Books for newbies

[Nick Vargish]

nooB!

Laura mentioned the Essential Python Reference, which is an excellent
reference and good for learning some of the standard library. I tend
to use the online docs when I can, since they're more up-to-date. So
despite being called a "Reference" I actually recommend it as a
learning tool. (Some people find reading catalogs of Python library
functions boring, but they're weird.)

Since you're familiar with programming and have (I assume) read the
standard-issue tutorial, I think the best book you could get is the
Python Cookbook. Read the first chapter all the way through for some
useful idioms and an introduction to pythonic approaches to
problems. Then pick a domain that interests you, skip to the
appropriate chapter, and dive in.  Try the recipes yourself, taste
them, grok them... It's inspirational reading.

Nick

-- 
# sigmask.py  ||  version 0.2  ||  2003-01-07  ||  Feed this to your Python.
print reduce(lambda x,y:x+chr(ord(y)-1),'Ojdl!Wbshjti!=obwAqbusjpu/ofu?','')