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Hello! Python
Summary
Hello! Python fully covers the building blocks of Python programming and gives you a gentle introduction to more advanced topics such as object-oriented programming, functional programming, network programming, and program design. New (or nearly new) programmers will learn most of what they need to know to start using Python immediately.
About this BookProgrammers love Python because it's fast and efficient. Shouldn't learning Python be just the same? Hello! Python starts quickly and simply, with a line of Python code. You'll learn the basics the right way--by writing your own programs. Along the way, you'll get a gentle introduction to more advanced concepts and new programming styles.>
No experience with Python needed. Exposure to another programming language is helpful but not required.
Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.
What Makes Hello! Python special
Learn Python fast Even if you've never written a line of code before, you'll be writing real Python apps in just an hour or two.
Great examples There's something new in every chapter, including games, web programming with Django, databases, and more.
User Friendly guides Using lots of illustrations and a down-to-earth writing style, this book invites you to explore Python along with half-a-dozen traveling companions from the User Friendly cartoon strip.
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Table of Contents
Why Python? Hunt the Wumpus Interacting with theWorld Getting Organized Business-Oriented Programming Classes and Object-oriented Programming Sufficiently Advanced Technology Django! Gaming with Pyglet Twisted Networking Django Revisted! Where to from Here?
Hello! Python fully covers the building blocks of Python programming and gives you a gentle introduction to more advanced topics such as object-oriented programming, functional programming, network programming, and program design. New (or nearly new) programmers will learn most of what they need to know to start using Python immediately.
About this BookProgrammers love Python because it's fast and efficient. Shouldn't learning Python be just the same? Hello! Python starts quickly and simply, with a line of Python code. You'll learn the basics the right way--by writing your own programs. Along the way, you'll get a gentle introduction to more advanced concepts and new programming styles.>
No experience with Python needed. Exposure to another programming language is helpful but not required.
Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.
What Makes Hello! Python special
Learn Python fast Even if you've never written a line of code before, you'll be writing real Python apps in just an hour or two.
Great examples There's something new in every chapter, including games, web programming with Django, databases, and more.
User Friendly guides Using lots of illustrations and a down-to-earth writing style, this book invites you to explore Python along with half-a-dozen traveling companions from the User Friendly cartoon strip.
==========================================
Table of Contents
Why Python? Hunt the Wumpus Interacting with theWorld Getting Organized Business-Oriented Programming Classes and Object-oriented Programming Sufficiently Advanced Technology Django! Gaming with Pyglet Twisted Networking Django Revisted! Where to from Here?
- GenresProgrammingTechnology
424 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
4 people are currently reading
32 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 28, 2012
I came to this book as someone who has already learned Python the hard way (by writing lots and lots of really bad code for a really hard class) and not as my first programming language, so I can't offer a perspective on how good a book this is for the average beginner. Perhaps that's not a useful perspective anyway, as most of the average beginners I've come across are lazy. They'd like to be awesome programmers but they don't want to know the theory behind programming or any of the best practices.
I think this is a good book for someone who actually wants to put in the effort to become a good programmer, because it doesn't shy away from talking about the things effective programmers do. It explains unit testing early on - something I've never seen in an introductory programming book and wished could have been in the ones I learned to program in, although I suspect I predated unit testing being a big thing. It points out security issues where they may exist in the provided code. Most importantly, the example projects you work through in the book are all useful things and relatively complicated in their entirety. This is not yet another programming book where you see a lot of snippets of code by the end and know how they all work, but are still scratching your head as to how such things come together to make fully-fledged applications.
The flip side of this is that the code samples do take a while to process fully. I've learned Django cursorily in my own time and was still a bit perplexed by the Django chapters at times. I imagine if I'd been following along with the project examples, instead of just reading out of interest, I'd be doing a lot of online searches and consulting other books and code and maybe other people. But this is, after all, how coding happens when you're on your own with a project. You can't expect to get all your answers from a single text. What is, I think, far more valuable is to see how complete projects look as opposed to toy examples. How many people who learn from those books where you have all the answers on the fringe of your brainpower actually make the leap to producing something useful with their knowledge?
