Newbie Question

[Alex Martelli]

Alan Gauld <alan.gauld at btinternet.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 06:17:36 GMT, "John Smith"
> <oldphartyankee at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > Aside from the text online, what are the best books for a newbie learning
> > python as their first language? 
> 
> Well I'm biased but I think my book "Learning to Program Using
> Python" is pretty good for the complete beginner :-)

It is indeed an excellent book, though I have a preference for Dawson's.


> Others include "Teach Yourself Python in 24 hours" and
> the "Visual Python"(?) book gets good crits too - but I haven't
> read that one. 

Haven't read them either.  I have a bias against the titles!-)

> "Python, How to Program" by the Dietels tries to start at the
> beginner level but I suspect it dives too deep too quickly for
> many, and it is quite expensive.

Unsuitable for anything except a college text with a professor helping,
IMHO (I was a technical reviewer for it).


> Most other books are aimed at those with at least one other
> language behind them so don't explain all the jargon and concepts
> as much as those above.

True.


> However despite being bad for my royalties I'd actually recommend
> trying the various beginners online tutorials first and then
> buying one of the more mainstream books (Learning Python, Quick
> Python etc) as a long term better value investment. You will use
> those books for a longer period than the complete beginners
> guides I suspect.

If one chose this route, I would suggest Hetland's "Practical Python" as
the book to buy after digesting all the online tutorials.

However, the experience of learning from a paper book is quite different
from learning from a screen (if you print out all the tutorials on a
typical printer you're spending more than for printed books...!-), and I
think that for most people the paper book has advantages.  Not knowing
whether this applies to a given querant, I would assume it probably
does, and thus suggest your book, or Dawson's.


Alex