a python book hint

[Alex Martelli]

Eduardo Patto Kanegae wrote:

> Hello,
> 
>  I have been programming with Visual Basic and PHP in the last 5 years and
>  some folks had recommended Python a free language....
> 
>  I had looked for a Python book to start up but found many titles...
> 
>  so, my question finally is: what book could be for a Python beginner -
>  but NOT a programming beginner - which intends to develop *windowed*
>  Python programms and intends to develop for Windows and for Linux?
> 
> for example, look at Thuban software ( http://thuban.intevation.org/ )
> which runs on Linux and Win plataforms.

Hetland's "Practical Python" is a good book, particularly if you like
_meaty_ examples (my own "Python in a Nutshell" has less purely tutorial
material, and the examples are small, illustrating single simple points;
thus, it's more of a "concise desktop reference" than an introduction).

Most other books are unfortunately a bit dated, but these two do cover
Python 2.2 (and the current 2.3 has basically no language-level changes
wrt to 2.2 -- it's mostly faster and more robust, with small additions
to the built-ins and more substantial ones to the standard library).


Alex