O'Reilly Python Books

[Alex Martelli]

carroll at tjc.com wrote:

> On Tue, 15 Apr 2003 15:37:39 -0400 (EDT), wilfred_s at webtv.net (W S)
> wrote:
> 
>>Hello,
>>
>>I find the material, as presented, in the book Programming Python
>>frustrating and extremely difficult to understand.
>>
>>Are the nutshell and cookbook O'Reilly Python books easier to read?
> 
> I really dislike the "Programming Python" book.[1]  After playing
   ...
> (The "case study" issue I describe above, which I consider a "bug,"
> the above review considers to be a feature: "Many of the example
> scripts and programs build on one another from chapter to chapter,

Yes, there seems to be an irretrievable split on this issue, for
both authors and readers of programming books: some thrive on
"significant" examples, i.e. programs that DO something useful,
complicated, etc, while others far prefer examples that focus on
the specific issue being examined, almost inevitably "toy"
examples to cut out issues that are "locally" irrelevant.

For example, among the C++ classics, Stroustrup's book tries hard
to give "significant" examples -- I've always far preferred Lippman's
book, with his "toy" examples, which, to me, illustrated C++'s
various aspects so much more clearly and sharply (Eckel's "Thinking
in C++" is much in the same vein, and I also appreciated it highly).

Since I've thus shown I belong in the "toy examples" brigade, you
can bet that's emphatically what I put in the Nutshell (and that
I didn't like "Programming Python" either, back when I was learning
Python, much as I appreciate Mark Lutz for other works, such as
the Pocket Reference and Learning Python) -- not that a Nutshell
has space for "large examples" anyway, of course (unless, like was
done for the Java one, you split off the examples into a separate
book -- quite a different issue;-).

The Cookbook is quite different, since the mix of examples was
essentially decided by the Python community -- what David Ascher
and I did was essentially a job of _selection_ (and adding a
few snippets to illustrate some things the community had basically
neglected -- as well of course as discussion/comments/etc).

So, in the Cookbook, you'll find plenty of examples that are just 
snippets illustrating very specific points, as well as "toy-level", 
simple things, AND a few major, multi-page "recipes" that do a 
significant, complex job.

However, for both the Cookbook AND the Nutshell, I did do my best 
to consider *NON*-sequential readers -- people who just want
to delve deep into ONE specific subject and get the gist of it --
as well as people who enjoy reading the book, or some chapters in
it, sequentially.  How well I managed to, of course, it's not for
me to say -- you can find several reviews of both the Cookbook
and the Nutshell, both on the web and specifically in this NG
(google will help you find them -- "Advanced Group Search" for
stuff in this newsgroup, of course); and you can look at the
sample chapters for each work, from O'Reilly's site, or Amazon,
or no doubt other sites yet; and make up your own mind...!


Alex