Want to learn Python

[7stud]

On Jun 15, 11:59 am, "Evan Klitzke" <e... at yelp.com> wrote:
> On 6/15/07, Amol <amolj.1... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi, I want to learn Python in less than a month which resources should
> > I use. I prefer to read books . Please give me a list of *recognized*
> > resources. Thank You all
>
> The Apress "Beginning Python" book is the one that I recommend to
> people who want to learn the language. I started off with the O'Reilly
> book, and that book went too slow and didn't cover as many topic as
> the Apress book. If you are an experienced programmer and use the
> Apress book, you'll get a pretty good grasp of the language within a
> week or so.
>
> --
> Evan Klitzke <e... at yelp.com>

I am of the opposite opinion: I recommend that people get any book but
"Beginning Python: Novice to Professional".  In my opinion, that book
is horribly written, the examples are terrible, some subjects are only
covered in passing so the info is too parse to be of any use, and
there are no problems at the end of the chapters to work on.  I think
a beginner might be fooled into thinking Beginning Python is a good
book because they won't know how many holes their knowledge of python
is riddled with, and since there are no problems to work on, they may
not even realize how little they learned.  I think an experienced
programmer would spot all the blunders in the book straight away.

As a result, I often use "Learning Python" as a reference to fill in
all the missing material in Beginning Python, and I wish I had
purchased it initially.  It also has problems to work on at the end of
each section.  One problem with Learning Python is that it needs a new
edition to catch up with the changes that have occurred in the
language, but it still seems like a much, much better book than
Beginning Python.

The reference book "Python in a Nutshell" is excellent, however its
index is so bad I hesitate to recommend it.  A reference book should
have a thorough index--you shouldn't have to hunt through the chapters
trying to find the particular topic you are interested in.