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Learning Python, 3rd Edition 3rd Edition

by Mark Lutz (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars 280 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0596513986
ISBN-10: 0596513984
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 752 pages
  • Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 3 edition (November 1, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0596513984
  • ISBN-13: 978-0596513986
  • Product Dimensions: 7 x 1.5 x 9.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (280 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #880,295 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Top Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 starsA great reference, but not a tutorial
By calvinnme HALL OF FAME on August 10, 2013
Format: Paperback
I like how O'Reilly breaks out its PERL books. There is "Learning PERL" for beginners, "Programming PERL" as a reference, and "PERL Cookbook" for solutions. Alas, this book, a weighty tome that makes the dictionary look skinny, should really be renamed "Programming Python". It's a great reference, but good luck trying to learn Python succinctly and from scratch. It's like trying to learn English by reading the dictionary. I'll give it 3 out of 5 on correctness and completeness, but like trying to buy a pair of shoes at a giant Megamart with no department signs, you'll eventually just get frustrated and leave.
10 Comments 254 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
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3.0 out of 5 starsPython doesn't need to be this tedious
By Resmai on November 28, 2013
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
Another reviewer said that trying to learn Python from this book is like trying to learn english by reading the dictionary, and that couldn't be more true. Each discrete topic is covered in minute detail, so it isn't until page 500 or so of this 1500+ page book that you will have covered enough of the basics to write even a simple program. One of Python's strongest selling points is that it's easy to jump in and get programming right away, regardless of prior knowledge, so this book's approach is a major turn-off for anyone that wants to learn through practice and experience.

Speaking of which, readers will need to have at least some previous programming experience to make sense of this book, since it relies heavily on jargon that complete beginners are unlikely to understand. If you don't already know what functions, methods, strings, and such are (and experienced programmers here will laugh, but when you are first starting out, such terms can be confusing!) the author isn't going to explain, or if he does, it will be 200 pages later in a different section.

A more minor complaint is the dry and formal, textbook-like voice of the author. I don't need to be constantly entertained while learning, but I do need to have fun, and a little humor and personality go a long way.

I'm over a hundred pages in, and I give up. I need to actually program while learning to program. I was looking for a beginner friendly, tutorial style book that would encourage exploration and test my knowledge with quizzes. This isn't it. I think I will go back to my severely outdated copy of Beginning Python by Magnus Lie Hetland to brush up on basic program construction, then use this book as a reference as I get deeper into programming with Python.
6 Comments 151 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
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5.0 out of 5 starsFinally the book that got me going!
By mattiasostmar on September 7, 2013
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
I was a total noob that wanted to learn to program and was advised to learn Python, since I want to do some text analysis. I started out with Learn Python the Hard Way (to mind numbing), tried CodeCademy.com (to general) and watched a lot of videos on youtube (too fragmented) and read a lot of different specialized books on Python (like Python for Data Analysis). THIS book is finally the one that step-by-step in a good old school-teacher way is the perfect fit for me. Gentle, start at page 1 and go one page at the time forward - and it all makes sense and is perfectly balanced.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone that is absolutely new to programming and have no ambitions to be a programmer, but only yo learn to use code as a tool.
5 Comments 163 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
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2.0 out of 5 starsToo thorough, makes for very dense reading.
By Michael Nolet on January 29, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Caveat - I've been programming since 1992 in C/C++, Pascal, Java, PHP and have recently decided it's time to learn Python. This review is intended for those that know basic programming principles

This book probably has more content about Python than you will ever need. The problem is, it makes for very dense reading as Mark tries to appeal to too broad an audience, both newbies to programming and veterans. This means he laboriously explains all the basics AND all of the minute details of the language. This means learning basics like methods and classes takes many more hours of reading than it should.

Mark's style is: when in doubt to be verbose. If there are three ways to do something in Python, all three methods are explained in detail (sometimes multiple times) and the "pythonic" or "best practice" often saved until all are explained in full detail. For example, Mark spends multiple pages on the difference between __str__ and __repr__ (two methods you can override for class output) across several chapters, rather than just concisely explaining to use __repr__ most of the time, explain the difference and maybe a sidebar/appendix on the minutia of why "most of the time" you should just use __repr__ but there are a few exceptions.

Going back, I realized another reviewer summed it up perfectly -- "It's like learning the English language by reading a dictionary."

DO buy this book if you want to have a reference dictionary that has ever minute detail about Python.
DON'T buy this book if you are new to the language and want to get going quickly.

I've moved to just writing the code and following online tutorials, and when I run into a problem I don't understand diving into the book to try to find the reasons.
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2.0 out of 5 starsRepetitios and very hard to use book.
By Dmitriy Krasnikov on August 12, 2013
Format: Paperback
It's been awhile since I read something that badly written in computer books.
Don't get me wrong the guy knows his stuff and there is a lot of information hidden in there.
Unfortunately it is truly hidden in unnecessary repetitions and fluff.
It is not a book or reference or tutorial, this is something like a notes from Mark Lutz class, that he teaches. While in the class it is totally ok to revisit previous topics or not get distracted by advanced concepts in the book repetition and "I'll talk about it later" becomes super painful. Dear author, It's the book I can re-read previous topics as needed, there is no need to repeat it 20 times (and this is not an exaggeration).
In fact the most used phrase- which you will meet on average twice per page is "more on * later" and "as we discussed previously/(in chapter *)". If you don't believe me do a regular expression search on it.
This book would've been so much better if it was 1/5 in size with topics staying together (we have 3 places/chapters for strings in different places in the book and don't even get me started on classes presentation structure).
Also it looks a little biased toward 2.6 version and old ways (% vs format for instance), the very important point of being able to re-use positional anchor with format statement is not even mentioned as an advantage "{0}={0}.value".format("var") for example cannot do it with % have to type "var" twice.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsI love it.

Easiest way to learn about Python! I love it.

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If it ain't in this book, you probably don't need it

Published 9 days ago by starchief
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Product was exactly as described. Comprehensive book.

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Awesome book

Published 25 days ago by Mark Labelle
5.0 out of 5 starsBy far the best python reference I have ever used

By far the best python reference I have ever used. Really. The book worth each cent of it's cost

Published 1 month ago by Denis
5.0 out of 5 starsYou will find that required and useful information is repeated just...

I have read about 500 pages of the text so far and based on this I can say that:
--> This book keeps me focused on learning the Language instead of tricks(that are script... Read more

Published 1 month ago by S.Ahmed
1.0 out of 5 starsNot usefull

Way too much of pages! Nobody can learn anything from the book like that.

Published 1 month ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsLove this book

Love this book.
If you like detailed instruction in a conversational tone this is a great book to learn Python from. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Uncle Buck
3.0 out of 5 starsAnyhow I think it's organization could be better. After reading the...

This book is very thoroughly and detailed in it's explanations of every aspect of Python. It also was the only book at this level I could find that dealt with both versions 2. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Kjell-Einar Ofstad
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat thorough introduction to a versatile language.

Sure this book is super long, but it will give you a great foundation of Python programming. The content will help you understand the intricacies of the language that will help... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Timoteo

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