On Wed, 2009-06-24 at 14:54 -0700, Aahz wrote: > In article <mailman.2074.1245876142.8015.python-l...@python.org>, > J. Cliff Dyer <j...@sdf.lonestar.org> wrote: > > > >Glad you're enjoying Beazley. I would look for something more > >up-to-date. Python's come a long way since 2.1. I'd hate for you to > >miss out on all the iterators, booleans, codecs, subprocess, yield, > >unified int/longs, decorators, decimals, sets, context managers and > >new-style classes that have come since then. > > While those are all nice, they certainly aren't essential to learning > Python.
Mostly, no, you are correct. With some exceptions: 1) You have to know iterators at a basic level (not enough to understand how the iterator protocol works, but enough to know what 'for line in f:' does. 2) Sets are as essential as any other data structure. If you are learning both lists and tuples, you should be learning sets as well. 3) If you're learning object-oriented programmin, new-style classes should be the only classes you use. 4) You should know how a decorator works, in case you run across one in the wild. 5) Booleans are a basic type. You should know them. Codecs, the subprocess module, yield, decimals and context managers can certainly come later. (All this of course, is assuming the Python 2.x world, which I think is still the right way to learn, for now) Cheers, Cliff > -- > Aahz (a...@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ > > "as long as we like the same operating system, things are cool." --piranha -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