The layout of the book is also very nice, with appealing fonts and an uncluttered feel. I didn't really 'get' the little comics scattered here and there throughout the pages, but they did break up the monotony that reading even pleasant tech books can turn into sometimes, and for not being patronising I thank them endlessly.
I enjoy dipping into introductory programming books for languages I've already learned. This is the first one I've actually read all the way through for a long time - most of them are too dry and take far too long to get to the good code. For a beginner, I suspect this book might work best in conjunction with a good theory text or 'traditional' programming book or ideally both to fill in the gaps where this book skips over the things other books have historically covered in excruciating detail. The fact that you may feel the need to consult other books is a good thing considering, if you are able to make it to the end of this book and you understand everything you have gone through, you should be well-equipped to become a very good programmer.
I think this is a good book for someone who actually wants to put in the effort to become a good programmer, because it doesn't shy away from talking about the things effective programmers do. It explains unit testing early on - something I've never seen in an introductory programming book and wished could have been in the ones I learned to program in, although I suspect I predated unit testing being a big thing. It points out security issues where they may exist in the provided code. Most importantly, the example projects you work through in the book are all useful things and relatively complicated in their entirety. This is not yet another programming book where you see a lot of snippets of code by the end and know how they all work, but are still scratching your head as to how such things come together to make fully-fledged applications.
The flip side of this is that the code samples do take a while to process fully. I've learned Django cursorily in my own time and was still a bit perplexed by the Django chapters at times. I imagine if I'd been following along with the project examples, instead of just reading out of interest, I'd be doing a lot of online searches and consulting other books and code and maybe other people. But this is, after all, how coding happens when you're on your own with a project. You can't expect to get all your answers from a single text. What is, I think, far more valuable is to see how complete projects look as opposed to toy examples. How many people who learn from those books where you have all the answers on the fringe of your brainpower actually make the leap to producing something useful with their knowledge?
The layout of the book is also very nice, with appealing fonts and an uncluttered feel. I didn't really 'get' the little comics scattered here and there throughout the pages, but they did break up the monotony that reading even pleasant tech books can turn into sometimes, and for not being patronising I thank them endlessly.
I enjoy dipping into introductory programming books for languages I've already learned. This is the first one I've actually read all the way through for a long time - most of them are too dry and take far too long to get to the good code. For a beginner, I suspect this book might work best in conjunction with a good theory text or 'traditional' programming book or ideally both to fill in the gaps where this book skips over the things other books have historically covered in excruciating detail. The fact that you may feel the need to consult other books is a good thing considering, if you are able to make it to the end of this book and you understand everything you have gone through, you should be well-equipped to become a very good programmer.
June 11, 2012
I made it to page 116 before I threw it away. Definitely not a beginner's book. Maybe it is written by an expert and reviewed by experts, but you won't learn python by using this book. I have already studied the freely availabe "Python for Informatics - Exploring Information" (www.py4inf.com), which I can recommend.
"Hello! Python" looked good and introduces a lot of new concepts, but doesn't explain them. It's mouth watering even, but for learning how to use those concepts, I will have to find another book. This book reduces the learning process to correctly copying the sample code, but you won't learn Python.
"Hello! Python" looked good and introduces a lot of new concepts, but doesn't explain them. It's mouth watering even, but for learning how to use those concepts, I will have to find another book. This book reduces the learning process to correctly copying the sample code, but you won't learn Python.
March 31, 2012
What a crap book. It moves too slow, but in between periods of slog, are highly complex bits of logic inserted in the middle of chapter two explaining the "wumpus" game. I am too frustrated to even bother continue reading this. I *really* wanted to like this book, but feel like the normal "Here is an 'if', here is a 'loop' structure" may be better than this. It tries too hard to be deliberate, but is utter disappointing and slow. I want to get up to speed with this language more briskly than this.
July 3, 2014
To be honest I only ever made it through chapter 5 (of 12) of this book but it was worth every dime for me. I needed a way to process a pile of CSV files at work and learned enough by the 5th chapter to turn hours/days of arduous work into a little script that I still use on occasion.
December 5, 2015
I think this is good to teach you best practices of programming, but I don't think it can teach you python if it is your first language.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews