Aahz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > IOANNIS MANOLOUDIS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >I want to learn python. > >I plan to buy a book. I always find printed material more convenient than > >reading on-line tutorials. > >I don't know PERL or any other scripting language. I only know some BASH > >programming. I am looking for a book which will help me get started and > >should contain the foundations. I am not looking for the Python bible. > >Any recommendations? > > If you're willing to wait 1.5 months, _Python for Dummies_ will be the > first book that really covers Python 2.5. (Alex's _Python in a Nutshell_ > does cover some of Python 2.5, but there were a fair number of late > changes that came after he needed to turn it in, most notably the > inclusion of sqlite3. It's also not a beginner book.)
I confirm on both scores: the Nutshell is not meant for beginners to programming (it _may_ be used by experienced programmers whose experience comes from other languages, but it may be a stretch even for them, depending on what "other languages" are exactly); and, the new 2nd edition of the Nutshell does not cover well the big additions to Python 2.5's standard library (ctypes and etree, as well as sqlite) -- it barely _mentions_ them as late-breaking developments, with pointers to online docs. Stef's and Aahz's "for Dummies" will be a good book for beginners (many people have prejudices against the whole "for Dummies" series, perhaps exactly because of their titles!, but, really, there ARE many good books in that series, if you can just accept the titles as well-natured, innocuous humor!) -- I only looked at a subset of its chapters, so I don't know in particular how well it teaches sqlite, ctypes and etree, but the materials I _did_ look at were excellent. Alex -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
