Dive Into Python 3 (online book) • Hacker News Board

Re: Dive Into Python 3 (online book)

#31

Post by berntb » Tue, Aug 09, 2011, 9:39 AM UTC

MostAwesomeDude wrote: post #5

kqr2 wrote: post #2

What's interesting is that according to the author Mark Pilgrim: Python 3 is a commercial disaster. In 2010Q3 I had negative sales of DiP3. More people returned it than bought it. I'm considering retro-fitting the book's content to Python 2.7 and re-releasing it as "Dive Into Python 2." Seriously. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/f545e/i_am_a_fourtime_...

DiP3 is not a very good book. (Neither was DiP.) I don't know how relevant that is to sales, though, but considering that some of the bigger Python groups actively recommend against it, I wouldn't be surprised if there was an impact on sales from that alone. Edit: I don't recommend learning Python from a book. I recommend http://docs.python.org/tutorial/ if you know a programming language already, or http://learnpyth…

I am looking into Python now, because of the job. DiP looks good to me.

OTOH, the book might arguably now work in my case, since I am considering updating my rusty web mojo (+) and sending out the CV instead... :-)

I like the elegant, minimal notation. Tastefully designed. But... the inflexibility gets to me. (It must be unique in a modern language that have lambdas/list comprehensions/etc with just single [edit:] statements?!)

(+) I hope I didn't mangle the idiom too badly.

Re: Dive Into Python 3 (online book)

#32

Post by selectnull » Tue, Aug 09, 2011, 12:32 PM UTC

c4m wrote: post #24

SkyMarshal wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, not exactly: "A programmer may try to get you to install Python 3 and learn that. You should tell them, "When all of the python code on your computer is Python 3, then I'll try to learn it." That should keep them busy for about 10 years." http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ex0.html (under Warnings for Beginners)

Is that actually good advice?

Yes, that is a good advice.

Someone wanting to learn Python (or any other language) will be better served if they are helped to focus at most important and least painful things first: in this case, python 2 is everywhere with huge number of libraries. Whatever you need is 'pip install' away.

Learning Python 2 is not a waste of time: whatever you learn and is changed in Python 3, will be easily relearned once it becomes needed.

Re: Dive Into Python 3 (online book)

#33

Post by cdavid » Tue, Aug 09, 2011, 1:13 PM UTC

MostAwesomeDude wrote: post #5

kqr2 wrote: post #2

What's interesting is that according to the author Mark Pilgrim: Python 3 is a commercial disaster. In 2010Q3 I had negative sales of DiP3. More people returned it than bought it. I'm considering retro-fitting the book's content to Python 2.7 and re-releasing it as "Dive Into Python 2." Seriously. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/f545e/i_am_a_fourtime_...

DiP3 is not a very good book. (Neither was DiP.) I don't know how relevant that is to sales, though, but considering that some of the bigger Python groups actively recommend against it, I wouldn't be surprised if there was an impact on sales from that alone. Edit: I don't recommend learning Python from a book. I recommend http://docs.python.org/tutorial/ if you know a programming language already, or http://learnpyth…

At least I found DIP to be a more than decent book (my background before was mostly C and matlab). Certainly not a great book, but I have yet to find one of those for python. The python tutorial is ok if you don't know much about programming, but I found DiP most fast paced.

Re: Dive Into Python 3 (online book)

#34

Post by windexh8er » Tue, Aug 09, 2011, 1:14 PM UTC

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Doug Hellman's great resources. His book "The Python Standard Library by Example" is basically a print version of his PyMOTW project (http://www.doughellmann.com/PyMOTW/). While not an end to end "learn Python" the examples, at least in my case, have led me to ask quite a few questions that open other doors into Python that I haven't been exposed to.

I like what Zed has put out, but the books Lutz has out are great as well. Hetland's book is OK and Paul Barry's "Head First Python" is a great read if you're a true beginner to get your feet wet with a fun book. It's an easy read, but I would think that the transition to "Learning Python" would feel like a slight step backwards - however "Programming Python" by Lutz may be a better logical step (instead of going back through a lot of the basics).

