Books to begin learning Python

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  • Edward Cormier

    Books to begin learning Python

    Which computer books are the best to begin learning Python 2.5 with?
    I've heard that Learning Python 3rd Edition is a good choice - can
    anyone give any more advice on this?

    Thanks.
  • Mike Driscoll

    #2
    Re: Books to begin learning Python

    On Aug 6, 2:56 pm, Edward Cormier <ecormier...@go oglemail.comwro te:
    Which computer books are the best to begin learning Python 2.5 with?
    I've heard that Learning Python 3rd Edition is a good choice - can
    anyone give any more advice on this?
    >
    Thanks.
    There's lots of good books to read, including a few online ones. A lot
    of people like "Dive Into Python" (http://diveintopython.org/). If you
    want LOTS of information and some good code examples, Lutz's
    "Programmin g Python 3rd Ed" is great. Chun ("Core Python Programming")
    has a book that's almost as large, but it's more text than examples.

    If you want just short snippets of code to learn from, try the Python
    Cookbook series or just go to the site those books are based on:


    "Python Power!" and "Beginning Python" are good too with the latter
    having some interesting projects at the end. There are a lot of other
    topical Python books on XML parsing, web programming, Win32, Tkinter,
    wxPython and even SqlAlchemy!

    Mike

    Comment

    • Beliavsky

      #3
      Re: Books to begin learning Python

      On Aug 6, 4:08 pm, Mike Driscoll <kyoso...@gmail .comwrote:
      On Aug 6, 2:56 pm, Edward Cormier <ecormier...@go oglemail.comwro te:
      >
      Which computer books are the best to begin learning Python 2.5 with?
      I've heard that Learning Python 3rd Edition is a good choice - can
      anyone give any more advice on this?
      >
      Thanks.
      >
      There's lots of good books to read, including a few online ones. A lot
      of people like "Dive Into Python" (http://diveintopython.org/). If you
      want LOTS of information and some good code examples, Lutz's
      "Programmin g Python 3rd Ed" is great.
      I have the 2nd edition. Has the 3rd edition been rewritten so that all
      of its code will be valid in Python 3? I'd prefer not to buy Python
      books that will become obsolete.

      Comment

      • Samir

        #4
        Re: Books to begin learning Python

        There's lots of good books to read, including a few online ones. A lot
        of people like "Dive Into Python" (http://diveintopython.org/). If you
        want LOTS of information and some good code examples, Lutz's
        "Programmin g Python 3rd Ed" is great.
        >
        I have the 2nd edition. Has the 3rd edition been rewritten so that all
        of its code will be valid in Python 3? I'd prefer not to buy Python
        books that will become obsolete.
        As a relative newcomer to Python, I found that "Dive Into Python" was
        initially out of my league. It's written assuming that you have a
        good understanding of basic Python concepts. Since I didn't have this
        initial mastery of the language, I didn't find it useful.

        Now that I've been working with the language for awhile, however, I do
        come back and refer to it from time to time.

        Some good online tutorials that I found really helpful include:
        (1) Python Tutorial
        Python is an easy to learn, powerful programming language. It has efficient high-level data structures and a simple but effective approach to object-oriented programming. Python’s elegant syntax an...


        (2) A Byte of Python
        Abstract This book will help you to learn the Python programming language, whether you are new to computers or are an experienced programmer.


        (3) How to Think Like a Computer Scientist


        Incidentally, you can find documentatio for Python v3.0 at the
        official Python site here:


        I hope that helps. Good luck!

        Samir

        Comment

        • Wojtek Walczak

          #5
          Re: Books to begin learning Python

          Dnia Thu, 7 Aug 2008 12:37:55 -0700 (PDT), Samir napisa³(a):
          Some good online tutorials that I found really helpful include:
          You might find it useful:



          --
          Regards,
          Wojtek Walczak,

          Comment

          • Wojtek Walczak

            #6
            Re: Books to begin learning Python

            Dnia Thu, 7 Aug 2008 11:12:03 -0700 (PDT), Beliavsky napisa³(a):
            I have the 2nd edition. Has the 3rd edition been rewritten so that all
            of its code will be valid in Python 3? I'd prefer not to buy Python
            books that will become obsolete.
            I guess it's for Python 2.x, but I wouldn't worry about this.
            Pythons 2.x will be around for quite some time (just as python
            1.5.x is).

