Books for programmers

[Rick Kwan]

On Jun 3, 12:22 am, V <vdu... at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm a C++, Java and C programmer, and I'm searching for a (preferably
> printed) book that teaches me the "Python idioms", i.e. the "Python
> way" of doing something.
>
> Ideally, I'm searching for a book like "Effective C++" or "Effective
> Java", that does not lose time teaching what is a class, or a
> function, or a loop, but that enters into details and describes not
> only the "how", but also the "why".

I like "Core Python Programming", 2nd ed., by Wesley Chun.  After a
couple of years of reasonably intense learn-on-my-own Python via
"Learning Python" by Mark Lutz, and other resources, I was shocked how
much I didn't know about Python when I picked up Chun's book.  It's
pretty thick (1100 pages?) and covers a lot of basic stuff, but that
can be skimmed pretty quickly.  Two large reasons it is so thick:  (1)
lots of annotated examples; (2) pretty thorough tables on language
features, some of which I didn't pick up going through
docs.python.com.  (Full disclosure:  I joined a group of Pythonistas
and got to review the 2nd edition book before it went to press; so a
few of my corrections made it into print.  But really, I was blown
away by how much I picked up in the process.)