Learning Python, 5th Edition Fifth Edition

by Mark Lutz (Author)

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Get a comprehensive, in-depth introduction to the core Python language with this hands-on book. Based on author Mark Lutz’s popular training course, this updated fifth edition will help you quickly write efficient, high-quality code with Python. It’s an ideal way to begin, whether you’re new to programming or a professional developer versed in other languages.

Complete with quizzes, exercises, and helpful illustrations, this easy-to-follow, self-paced tutorial gets you started with both Python 2.7 and 3.3— the latest releases in the 3.X and 2.X lines—plus all other releases in common use today. You’ll also learn some advanced language features that recently have become more common in Python code.

Explore Python’s major built-in object types such as numbers, lists, and dictionaries
Create and process objects with Python statements, and learn Python’s general syntax model
Use functions to avoid code redundancy and package code for reuse
Organize statements, functions, and other tools into larger components with modules
Dive into classes: Python’s object-oriented programming tool for structuring code
Write large programs with Python’s exception-handling model and development tools
Learn advanced Python tools, including decorators, descriptors, metaclasses, and Unicode processing

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Every object in Python is classified as either immutable (unchangeable) or not. In terms of the core types, numbers, strings, and tuples are immutable; lists, dictionaries, and sets are not
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Their general form, X[I:J], means “give me everything in X from offset I up to but not including offset J.”
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In simple terms, every file of Python source code whose name ends in a .py extension is a module.
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Mark Lutz is a leading Python trainer, the author of Python’s earliest and best-selling texts, and a pioneering figure in the Python world.

Mark is the author of the three O’Reilly books: Learning Python, Programming Python, and Python Pocket Reference, all currently in fourth or fifth editions. He has been using and promoting Python since 1992, started writing Python books in 1995, and began teaching Python classes in 1997. As of Spring 2013, Mark has instructed 260 Python training sessions, taught roughly 4,000 students in live classes, and written Python books that have sold 400,000 units and been translated to at least a dozen languages.

Together, his two decades of Python efforts have helped to establish it as one of the most widely used programming languages in the world today. In addition, Mark has been in the software field for 30 years. He holds BS and MS degrees in computer science from the University of Wisconsin where he explored implementations of the Prolog language, and over his career has worked as a professional software developer on compilers, programming tools, scripting applications, and assorted client/server systems.

Mark maintains a training website (http://learning-python.com) and an additional book support site on the Web (http://www.rmi.net/~lutz).

Start reading Learning Python: Powerful Object-Oriented Programming instantly on your Kindle Fire or on the free Kindle apps for iPad, Android tablet, PC or Mac. Don't have a free Kindle app? Get yours here

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ O'Reilly Media; Fifth edition (July 16, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 1648 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1449355730
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1449355739
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.95 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 2.8 x 9.19 inches

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Mark Lutz

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Mark Lutz is the author of Python's classic and foundational texts, a former trainer with two decades of experience teaching Python to newcomers, and one of the people responsible for the prominence that Python enjoys today. For more info, see the author's books and programming site at learning-python.com.

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German Bobadilla

Best Python book for a beginner

Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2018

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OK. I'm a true beginner; seriously. I'm 35 yo English teacher who can easily create a WordPress site, or a Moodle course. Other than that, I know nothing of programming. HTML and CSS is easy. But all I know is copy-pasting code from CSS generators. Sure something has stick about CSS and HTML, but nothing about programming. I was terrified to even try.

Until I met Python.

It was love at first sight the moment I saw its syntax. It was like reading English. I felt like New in the Matrix. So I started watching tutorials on YouTube, taking courses on Udemy, and Lynda.com, but none of them provided insightful information about the ins and outs of Python; you know, like 'the devil's in the details' kind of stuff. (Sure there are some programmers who create video tutorials on YouTube but they cover only small parts of Python programming in depth and many of them left me wanting more.

That's until I decided to google 'Best Python books'.

I found many videos that were talking about Python Crash Course, and Python the Hard Way being better than this book, but just the fact that this is a 1600 page book left me curious.

