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Learn Python The Hard Way Now For Sale

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Re: Learn Python The Hard Way Now For Sale

#41

Post by lazyant »

gaelian wrote: post #6
zedshaw wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's a tough call. I can see R being very useful, but ChucK is way more fun. C just seems like a book that needs to be written before the "learning C sucks" situation gets worse.

For what it's worth, my vote would be for Learn C The Hard Way. Not having learned C in any formal setting and coming from a background of mainly interpreted languages, I've found it quite difficult to determine reliable, up to date resources for learning C. It's not that there's none around obviously, it's just hard to know which stuff to go with and hard to find something in between complete n00b and full master, w…

"hard to find something in between complete n00b and full master" - My theory is that the best technical books or books for learning are the "intermediate" ones.

There are usually a ton of acceptable beginner's books and then very specialized and complex books but very few good "intermediate" books like the favorites:

- TCP/IP ilustrated - Perl Camel book - R&K C book - Silman's groundbreaking chess books - Harrington's groundbreaking poker books

Re: Learn Python The Hard Way Now For Sale

#42

Post by SkyMarshal »

zedshaw wrote: post #36
lazyant wrote: post #30

I liked the "Advice From An Old Programmer" at the end: "Which programming language you learn and use does not matter. Do not get sucked into the religion surrounding programing languages as that will only blind you to their true purpose of being your tool for doing interesting things" "Programming as a profession is only moderately interesting. ...You are much better off using code as your secret weapon in another p…

I actually got pissed at an editor who tried to change that. Poor guy. :-)

I hear similar stories of editors not getting something important like that. What did he want to do with it, and what did you say that got him to grok it and leave it alone?

Re: Learn Python The Hard Way Now For Sale

#43

Post by SkyMarshal »

jules wrote: post #31

I'd buy Learn Assembly The Hard Way (x86/amd64) and (modern) OpenGL The Hard Way ;)

Second. Assembly is a big gap in my programming knowledge and I'm on a search for the best ways to learn it. Hoping to come across something as enlightening as PG's lisp essays were, but nothing clear yet.

Re: Learn Python The Hard Way Now For Sale

#45

Post by sea6ear »

zedshaw wrote: post #3
jasonz wrote: post #2

I vote for "learn R the hard way" for the next book

Yeah, it's a tough call. I can see R being very useful, but ChucK is way more fun. C just seems like a book that needs to be written before the "learning C sucks" situation gets worse.

I'll vote for LCTHW

Re: Learn Python The Hard Way Now For Sale

#46

Post by masklinn »

wwortiz wrote: post #7

I really like that this book was written but $30 dollars isn't actually cheap for a technical book, I'd much rather like to buy something like Land of Lisp, but I'm probably not the main audience and I don't know how well I fit into the target audience. It is a short book for $30 dollars though, and I don't know if it is just Lulu's pricing that is causing this, but kudos for offering it for free. Edit: well sorry th…

> I really like that this book was written but $30 dollars isn't actually cheap for a technical book

Is that a joke? $30 is quite literally nothing for a new technical book. Refactoring is still $45 new (hardcover but more than 10 years old now), Effective Java is about the same price, TAPL will set you back $60 and ATPL is $56 on Amazon, HTDP is $67, Koza's "Genetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection" released in 1992 is $67, SICP is $70, amazon asks for a hundred bucks for the purple dragon books, and then of course The Art of Computer Programming boxset will blow a $200 hole in your wallet.

$30? That's the price of a small and widely-distributed paperback like Friedl's Mastering Regular Expressions. It's basically the lower bound, even The Art of the Metaobject Protocol (345p, published in 1991) is $40.

Here's what's under $30: "For Dummies" books. Even the Head First collection bottoms out around $30.

Re: Learn Python The Hard Way Now For Sale

#47

Post by earl »

jasonz wrote: post #2

I vote for "learn R the hard way" for the next book

Yeah, but R is all caught up in a stats education -- and I think that's much harder to cover in a single book. Just my .02.

If people are looking for a broad overview of statistical stuff -- what's a t test, a sampling distribution, a regression, anova, variance, glm family, etc, I'd recommend this unfortunately very expensive book: http://www.amazon.com/Statistical-Sleuth-Course-Methods-Anal...

It's very applied with subject oriented chapters, eg what is regression? What about regression where my dep var is counts? A probability? With correlations in the design matrix? It's not perfect, but for self learning of stats, it's the best thing I know of.

Re: Learn Python The Hard Way Now For Sale

#49

Post by aaronblohowiak »

zedshaw wrote: post #34
aaronblohowiak wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: LCTHW, I am taking "Linux Systems Programming In C" course at ucsc extension. You are supposed to already know c before taking the course, but it has been a fun trial-by-fire to dust off ye olde c skills AND learn the intricacies of POSIX programming simultaneously.

You should go grab valgrind and run your programs under it all the time. It'll help you spot and avoid those annoying memory errors.

This is why the world needs LCTHW =)
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