FW: Anyone read "Python Interview Questions: Python Certification Review"?

[Grimes, George]

The listing for the book on Amazon did not have any reviews but they had an almost identical page for their Perl book.  It had 3 reviews giving one star (the lowest rating) each.  All reported that it was just the reproduction of 
on-list postings, no original material, and no attempt to make a coherent
presentation.

It sounds like the sort of thing to avoid.  I'm just learning Python myself
and I'll look elsewhere.

George

 
George A. Grimes
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-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Holden [mailto:steve at holdenweb.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 8:44 AM
To: python-list at python.org
Subject: Re: Anyone read "Python Interview Questions: Python Certification Review"?

Paul Sammy wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On a recent trawl of the internet for some Python books, I came across
> "Python Interview Questions: Python Certification Review" by
> ITCOOKBOOK.COM <http://ITCOOKBOOK.COM>
> 
> http://www.itcookbook.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=15
> <http://www.itcookbook.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=15>
> 
> Has anyone used this, or even one of the related books?  I can find NO
> reviews of any of these books online, and the page on the Java version
> of the book has factual errors (the blurb talks about operator
> overloading and pointers, neither of which Java has).
> 
> Furthermore the ITCOOKBOOK homepage appears to selling some sort of
> "20-step plan" which leads to suspiciously large amounts of money -
> after paying them money of course (http://itcookbook.com/online_training/).
> 
> Anyway, thought I would run this past you guys in case I'm being unduly
> suspicious or cautious.
> 
As far as I know there isn't anything like a useful Python certification
in the marketplace at the moment, and this book certainly doesn't seem
to be linked with one.

The fact that they don't say how or whether you get certified would
increase my suspicion level, and the 20-step plan appears to be a simple
come-on with not much behind it.

I am hoping that when O'Reilly School of Technology publish their Python
classes (which I am currently busy writing) this situation will change.
There will be a university-associated certification available for those.

regards
 Steve
-- 
Steve Holden        +1 571 484 6266   +1 800 494 3119
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