24 Hours (Teach Yourself -- 24 Hours) (Paperback)

...this book is garbage, and that's exactly where the book is now. In the garbage. The author needs to go back to school and get educated in the english language. He is very knowledgable in programming, he lacks the ability to put his thoughts in english that others can understand. He stops his thought half way through sentences. He has run on sentences, typo's, combined with the fact that he NEVER explains a single piece of code in the book completely, he famous lines in the book are "we'll discuss that later" which never happens, and "do you remember this?" NO, BECAUSE YOU NEVER EXPLAINED IT!!! Very frustrating, and i'm an undergrad student that has been punching out code in Java for 3 years, and I'm totally lost, how is that possible? 2 simple words for this book, don't bother. Get this book, it's much better: ISBN# 0-13-026036-3 - Core Python Programming by Wesley J. Chun