Best book for python?

[James J. Besemer]

For someone who already knows how to program and is familiar with
Perl, I would recommend "Python Essential Reference" by Beazley.
It gives a concise overview of tha language with examples and then
gives a good survey of the more commonly used library modules.

Absolutely vital (IMHO) is O'Reilly's Python Pocket Reference by
Mark Lutz.  This is a handly little quick reference to supplement
any more substantial books. on the subject.  There's a beginner
phase where you sort of know what to do but need to double-check
syntax, function name, which args are optional, return result,
etc.

Then too, no reason not to buy most of the other books.  I still
frequently refer to the Python Programming on Win32 (if you use
Windows).

As was pointed out, many of the published documents do not reflect
the latest release of Python.  For learning the basics this
doesn't matter but eventually you'll need to know.

Bookmarking the online documents is very useful.  I frequently
consult the Library Reference, as I find it all too much to keep
in my head.  This might be worth downloading for faster access.

Regards

--jb

obantec support wrote:

> Hi
>
> I need to get up to speed on python so am looking for a book.
> