Python Essential Reference (Developers Library)

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One person found this helpful 2 people found this helpful. Most helpful customer reviews on Amazon. I almost passed on this book because of its publication date, but I am really glad I did not. The book was released at a critical time in Python history when Python 3 was just released. The author makes clear what the main distinctions between the two versions are.

The first pages deal with the basic languages features and this part of the book was highly readable with well explained details. Examples given are practical. When introducing generators and co-routines the code was simple and easy to understand. From page on the reference section of the book starts. I found these parts to be slightly less readable although coverage was extremely thorough.

For many of the standard libraries, the entire list of functions and parameters are listed.

The code here focused on operating system calls, networking, socket, concurrency, and lower level web programming details. It is generally geared towards a system's programmer rather than an OOP programming. My main complaint about the book is the size of text which is maybe 8 point font. The text should have been at least 2 font sizes bigger as I had to read quite close to the book. Overall this is an excellent reference for Python and great to have by your side when programming.

I'm sick and tired of hearing people recommend to beginners that they read "Learn Python The Hard Way"! That book is absolutely terrible!

This book is much better. Yes, it's a desk reference but this book starts out with a quick tutorial one chapter that covers the basics.

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It's a fast tutorial and a complete desk reference all in one. The author isn't an ESL student he can construct a proper English sentence , the book is very accurate and contains very few typos. What else could you ask for? Python Essential Reference 4th Edition is a nice reference guide. If you use Python3 which, at this point, you likely do , wait for the 5th edition. The author has in essence chosen to present the intersection of the two branches, i. This volume's pace is rapid and the coverage is quite extensive, so this probably shouldn't be the first Python book one reads.

It is split into two parts: The first part is very good, while the second part is unrivaled as of this writing though this may change when Doug Hellmann's "The Python Standard Library by Example" comes out.

Thus, the reader essentially gets two books for the price of one: The book also includes an extremely useful Index which is approximately 80 pages long and also contains unexpected entries, e. Moving on to the material covered: Beazley includes an appendix on Python 3-specific concepts, but also offers useful advice on Python 3 throughout the main text e.

I particularly enjoyed the sections on decorators, generators, and coroutines in the chapter on functional programming. Beazley has also posted on his website two tutorials on these topics that nicely complement the material in the book. Similarly, the chapter on multiprocessing and threading is impressive, and forms a nice set with the author's talk slides on the Global Interpreter Lock -- it's important to note that Beazley used to be a professor of Computer Science. Probably the most significant aspect of this book is the abundance of examples.

I'm pretty sure the phrase that is most often repeated in this volume is "Here's an example". The examples are always enlightening, sometimes clever, but never obfuscating. Hands-on demonstration of a broad but related set of items designed to provide concise and specific guidance on what to do and what to avoid when writing programs using Python.

Accurate and concise reference to the most important parts of Python. Provides developers with an approach to programming in Python that expresses big ideas succinctly, with the minimum of code, allowing the business logic to shine through. Expert porting guidance for moving code from 2. Newer features from Python 3. Omits features of Python 2 that have been removed from Python 3. Does not features of Python 3 that have not been back-ported. Python 3 In an effort to maintain clear and concise descriptions for each example, the differences between Python 2 and 3 are not highlighted in each chapter.

From the Back Cover "Python Essential Reference" is the definitive reference guide to the Python programming language - the one authoritative handbook that reliably untangles and explains both the core Python language and the most essential parts of the Python library. Addison-Wesley Professional; 4 edition July 19, Language: Related Video Shorts 0 Upload your video. Mastering Python Regular Expressions. Looking to learn how to program with python? Check out this tutorial guide for beginners! From beginners to experts in one book. Grab your copy today and start learning Python immediately.

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Learn the basics of Python programming in 5 days with step-by-step guidance and simple exercises - even if you're a complete novice! Try the Kindle edition and experience these great reading features: Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review.

Read reviews that mention language programming examples programmer learn experienced code kindle text tutorial covers pages languages content contents learning concise library table programmers. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. This is probably a great book, but without a table of contents to jump to the wanted section the Kindle edition is almost useless.

Kindle edition is without table of contents, decent chapter headings or anything else that would make this a navigable book except page numbers. If it was a novel it wouldn't matter, but since it's meant to be a reference book it's not really any use.

Python Essential Reference (Developer's Library)

I don't recommend buying as there's better ebook options. I can't speak for the content of the book too much - I'm sure they might be good but you won't get much from the Kindle edition. I have, thus far, only read Part I the first pages. I had gone through many Python resources, including a 2-day intro course, followed by: Eventually, I got stuck. I didn't know what else to learn, or in what order to learn it. Fortunately, this book includes a wide variety of topics, most of them presented in a sensible order.

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Beazley's coverage of each topic is quite terse. For me, this was mostly good. I didn't waste time reading through things I already knew, and when I wanted to learn more about a topic, I consulted Google and Stack Overflow. Despite the succinct descriptions, the book spans over pages due to its breadth. I would hate to imagine how large a book it might be otherwise.

That said, I would not recommend this as an introductory text at least not for a beginning programmer. It isn't intended to be. Beazley describes this as "a concise reference to the Python Programming language" and says that while "an experienced programmer will probably be able to learn Python from the book, it is not intended to be an extended tutorial or treatise on how to program".

Of course, I used it as a bit of a tutorial, but your mileage may vary. The vast majority of Beazley's descriptions are quite good. Unfortunately, I found the introductions to Abstract Base Classes and Metaclasses to be too short, with both difficult subjects covered in a mere 5 pages. He comes back to these subjects much later in the book I haven't yet read those sections , but I would have preferred either a longer introduction, or no introduction at all. Reading this section, I had no idea what metaclasses were used for. I don't have trouble with brevity elsewhere, but metaclasses are notoriously confusing.

Despite that minor quibble, I found this book a tremendous resource, worthy of 5 stars. I have recently started on the Python Cookbook, which I am also enjoying thoroughly. I would call it a beginning and intermediate level course. Part II covers a diverse collection of subjects see the index , from math to testing to web programming. Programmers starting a new Python project will find detailed coverage of contemporary Python programming idioms. This fourth edition of Python Essential Reference features numerous improvements, additions, and updates:.

A very good reference for the Python programming language.

The book is based on version 1. It is broken up into two sections. The first, and smaller Though Python is a relatively new programming language, it has quite a significant audience owing to its sensible syntax.

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