The Deitel book (was Re: Textbooks on Perl/Python)

[Alex Martelli]

Chris Gonnerman wrote:
   ...
> It's just a dang ugly book, in my opinion; and then on top of
> that it's a hard read.  Sure, it may be suitable for a Python
> class at college, but my advice to the prospective victim (I
> mean student) is to get Steve's book also and read it first.
> Then you'll hardly have to look at the Dietel book most of the
> course.

Nolo contendere -- except that some students may prefer
Magnus Hetland's "Practical Python" (aPress) instead of
Steve's book.  (I'm equally biased towards both, since I
tech-reviewed both and both Magnus and Steve are my friends;-).

Steve introduces many other technologies that an accomplished
web programmer needs to understand something about, including
networks, HTTP, HTML, relational databases, etc; and develops
one large, powerful framework for programming asynchronous
webpages that rely on a relational DB.  Magnus develops ten
not-quite-as-large rich, complete examples, in a wide variety
of different fields.  If you like fully-worked-out significant
examples, either book should gladden your heart; if the web is
what you most care about, then particularly if you don't feel
quite secure about its various technologies Steve's book may
be preferable -- if you care about a wider range of things
(with some web programming, but not just that), Magnus' variety
may be preferable.  Steve has the advantage of being of English
mother-tongue (he's British but has been living and working in 
the US for years, so no "jarring" Britishisms should give any
problems even to native-US'ers), while Magnus, like me, has
English has a second language (I don't notice that as producing
any significant difference -- but then, I guess I wouldn't, not
being of English mother tongue myself).


Both books are BIG, in good part due to the fully worked
out significant examples.  As a personal taste, I prefer
SMALL books, and I prefer toy examples rather than "fully
worked out significant ones" (e.g., the kind of examples
found in Eckel's or Lippmann's books are much more to my
didactical tastes than those found in Stroustrup's...).

For readers that share my tastes, it may be worth waiting
for the next edition of Lutz and Ascher's "Learning
Python", O'Reilly -- the current edition is very good but
alas limited to Python 1.5.2, the next one will no doubt
cover 2.2.  You pays your money and you makes your choice...!


Alex