Re: Dive Into Python 3 (online book)

#35

Post by robjohnson » Tue, Aug 09, 2011, 1:27 PM UTC

The Stanford Intro to CS course was the best reference for learning Python that I used. The companion manual was How to think like a Computer Scientist and I thought it was just great. I can't speak to the DIP books, but I would wholeheartedly recommend the references above to anyone I knew.

Re: Dive Into Python 3 (online book)

#36

Post by dagw » Tue, Aug 09, 2011, 1:45 PM UTC

sudont wrote: post #6

MostAwesomeDude wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DiP3 is not a very good book. (Neither was DiP.) I don't know how relevant that is to sales, though, but considering that some of the bigger Python groups actively recommend against it, I wouldn't be surprised if there was an impact on sales from that alone. Edit: I don't recommend learning Python from a book. I recommend http://docs.python.org/tutorial/ if you know a programming language already, or http://learnpyth…

Why do you think it was bad? (DiP, not 3). No snark. I have both DiP and PtHW on my Kindle, and I can't straddle both to the end.

If you've never programmed at all in any language the PtHW is much better. If you know how to program, just not how to program in python, then DiP will get you up to speed much faster

Re: Dive Into Python 3 (online book)

#37

Post by dagw » Tue, Aug 09, 2011, 1:52 PM UTC

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #13

fraXis wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Python book do you recommend for someone who wants to start learning the language? Thanks.

Learn Python The Hard Way.

LPtHW is a great book for learning how to program. If you're already a competent programmer looking to pick up python, then you'll probably find it very slow going, and probably better served by something better. I personally learned python from The Quick Python Book, which I thought was quite good.

Re: Dive Into Python 3 (online book)

#38

Post by AbyCodes » Tue, Aug 09, 2011, 9:18 PM UTC

robjohnson wrote: post #35

The Stanford Intro to CS course was the best reference for learning Python that I used. The companion manual was How to think like a Computer Scientist and I thought it was just great. I can't speak to the DIP books, but I would wholeheartedly recommend the references above to anyone I knew.

*MIT Intro to CS and Programming

Re: Dive Into Python 3 (online book)

#39

Post by enterneo » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 12:06 AM UTC

windexh8er wrote: post #34

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Doug Hellman's great resources. His book "The Python Standard Library by Example" is basically a print version of his PyMOTW project ( http://www.doughellmann.com/PyMOTW/ ). While not an end to end "learn Python" the examples, at least in my case, have led me to ask quite a few questions that open other doors into Python that I haven't been exposed to. I like what Zed has put out, b…

I agree! After finishing DIP, I am looking for a book to introduce me what all is available in the python standard library.

I could use the official python library [1] but I usually prefer reading away from the computer and then getting back to get some actual work done; so I am looking for a dead-tree book.

Currently I am thinking b/w PER [2] or PSL by Example [3]. I see that PER gets referred to everywhere but that could also be due to the fact that it came out in 2009 and PSL by Example just came out last month.

On a quick look, it seems PSL by Example gives more of a tutorial feel (which I think is great!) whereby PER is essentially a reference. What would you recommend?

[1] http://docs.python.org/library/

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Python-Essential-Reference-David-Beazl...

[3] http://www.amazon.com/Python-Standard-Library-Example-Develo...

Re: Dive Into Python 3 (online book)

#40

Post by robjohnson » Thu, Aug 11, 2011, 1:30 PM UTC

AbyCodes wrote: post #38

robjohnson wrote: post #35

The Stanford Intro to CS course was the best reference for learning Python that I used. The companion manual was How to think like a Computer Scientist and I thought it was just great. I can't speak to the DIP books, but I would wholeheartedly recommend the references above to anyone I knew.

*MIT Intro to CS and Programming

Yes - thank you :)