Python In A Nutshell

[Hamish Lawson]

I think "Perl in a Nutshell" serves as a good model: fast-track
tutorial on the language, reference on standard modules, and a
reference on the more common third-party modules.

In the standard modules section I'd hope to see nearly all the modules
other than perhaps those that are obsolescent, platform-specific, or
somewhat esoteric; one of the things I miss in David Beazley's "Python
Essential Reference" is coverage on htmllib, sgmllib and telnetlib. I'd
like to see some brief documentation of Tkinter and more extended
coverage of PyXML than is given in the online library reference.

For the third-party modules I'd nominate the following, grouped by
desirability of inclusion:

    ESSENTIAL
       DB-API
       mxDateTime
       Python Imaging Library
       pyunit
       win32all

    GOOD
       HTMLgen
       mxTextTools
       ReportLab
       wxPython
       xmlrpc
       soaplib

    NICE
       mod_python / mod_snake
       Numerical Python
       freeze/packaging


Hamish Lawson


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