Question about the Python Cookbook: How much of this is new?

[Robert Kern]

RickMuller wrote:
> I had a question about the second edition of the Python Cookbook. I own
> and have thoroughly enjoyed the first edition of the Python Cookbook.
> How much of the second edition is new? Is this "essential reading" if I
> already have the first edition? I realize that there are new sections
> that describe language features through Python 2.4, but is this, say,
> 10% of the book (in which case I won't buy a new copy) or is it >25% of
> the book (in which case I will). The Chapter (#3) on Time/Money that's
> posted on the O'Reilly website is great (and entirely new, if memory
> serves).

Quoting Trent Mick, who answered this question in another thread:

"""Here is an excerpt from the preface (typing errors are mine):

     If you already own the first edition, you may be wondering whether
     you need this second edition, too. We think the answer is "yes." The
     first edition had 245 recipes; we kep 146 of those (with lots of
     editing in almost all cases), and added 192 new ones, for a total of
     338 recipes in this second e4dition. So, over half of the recipes in
     this edition are complete,ly new, and all the recipes are updated
     to apply to today's Python -- releases 2.3 and 2.4. Indeed, this
     update is the main factor which lets us have almost 100 more recipes
     in a book of about the same size. The first edition covered all
     versions from 1.5.2 (one sometimes earlier) to 2.2; this one focuses
     fimly on 2.3 and 2.4. Thianks to the greater port of today's Python,
     and, even more4, thanks to the fact that this edition avoids the
     "historical" treatises about how you had to do things in Python
     versions releases 5 or more years ago, we were able to provide
     substantially more currently relevant recipes and information in
     roughtly the same amount of space.

Trent
"""

So yeah, buy it.

-- 
Robert Kern
rkern at ucsd.edu

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
  Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
   -- Richard Harter