On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 8:54 AM, Kent Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 8:16 AM, Julia <[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > To be honest I truly dislike the Dawson book. I wouldn't recommend > > it to anyone. It's lacks technical clarity, examples and has a messy > > index. I'm going to sell my example asap. > > I'm not sure what kind of clarity you want. To be sure Dawson is not > nearly as precise and comprehensive as Learning Python, for example, but > I think the more casual approach is better for a complete beginner. > > ISTM Dawson is written almost entirely as a series of extended examples, > I'm really surprised that you say it lacks examples.
I found Dawson's book very approachable for people who are Absolute Beginners to programming. As Kent says, each chapter is a series of extended examples that cover fundamental concepts. The premise of the book is that Game Programming is a FUN way to learn programming. Most of the book uses text-based games as examples. Each chapter ends with a set of Challenges that encourage you to test the skills you've learned up to that point. The Challenges are appropriate for Absolute Beginners (ie. none of them ask you to do anything that hasn't been taught yet). Most of the Challenges require a little thought to complete. Some of the Challenges ask that you modify an example in the chapter to make it do something different, or to add a new feature. Chapter 1 starts out with the "Game Over Program" which is the equivalent of the "Hello, world!" program in most other books. This chapter talks you through getting Python setup and running on your computer, and all sorts of other essential beginning steps that need to be done in order to use Python as your programming language. Chapter 2 uses "The Useless Trivia Program" to cover Types, Variables, and simple Input/Output. Chapter 3 covers Branching (making decisions), 'while' loops, and program planning. The "Guess My Number Game" is used as the main example. All the examples build up to writing the Guessing game. Chapter 4 has "The Word Jumble Game". It covers 'for' loops, Strings, Slicing Strings, and Tuples. Chapter 5 introduces Lists and Dictionaries. Here is "The Hangman Game". Chapter 6 covers functions, and "The Tic-Tac-Toe Game". Chapter 7 has "The Trivia Challenge Game" and covers Files and Exceptions. Chapter 8 begins the Object Oriented Programming (classes, methods, etc.) and has "The Critter Caretaker Program" (a Tamagotchi-type game). Chapter 9 continues the Object Oriented Programming with "The Blackjack Game". Inheritance, Polymorphism, and other OOP concepts are introduced. Chapter 10 starts to get into GUI development with Tkinter. "The Mad Lib Program" is the main game. The Final two chapters use a modified version of the LiveWires package to run the games. You'll need to have PyGame and LiveWires installed for these games to work. LiveWires is a "wrapper" for PyGame which supposedly makes PyGame easier to lear and use. PyGame is a "wrapper" for the SDL library, written in the C programming language. Chapter 11 gets into Graphics, and the examples build up to "The Pizza Panic Game". Backgrounds, Sprites, Collisions, and other basic graphic gaming concepts are covered here. Chapter 12 is a full-blown graphic 2-D arcade-style game called "The Astrocrash Game" (similar to 'Asteroids'). Sound, Animation, and Program Development are covered. Appendix A is a LiveWires reference. Games are a really fun way to learn programming, and Dawson's book makes learning programming a lot of fun! I think the book is meant to be read from cover to cover, since each chapter is built on the concepts introduced in previous chapters. Everything is explained clearly without the use of confusing 'jargon'. Terminology is clearly explained, and examples are explained step-by-step. If you can finish Dawson's book, you'll be well prepared to take on just about any other Python tutorial out there (except maybe the ones that delve into advanced Computer Science theory). > > > When I started learning Python, I had had no programming background > > whatsoever. It was Michael Dawson's book that got me off the ground. I > > then read another book "Python programming: an introduction to computer > > science", and things began to make sense to me. > > I almost mentioned that one too. Python for Dummies might also be a good > choice but I haven't seen that. > > O'Reilly is coming out with a book Head First Programming that uses > Python but it isn't scheduled to be published until May. > > Kent > > > _______________________________________________ > Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor > If you finish Dawson's book and are interested in continuing with Python/PyGame programming (without LiveWires) then you might want to look into obtaining a copy of Andy Harris' book: Game Programming published by Wiley (2007). It covers 2-D arcade games with PyGame, and is a good PyGame tutorial. Another PyGame programing book is: Beginning Game Development with Python and Pygame: From Novice to Professional, by Will McGugan. I haven't seen this book yet, but it covers 3-D game programming. Happy Programming! -- b h a a l u u at g m a i l dot c o m "You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul." [Mahatma Gandhi] _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
