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

[Chris Gonnerman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alex Martelli" <aleax at aleax.it>

> However, this thread started with a request for a *college-oriented*
> textbook, including, in particular, exercises for each chapter, some
> with the solution being also given in the book, some without; and
> Steve's book does not qualify in that respect, while Deitel and
> Deitel's does (though it seems from this thread that, out of the many
> technical reviewers of the book, I'm more positive about the way it
> finally came out than most others; I wonder how many other posters
> to this thread have actually gone to the trouble of checking the
> way the book did finally come out -- quite a bit better than the
> last few drafts that were widely circulated among reviewers, IMHO,
> although I'll be the first to admit that it's far from perfect).

Textbooks aren't designed to be entertaining, true; but frankly
I found it painful to read in the final form.  The content isn't
the first thing one notices about a book; rather it's the 
presentation (cover, art, paper, etc.)

The pages are nasty slick stuff, and the fonts are IMHO poorly
chosen for readability.  I haven't gone back and looked at the
review copy to see if it's the same or not, but I don't remember
it being so hard to look at.

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.

Chris Gonnerman -- chris.gonnerman at newcenturycomputers.net
http://newcenturycomputers.net