            --
            Regards,
            Wojtek Walczak,

            Comment

            • Mike Driscoll

              #7
              Re: Books to begin learning Python

              On Aug 7, 1:12 pm, Beliavsky <beliav...@aol. comwrote:
              On Aug 6, 4:08 pm, Mike Driscoll <kyoso...@gmail .comwrote:
              >
              On Aug 6, 2:56 pm, Edward Cormier <ecormier...@go oglemail.comwro te:
              >
              Which computer books are the best to begin learning Python 2.5 with?
              I've heard that Learning Python 3rd Edition is a good choice - can
              anyone give any more advice on this?
              >
              Thanks.
              >
              There's lots of good books to read, including a few online ones. A lot
              of people like "Dive Into Python" (http://diveintopython.org/). If you
              want LOTS of information and some good code examples, Lutz's
              "Programmin g Python 3rd Ed" is great.
              >
              I have the 2nd edition. Has the 3rd edition been rewritten so that all
              of its code will be valid in Python 3? I'd prefer not to buy Python
              books that will become obsolete.
              As Wojtek already pointed out, Lutz's 3rd edition is written with 2.x
              in mind. I think it's 2.4 or 2.5, but I forget exactly which. Still,
              most programming books are "obsolete" almost from the day their
              printed. I'm not aware of any Python 3.0 books...

              Mike

              Comment

              • Mark Summerfield

                #8
                Re: Books to begin learning Python

                On 7 Aug, 21:10, Mike Driscoll <kyoso...@gmail .comwrote:
                On Aug 7, 1:12 pm, Beliavsky <beliav...@aol. comwrote:
                >
                >
                >
                On Aug 6, 4:08 pm, Mike Driscoll <kyoso...@gmail .comwrote:
                >
                On Aug 6, 2:56 pm, Edward Cormier <ecormier...@go oglemail.comwro te:
                >
                Which computer books are the best to begin learning Python 2.5 with?
                I've heard that Learning Python 3rd Edition is a good choice - can
                anyone give any more advice on this?
                >
                Thanks.
                >
                There's lots of good books to read, including a few online ones. A lot
                of people like "Dive Into Python" (http://diveintopython.org/). If you
                want LOTS of information and some good code examples, Lutz's
                "Programmin g Python 3rd Ed" is great.
                >
                I have the 2nd edition. Has the 3rd edition been rewritten so that all
                of its code will be valid in Python 3? I'd prefer not to buy Python
                books that will become obsolete.
                >
                As Wojtek already pointed out, Lutz's 3rd edition is written with 2.x
                in mind. I think it's 2.4 or 2.5, but I forget exactly which. Still,
                most programming books are "obsolete" almost from the day their
                printed. I'm not aware of any Python 3.0 books...
                I'm writing a Python 3 book that will be published as soon as possible
                after Python 3.0 final is released (so hopefully November). It assumes
                programming experience in _some_ language (not necessarily Python 2).

                "Programmin g in Python 3: A Complete Introduction to the Python
                Language" ISBN 0137129297

                The table of contents and a link to some (out of date) sample text is
                here:
                Programming in Python 3 is a textbook that teaches Python 3 programming

                Comment

                • Jaime Irurzun

                  #9
                  Re: Books to begin learning Python

                  Hi Edward,

                  I like "Dive into Python" because it's been written for people who
                  know programming with other languages. This could be an advantage or a
                  disadvantage, if you feel really uncomfortable reading Python code (if
                  you can't imagine absolutly nothing about what it does), my advice is
                  to choose another book. Otherwise, "Dive in to Python" is a fantastic
                  choice.

                  I'll take this opportunity to introduce myself, because this is my
                  first post. Best regards to everybody from a spanish Python novice and
                  enthusiast :-)

                  Jaime

                  Comment

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