This is a different book for teaching programming than most. First, it's based off a website with the book's contents, lab exercises, quizzes and youtube videos(!) all freely available. You can create an account (for free) and progress through the website. The "book" is basically much of the website in text form. (I reviewed the April 2013 1st Edition)
This is a very informal style book, reads more like class notes that a "traditional" thick programming book. This is both a strength and weakness. Not every facet of the Python language is explored but for the purpose of the book's title it is only necessary to have a basic knowledge of Python. Note that this book is written for Python v3.x unlike many older books that cover v2.x. (As for which version of the language to learn I would say unless you need to maintain older code learn v3.x).
THE GOOD:
+ For beginners this might be a good starting point if you're eager to get started (even if you have never programmed before). There is no long discourse of programming concepts, history etc before the book jumps into simple commands to run in Python's IDLE IDE. If you are the type however that would like a "proper" language reference so you can explore on your own another book like
Learning Python, 5th Edition
would be helpful (note that Learning Python is an impressively thick book that is better as a reference book rather than a "teach yourself" book unless you already have programming experience). Another reference option is
The Quick Python Book, Second Edition
which isn't as thick as Learning Python but covers parts of the Python language that "Program Arcade Games" doesn't. Note that all 3 books cover Python v3.x.
+ The Review questions and online quizzes help you learn to really scrutinize your code. Some of the review questions are tricky! (but in a good way). I enjoyed working through the review questions and the use of the "find what's wrong with this code" makes this book different from many other programming books and these certainly held my interest and I looked forward to them while reading!
THE BAD:
- Doesn't really cover how to install Python or Pygame. For the former you just download the latest stable version from python.org for your operating system and install it, accepting the defaults. The real problem is Pygame - for whatever reason the main Pygame site doesn't have updated Pygame downloads for "newer" releases of Python. (The book doesn't mention any of this!). What you need to do is go to bitbucket.org/pygame/pygame/downloads and download the appropriate version. (As of this writing Python v3.3.3 needs pygame-1.9.2a0.win32-py3.3.msi for Windows OS - if Amazon removes the link in the previous sentence enter this filename in a search engine). You run the Pygame installer, selecting "install for all users" and "Python 3.3 (from registry)". Once you finish the Pygame install, start Python (IDLE) and enter "import pygame" - if you don't get an error message you should be all set. This whole situation could easily be a source of frustration to a beginner if you didn't know where to get updated Pygame installers.
- Newer versions of IDLE (than the one shown in the book) have slightly changed some menu options. For example to use IDLE to write a new Python script/file you select "File/New File", not "File/New Window" as shown in the book.
- Some things are explained out of sequence. For example, in Chapter 4 (which discusses loops) the author gives the syntax for a "for loop" that uses a list but lists are not introduced until Chapter 7. (I understand that this is probably done so all the "for loop" stuff is in one place but a sentence saying that lists are covered later on would probably be helpful for beginners).
- There are quite a few minor typos/formatting mistakes (words without spaces right next to each other). Nothing much that will interrupt your progress though.
OVERALL I would recommend this book for learning programming. The focus on Python (an easily understandable language even for beginners) and Pygame (add-on Python library for creating video games) will certainly appeal to many readers (especially pre-teen/teen school students). For the minor flaws that the book contains the author seems like a person genuinely interested about teaching programming and has dedicated the book "to everyone who loves to learn". As mentioned above, the contents of this book is freely available on the 'Programarcadegames" website (add dot com to the quoted text). You can visit the website and preview the text before buying the printed book.
I hope you have found this useful!
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Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 2, 2014
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 30, 2016
Top reviews from other countries
Dr John P Cole
Great introduction to Python and Pygame
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 30, 2014Morten
Tolles Buch zum Erlernen von Python und Pygame
Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on November 24, 2013Kindle Customer
Good, but there's a issue with indentation
Reviewed in Spain 🇪🇸 on April 8, 2020Cliente Amazon
Quite good book, hope new version soon
Reviewed in Italy 🇮🇹 on June 19, 2016
