Books

I am assuming books are the way to go on learning Python? If so, can someone recommend a book which would be suitable for a beginner.

Thanks

Hey Koopa,

If you want to learn Python from books i'd have to recommend, "Learning Python" and "Python in a nutshell" from O'really, of course there are allot of other good Python books out there you'll just have to try a few and see what work for you..

You can find a list of Python books available on amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/s...1944845-3456120

Alternativly you could try "Dive into Python" by Mark Pilgrim at www.diveintopython.org - a very popular and Pythonic ebook - It's not really for beginners but it's still worth a look! you might also want to check out the Python intro's on www.python.org

Have fun,
Mark.

I would also recommend Learning Python and Core Python Programming . Python in a Nutshell is a good reference book but definitely not one to get if you are just starting off learning.

I've never read any Python book and I've gotten pretty damn good at Python And I'm not trying to gloat, it's just that the tons of examples and tutorials online as well as the huge codebase and the fact that there's an interactive interpreter so you can do a lot of experimental programming means that you don't NEED a book, really. In fact, the only Python book I've considered purchasing is the Python Cookbook, and that's just so I don't have to go out to the website

I dont know, Nutshell has a nice intro to Python and is definatly a very good referance book! Not sure how noob freindly it is though since i picked it up after "Learning Python" and i already knew Python prettty well..

Have to agree with strike, there are allot of good, free Python tutorials/resources on the web and it's not too hard to find them! Whether or not you go out and some of the many good books available is up to you!

Surly one of the best reasons to buy a book is to avoid crawling though the web, when you could easily check an index. especially if you dont have 24-7 internet access both have there good points!

Take care guys,
Mark.

I'm a book person. I have 'Python: the complete reference' and O'Reilly's 'Programming Python' (an old edition). What I don't like about the O'Reilly book is that I get bogged down trying to understand very arcane stuff that I had never run across in almost 20 years of programming in many different languages. I didn't want anything on how to program, just how to do all the stuff I know how to do in other languages.

The only thing that I truly dislike about books and see as a big disadvantage for a language like Python is the fact that Python is growing relatively quickly and books are always static. So, a lot of the books out there right now are covering Python 2.1 or 2.2 when 2.3 has a lot of cool and new and better ways to solve problems. That's why I like online references the best, but wouldn't mind a book to reference every once in a while.

I'm just the opposite: I have no problem with using a book that is a little old; I use online references for stuff that I learned in the book that doesn't work.

I can't learn something new nearly as well from the internet, although I can't explain why not.

Ok got me there, "Learning Python" is quite out of date (coveres 1.x i think) Luckily the second edition is out soon! Sugestion, hold off on buying the first edition..

I will agree, books which cover Python up to 2.1 miss out on allot of nice lanague developments and changes since there where some pretty major ones in 2.2! Still good for some things though.. 2.3 didn't really see many (language wise), very happy with the speed increase and new/improved modules though!

Mark.

Mark Pilgrim has started to work on Dive into Python again. It will be published as a dea tree book, but will also be available online, as it is now.

www.diveintopython.org

hi,
I read an excellent book "Perl to Python Migration". As I was already quite fluent in Perl it was really fast for me to dive into Python with this book. Hope it helps.