learning python...

[Wesley Chun]

On Wed, 21 Mar 2001, it was written:
> Hello.  From the perspective of someone who already has programming
> experience, would anyone know if O'reillys "Learning Python" book would
> be better than say Prentice Hall's "Core Python Programming"?  Or would
> it be better to go straight into something like "Programming Python"?

"Learning Python" was a welcomed 3rd main Python book to hit the market.
Some people complained that it over-expected its readers to know C, but
since it did, it suited me fine.  I found "Programming
 Python" to be too large for me when i was learning
Python.  It was difficult to learn from even though it was so complete.
I spoke with Mark Lutz about the 2nd edition, and it was indeed a com-
plete rewrite.  My copy is on order, so I haven't had a chance to go
thru it yet.

"Core Python Programming"'s target audience is a someone with previous
knowledge of some other high-level programming language, perhaps C or
Java, but does not require that knowledge as part of the reading.  in
the text, it will say something like, "if you are familiar with...,"
but otherwise will not penalize you if you don't.  the goal is to get
a programmer new to Python up-to-speed as quickly as possible, hence
sacrificing more of the advanced applications, as Daniel mentioned in his
post.  hopefully, we'll correct that when it is time to work on the 2nd
edition.  if you're a Python guru, it'll definitely be too boring for you!

i made a related post back in November:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=books&hl=en&rnum=1&seld=963817644&ic=1

hope this helps!

-wesley

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Silicon Valley-SF Bay Area Python users group:  http://baypiggies.org

"Core Python Programming", Prentice Hall PTR, December 2000
    http://starship.python.net/crew/wesc/cpp/

wesley.j.chun :: wesc at baypiggies.org
cyberweb.consulting :: silicon.valley, ca
http://www.roadkill.com/~wesc/cyberweb/