I gave it a try, and oh boy was I right.

This book doesn't let you go to the next page without explaining in details what a particular concept means. And if it doesn't clarify it right on the spot, it lets you know that it will be covered on another chapter (sometimes I skipped the chapter to see if it was right -it was).

I'm only on page 98 and can tell you that I have learned more by reading this book than what I've learned by watching video tutorials.

Don't get me wrong. Video tutorials are fun, and many people learn from them. For instance, I've learned how to create an authentication webapp using Django. No book required.

If you are a true beginner, buy this book. Don't be afraid about being 'old' and not having studied Computer Science. This book teaches you a lot of concept in a fun, user-friendly way.

I'm planning on buying the other books that follow this one. (I wish the author be writing a 6th edition of this book, since we're moving to Python 3.7 now. Then, I'll buy two Django books. And then I'll start digging into tutorials to create my portfolio; the Django way.

164 people found this helpful

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idcipher106

The book is long because it's thorough, and it's a quality book

Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2019

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This is a great, thorough, quality book on Python, targeted at individuals who have some experience writing programs, but who want to learn Python to write production-grade Python programs.

All the people griping about how long this book is are obviously not the target audience of this book. Yes the book is long, but to effectively use a programming language, there is a lot to learn. And this book does a great job of metering out that information. All the people griping about how there's too many "forward references" to other topics, are obviously not the target audience of this book. Yes there are forward references, because there MUST be. You can't learn every topic about a language in a linear way-- it's simply not possible. If you are the target audience of this book, then you already understand that.

If you've never programmed before, this is the WRONG book. If you want a quick get-acquainted book about Python, this is the WRONG book. If you want a reference manual for Python, this the WRONG book. This book does NOT claim to be any of those things. This book is a tutorial for people who have written programs before, who want to become an expert in Python. If that's you, then you understand that the book is necessarily long.

The Python language is a somewhat "larger" language than "C" or old-school Java. So there is a lot to cover: "lists" are BUILT IN to the language, "sequences" are BUILT IN to the language, "dictionaries" are BUILT IN to the language, "tuples" are BUILT IN to the language, "sets" are BUILT IN to the language. This is in contrast to the Java language or "C" language. This book explains all of those BUILT INS and "why" they are built in. If you aren't interested in any of that, then this is the WRONG book for you.

This book also goes into detail about why the language is designed the way it is. And it does this not only in regard to the high-level design of the language, but it does this for every nuance and detail of the language. This is great information if your goal is to follow best practices when actually using the language for real world problems. If you just want to write little toy programs and you don't care about best practices, then this is the WRONG book for you.

The entirety of the Python ecosystem is MASSIVE, and this book goes into detail about a lot of that ecosystem. (Although even a book of this size does not cover ALL of that ecosystem). This includes things like: embedding Python in a larger "C" application, calling "C" functions from Python, properties, metaclasses, decorators, Unicode, exceptions, object-oriented classes, etc., etc., etc.

You think it's possible to learn all that detail, learn all the best practices of managing all those language features, and do it in a 100 page book? Well, if you do, then you are not the target audience of this book. People who want to learn to use Python to do production-grade programming realize that understanding all this detail takes a lot of pages, it takes patience, and it takes forward references.

53 people found this helpful

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Nicholas Mueth

Thorough but bloated

Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2017

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This book is overwritten and exhausting to read. It's not an intro to programming, but rather a bloated intro to the language's objects and syntax. At least a third of the text is spent referring to later chapters, reminding me about earlier chapters, explaining differences between Python versions, and explaining why the current topic is beyond the scope of the book, but still being discussed anyway. It's verbosely written in an ironically un-Python-like way.

