The Mouse Vs. The Python

This is an unorthodox review of Numpy 1.5 Beginner’s Guide by Ivan Idris. I have to say two things right off before we get into the review:

• This book was given to me in ebook and physical form directly from Packt Publishing
• I actually don’t think I have enough math to review this

On that second one, I took college Calculus, but this book talks about terms I either don’t remember or they just weren’t covered. I had Statistics I and II as well, but the author deals more with matrix manipulation and linear algebra. I think my old Finance and Accounting classes helped the most, but that was at the end of the book. (more…)

This week, I discovered a new book on Python titled Treading on Python Vol. 1 by Matt Harrison. The book is only in draft form, so it’s still pretty rough, but the author was kind enough to send me a free copy in epub and mobi formats. I read part of it using EPUBReader, an add-on to Firefox so I could read it in my browser. Then I switched to the PC Kindle software to finish the book.

The book is your typical introductory text to Python. I felt like it was a tad shorter than some of the intro books I’ve read though, but that may be because it was an eBook. He covers what you would expect, but here’s a short list of topics:

• Installation of Python
• The Interpreter
• Numbers and Strings
• dir and help (introspection, although he never uses that word)
• comments
• Sequences (lists, tuples and dicts)
• Functions, Classes, and Methods
• File I/O
• Exceptions – very brief, doesn’t show how to make your own

He uses a few odd terms that I’ve never heard, like calling the double-underscore methods of Python “dunder methods” (like __init__ or __seq__). The only name I’ve ever heard for those are “magic methods”. He also says the following: It is common to hear in Python parlance of “truthy” or “falsey” (Kindle location 700) regarding bools and bool-like objects. I’ve read a lot of books on Python and never come across that before either. It’s no big deal, they just kind of jumped out at me and left me scratching my head.

Anyway, I can’t be too hard on it because it’s still only a draft. I did notice that some of the first sections in the book seem to get repeated later on. I’m not sure if that was intentional or not. Maybe it was a way of emphasizing the material. Regardless, the information in the book is pretty good for someone who is just coming to the language. I should mention that it’s more of an overview book though. Every topic has only 1-4 pages of information on it on average, so this book will give you enough information to get going, but you’ll still need to read the docs if you hit a wall. For example, he mentions comprehensions, but never says what they are. You don’t need those when you program, but they sure can be nice. On the other hand, he does talk about the “with” statement quite a bit.

Overall, I would say this is a pretty good introductory text on Python. The reader will get a nice overview of the language without the confusion of 3rd party packages or even very much of the included modules. They get a little introduction to Python introspection tools, which is pretty nice. When the book is finished, this is one you may want to keep in mind for your budding Pythonista. You can actually purchase the book from his website now for $4.99 and I think you get the final version when it’s done, kind of like Manning’s Early Access Program (MEAP).

MySQL for Python By Albert Lukaszewski Amazon Packt

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Python Multimedia Application Beginner’s Guide By Ninad Sathaye Amazon Packt

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Python 3 Object Oriented Programming By Dusty Phillips Amazon Packt

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Practical Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science Using Python By Jennifer Campbell, Paul Gries, Jason Montojo and Greg Wilson Amazon

I received the book, Practical Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science Using Python as a gift last month from a family member. This book is by four authors: Jennifer Campbell, Paul Gries, Jason Montojo and Greg Wilson. I’d been interested in reading another Python-related textbook for a while, and this happens to be one of the few out there. The only other Python textbook I’ve read is Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science by John Zelle. I’m aware of one or two others, but those books are beyond what I’m willing to pay. (more…)

Before PyCon, I was approached by a representative from Packt Publishing to review one of their books. They wanted me to read Daniel Arbuckle’s Python Testing: Beginner’s Guide. I’m not really into testing frameworks or test driven development and thought this would be a good excuse to learn the methodology and see if it was something that was actually valuable or just a lot of hype. The book is only 256 pages long, so I told the Packt contact that it would probably take me a week or so to review. After a week, she seemed kind of anxious that I wasn’t done. Thus, this is a partial review. I don’t like being pressured to review something fast. I want my reviews to be thorough and of the best quality I can make them. You will get a thorough review of the chapters that I did manage to finish. If you want a full review, I’m pretty sure someone else on Python Planet said they were doing one. (more…)

I received Ayman Hourieh’s Django 1.0 Web Site Development from Packt Publishers a few weeks ago for review. I had worked with Django before when I went through another book on Python web frameworks as well as one of their official tutorials. I had my doubts about this book because it was only 257 pages long and I didn’t think it would be able to teach me much in so few pages.
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