Recommend an E-book Meeting the Following Criteria (Newbie, Long)

[Veli-Pekka Tätilä]

Hi,
I know several programming languages namely Java, Perl and C in this order 
and would now like to pick up the Python basics fairly quickly. I've found 
that the best way to learn for me is to get a good book (for Christmas in 
this case), spend some time with it and do my own coding.

Now I'm wondering which Python book I should get as there are so many out 
there. here are some pointers:

1. I already know programming in various languages so explaning how basic 
procedural or OOP constructs work or why they might be useful is not really 
necessary, though I might learn bits and pieces.  Drawing comparisons and 
analogies to other languages somewhat helps understanding and can greatly 
speed up grasping the Python way of dealing with some OOP feature or 
datastructure. i.e. hashes are like the hashes in perl except that they use 
these method names and don't have those limitations.

2. I'd like to mostly concentrate on language features but some pointers 
into useful standard library modules and Win32 specific stuff would be 
appreciated, as well. As far as Perl goes, I'm mostly into text processing, 
doing administrative things or quick hacks as well as dealing with WIn32 
specific modules OLe and the native GUI in particular. I guess I'll be using 
Python for mostly similar tasks, for programming in the small at home that 
is, plus the OOP stuff I've gotten used to writing in Java.

3. When it comes to programming books, there are two that I like in 
particular in terms of style. The reason I decided to bring these up is that 
I've noticed reflectively that the way in which things are explained can 
make a huge difference in learning and enjoying a particular subject.

The Lama book, that is Learning Perl (for Win32) was a great intro that got 
me started way better than any net tutorial. In particular, it has a no 
nonsense style which doesn't add abstraction, formalism or programming 
jargon when it is not truely needed, that is is down-to-Earth for most 
people. I find that this style resonates well with my mode of thinking. 
Another aspect is that the examples are brief and though they don't do 
anything that useful, they nail down the syntax and feel of the language 
well. This kind of book for Python might be the way to go, though it might 
be a bit too redundant on aspects that are similar to Perl or Java.

At the other end of the spectrum, I'm still awed by the K&R book (the C 
Programming Language 2nd Ed). I do confffess that it was too heavy a book 
for me to start learning the language, Teach Yourself C in 21 Days was much 
better suited for that. Once I got into pointers, structs and the syntax 
nitty-gritty, the K&R book was of graet help and still serves as a C 
reference. The beauty of the book is that it says a lot even in a single 
sentence without reading like a reference manual. The examples are great, 
too. Rather short, highly useful in the real-world and idiomatic as well. 
The book taught me the basics of hashing and linked lists, which are useful 
concepts outside of C, for example.

A Python book like K&R might be one way to look at the language and might 
not even be too heavy as I know some other languages already. HOwever, 
there's the danger of beeing too abstract in places (Programming Perl comes 
to mind), containing forward references (Unix man pages) or long examples. 
Unless it is short, rather than study someone else's code, I prefer to try 
writing some myself. ALso, I'd like to get down to business in a tutorial 
fashion because I prefer reading sequentially. Digesting, say 10 chapters 
before learning the basics of files, seems overkill considering how 
frequently I deal with files using Perl in particular.

4. Finally one advantage with a KR style Python book might be that it is 
able to teach me some Python idioms and new ways of thinking (without 
viewing OO-abstraction mostly as a major hurdle in quick hacking). One of 
the problems I'm currently facing is that I don't seem to get rid of Perl, 
<grin>. I do know both the syntax and the OOP side is quirky but I've 
learned to appreciate the former and cope with the latter. Also, I'm afraid 
many useful Win32 modules will be Perl only (Win32::GUI, MIDI, MSAA, 
Setupsup etc...) at least for some time. The native Win32 GUI and Java's 
Swing after some hacks appear to be the only two screen reader accessible 
GUI libs on the Windows platform, so I'd like to access those from Python.

Now many of my friends hype Python and I know I should be learning that at 
some point but it is hard to get started. I do realize this is false 
lazyness but I often feel like "but I can already do x in Perl with less 
lines of code and very little abstraction so why bother." I wouldn't want to 
start yet another language war and my programming friends keep me informed 
of the merits of Python. However, I might like a book that's able to change 
my thinking in this regard. As I've already put a lot of effort into 
learning Perl, many books and hours of recreational hacking, I'd like to 
preserve a useful symbiosis between the two languages because their domains 
don't totally overlap, as well as apply my existing Perl knowledge as much 
as possible. Still, I'm far from a guru of any kind, not even the local Perl 
guru among my programming friends. In fact, one of the smartest programmers 
I know is trying to shove Python down my throat with excellent 
argumentation, figuratively speaking, so I guess I should really give it a 
serious try, <smile>.

5. Before I let you go I should mention one important factor in choosing the 
book. I know this narrows down the scope loads, but if at all possible the 
book should be readily available in electronic form. My favorite formats 
are: CHM, TXT, HTML, accessible PDF and LIT in this order (Well I hate the 
last one more than most). The reason is that I'm actually sight impaired and 
should I get a physical book, that means hours or days of scanning before I 
can enjoy it on the computer with a formant speech synth. Even so, typos or 
subtle layout bugs might creep in.

As to getting physical books in electronic form, apart from ordinary e-books 
I know of two ways. The first are services like <www.bookshare.org> which 
are great in principle and legal, too. THe only problem is I don't live in 
the States and the local Finnish equivalent has very few tech books. the 
other, of course, is getting books scanned by someone else and distributed 
over HTTP or FTP. As far as I know, this is illegal as long as both parties 
aren't visually impaired but it can be highly convenient and would not be 
morally that bad in my case, as I would join orgs like bookshare if I could.

But still I have mixed feelings about this and would really like to support 
the authors of good tech books provided that it is not terribly 
inconvenient. The price is not the real issue, I would gladly pay twice the 
price for gems like the K&R, but rather accessibility.

Any help greatly appreciated.

-- 
With kind regards Veli-Pekka Tätilä (vtatila at mail.student.oulu.fi)
Accessibility, game music, synthesizers and programming:
http://www.student.oulu.fi/~vtatila/