100 people found this helpful

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Alan Chuter

this seems to me good book as long as you don't need to learn ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 14, 2018

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Despite the title, this seems to me good book as long as you don't need to learn Python from it. With such a long book, I would have hoped to cover the different areas first at an elementary level, to get an initial grasp of the whole field, then go over the same areas but at a more advanced level, then more advanced, up to proficiency. But no, the author dives in in excruciating detail leaving the reader exasperated and exhausted, so that you can read hundreds, thousands of pages, and not actually be able to do anything practical at all. With all due respect to the author's undoubted expertise, It seems to be written by a windbag who is too fond of his own writing and inflicting it on the poor reader who just wants to learn the language. After struggling to about halfway, I gave up and read the book with the same title by Fabrizio Romano, which gets you up and running and doing useful things in a fraction of the time. I do come back to this book for reference, though.

24 people found this helpful

nazareno

Buy it, have it on your desk, enjoy it, re-read it.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 22, 2017

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I like the book, enjoying it a lot, right about chapter 9 or so; although it is dense and it needs time to digest.
Pros:
- Very in-depth for 2.x and 3.x, really like how the author tackles subjects.
- Clear examples and goes in depth in all of them.
- So full of information that I feel I learn more than expected.
- Excellent as a reference as well.
- Excellent to learn how things really work in python, not a tutorial, not a simple guy, an in-depth killer book.
- Good set of quiz questions and also exercises.
- Good value for money.

Cons:
- Can be slightly dense.
- Some things are not extremely necessary and going too in-depth can cause the reader to think "when are we writing some code? c'mon".

Buy it, have it on your desk.

11 people found this helpful

kryten

Only OK

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 27, 2018

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Had read the reviews and was ready for a bit of meandering around the topics and material - but wow, how did this get past editing? As a fairly experienced dev in Java, Ruby, Go and several scripting languages what I hoped for was a (at least) semi structured walkthrough of all the key Python goodies. Instead it's more like a novel, way less blurb and more examples would have been much better.

I may return to it now and then, but I'd have to be in the mood.

The author would have done well to instead look at something like "learning Perl", which gives you everything you need in a fraction of the pages and time while doing so with style and aplomb. I think there is a balance that could/should be struck.

Overall, it clear a lot of work and passion went into this, it's just not very "consumable" , in my view.

2 people found this helpful

sigbusyff

Needs condensing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 31, 2014

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The first thing that strikes you about this book is that it's big. 1500 pages big. Big enough that physically handling the book is inconvenient.

Upon reading it, you'll see that much of the size comes from repetition. Many of the chapters present alternative ways to do the same thing, often using this technique as an explanatory device; yet somehow, the author manages the doublethink of continually repeating the Python "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it" mantra.

The order in which the material is presented is wrong. The book explains Python's basic types before its syntax; this means it's 300 pages in before you can actually start writing code that does anything. It's 473 pages in before the concept of a function is introduced; even if this text was written for those who had done no previous programming at all, this seems bizarre. Obviously the sections on types have to talk a little bit about syntax and functions (otherwise you wouldn't be able to say anything about what those types actually do in the first few chapters), which is yet again a recipe for repetition.

Exercises are few and far between. There are "quizzes" at the end of each chapter, but they're very simple, knowledge-based questions which don't require you to write code. Programming is learned by doing, so you'll need to invent your own projects to do if you want to learn with this book.

If you can ignore the structural defects, the book is beautifully written at the detailed level, and the code examples are of a high standard. It is highly readable - you won't need to continually re-read to understand what's going on - but the repetition means you will find yourself skimming or skipping large sections of the text.

The book is a broad overview of a vast language; it is not a detailed API reference, and doesn't have examples of every possible API call. And neither should it be; all that stuff is online. It does explain the concepts well and give you an insight into why Python has evolved to be the way it is. However, if you're an experienced programmer looking for a quick way to break into the Python world, you might want to look for something a little more concise.

31 people found this helpful

Safa246

Fantastic reference book for an experienced Python programmer, but not for a newbie

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 24, 2020

Verified Purchase

It's a brilliant book, well written. An experienced Python programmer will love diving into it to understand topics in detail.

But if you were looking to learn a programming language, to understand programming or to learn by doing, this is not the book for you. It would be better titled "Become a Python Expert"!

I've studied the first 300 pages and have decided to look for something a bit more practical and snappy!

2 people found this helpful

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