I was just looking for opinions on this book. I was frustrated with most of the Perl books out there until I finally found Beginning Perl (Cozens) and finally learned how to program. I've recently started using Python and wanted to check out this book.

Opinions?

-Scruff

I bought this book a few days ago. It seems to be well-written, but actually using it with the code is a whole other matter. While the authors are very enthusiastic about the pedagogical advantages of using the PythonCards software, which, they say, is written in Python, which, they say, is conducive to cross-platform development, I find that The First Steps in Chapter 1 are so far impossible to follow. It seems that PythonCards is only available for Mandrake and Debian flavors of Linux. What is so cross-platform about that? What about Suse, the most popular brand of Linux in Europe and recently bought by Novell? I tried installing PythonCards under Suse 9.1 Professional and have met with every manner of difficulty, from installing python-base, which does not exist on the Suse distribution disk, to being unable to install wxPython. Thus far I have been unsuccessful, after wasting three hours on this (non-)install with my machine at the office. At the moment I am waiting, for an hour, for a Debian ISO to download, because Mandrake is not an option for my home machine, which does not take any files with "i586" in the name, but only "i386". Given what I have thus far seen, I have no doubt that I will fail under the Knoppix that is on my hdd at home. I would not buy this book unless you are a seasoned Linux system person or computer engineer, or you had such a person to whom you could turn for help with software installation problems.

Isn't Suse supposed to be able to work with apt/deb?

Hahaha! Great. Just tried to install all the applications using apt, which does work, though there appears to be a dependency problem: PythoNCard depends on wxPython2.4.2.4, which is not available with Apt. It won't work like this Grrreat... Why not just use bash and vi(m)?

Sure, I can use bash and vi and/or emacs for this, but the real question I have is, why have people spend money on a book that's supposed to be a great pedagogical tool due to the existence of this software that cannot easily be made to work by the very people who most need it? Pedagogical incompetence is exhibited every day here at the University of Pittsburgh, leading me to desperately cast about for some truly helpful book. I truly thought that this could be it. Alas, not.

I have come to Python by way of Blender (a 3D modeling and rendering tool), and with some 30 years of programming experience and a good 15 years of experience on Windows systems in enterprise environments.

I find this book offers too little to the Windows programmer who needs to interface to ODBC databases or Win32 or .NET. You will find references in the index to Flickr, Gmail, Google, GNU DBM, GTK+, Glade, Java, etc., but never a mention of Microsoft, Windows, SQL Server, Excel, Outlook, Oracle, DB2, SAP, OpenGL, etc., despite an entire chapter on Python in the Enterprise.

Presumably, as the Microsoft-backed IronPython enters beta, we will see this deficit addressed in a subsequent edition of the book, or a book focused on the rich world of Python on Windows and .NET.

The book is pretty good, I just wish they'd explain Tkinter instead gtk for guis.
still, better than its O'Reilly counter part.

Well, I can't say I've read every page - but so far I have mixed feelings about the book. I thought the examples in Chapter 6 (Classes and Objects) were a little unclear - Fridges and making omelettes and such like...bit disappointing..

On the other hand I thought Chapter 18 was particularly interesting, although the examples were (intentionally?) vague.

It does seem to have reasonable coverage of web dev and web services so far (am reading that chapter at the moment).

One book I really do find a life saver is an old copy of 'Python Essential Reference - New Riders by David M Beazley' that a friend lent me. I use it in conjunction with the Wrox book to look things up when they crop up in code and I can't see an explanation in the text. Only issue with the Beazley book is that it's for Python 2.1 and so not up to date. It's a cracking little book though.

So, I think the Wrox book is a pretty useful tome to have in your collection. There are some interesting/useful chapters in particular database, XML and web related topics. These don't seem to be covered in as much detail in some of the other books I've come across.

Hope that helps,
Tony

I found the book offers a very clear introduction, covering most of the important areas that one might want to use Python for. However, one should have a sound understanding of object oriented programming concepts, since these aren't explained very well, I thought. Other than that, I'd certainly recommend the book for Python beginners.

Cheers,

Martin