The Quick Python Book: Covers Python 3

by Kenneth McDonald, Daryl D. Harms, Naomi R. Ceder

Book Overview

Summary This third revision of Manning's popular The Quick Python Book offers a clear, crisp updated introduction to the elegant Python programming language and its famously easy-to-read syntax.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 193518220X
• ISBN13: 9781935182207
• Release Date: January 2010
• Publisher: Manning Publications
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Best Language Book Since Kernighan & Ritchie!

Excuse my enthusiasm, but this is one of the best software books I've ever read and I've been programming professionally for 16 years. I wanted to learn Python as a replacement for Perl so I bought all the O'Reilly books, which were OK but too chatty and disorganized for my taste. I picked up Quick Python and found myself reading it like a bestseller and I still reread it. I was amazed at its consistent clarity, depth and friendliness with lots of tight examples in a visually pleasing format. The authors don't just cover the material, they also let you in on the subtleties and gotchas that go unmentioned in a reference like Beazley's Python Essential Reference (which I also own but for me Quick Python works better most of the time).Furthermore in order to explain Python well, the authors provide astute explanations of general programming topics such as exception handling, regular expressions, and the pros and cons of the current crop of popular programming languages. They also bring in experts, even Guido Van Rossum (the creator of Python), to write chapters on more advanced topics like JPython and Zope.My only caveat is that this is not the best place for beginners to start--Lutz & Ascher's Learning Python would be better--but it is a good book for beginners to own and dip into as they develop.Other reviewers have mentioned that Quick Python's coverage of Tkinter (the main Python GUI package) is thin and that's true, though somewhat understandable since Tkinter is quite a beast and whole books have been written that don't cover Tkinter or Tk all that well. I would dearly love to see Harms & McDonald bring their accessible, thorough-going approach to Tkinter and its extension, Python Megawidgets.

Fun book about a fun language

I checked out this book plus a few other books on java, C++ and perl from a local library to review and possibly buy. They were mostly o'reilly books that bored me after two weeks. I realized that o'reilly books are a bit over-worshiped. I had already decided to learn perl instead of python simply because it is used more commonly. I finally picked the quick python book just to see what all this python thingy is all about. I was not able to lay the book down for two days. I was reading after waking up, at lunch breaks, before bed and even when I could not sleep in the middle of the night. The language was as simple and intuitive to start as matlab or mathematica. The book had just the right depth, breadth and speed for my taste. Not too wordy, not too academic and all related examples to the matter at hand and no allegories. I just received my own book in mail. The book taught me things about computers and programming that I had not realized after a few years of C and C++ under my belt. I never felt too comfortable about programming and never thought I'd love coding one day but this may just have kindled that little light.

Instant Python

This book makes an easy-to-use language even easier. I recently needed to prepare a large number of files for database publishing. The files were a disaster -- many, many errors and structural problems. After reading a few chapters from Quick Python, I was able to immediately begin writing & testing code that helped me to straighten out the files. The annotated code samples were very clear. They really should call the book Instant Python! It is every bit as helpful as an O'Reilly book.Later, the book turned out to be a great reference too. I especially like the sideheads in the scanning margin that provide just enough to remind me of how to use a Python technique without forcing me to read through pages of text. The chapter on COM was great and made me feel better about choosing this language over Visual Basic (my background is in VB) for this and other similar projects. The chapter on regular expressions was a little brief, but gave me enough information do some very useful file manipulation. Two caveats: The chapter on Tk is rather thin, and this book is definitely aimed at a person with some programming experience.

Essential reading for Python beginners and enthusiasts

(Please note this is written for the "second corrected printing 2000" which is a great improvement over earlier printings.)Easy to get into, requires some previous knowledge of programming. Written in a clear, conversational style with good examples the reader can follow along with interactively.Introduction grounds the reader with some background, and a comparison between python and other languages which includes a section on types of applications python is and is not ideally suited for. Covers essentials including control structures, data structures, exceptions, and using the filesystem from within applications. From there, scoping, functions, classes, modules, and packages are explained to demonstrate how to break up your application into logical pieces. Also covered: GUI development using Tk and alternatives.The final 200 pages comprises an advanced topic section and an excellent 50 page reference, as well as a well-organized and cross-referenced index that has proved consistently useful.Highlights of Advanced Topics: * Differences between scripting on Unix vs Windows, including how to make your scripts completely cross-platform * JPython, including using JPython from Java * Using Zope (popular open source application server/portal toolkit written in and extendable using Python) * Extending Python with C and C++ * Using Python with COM * Python and CGI; HTML generation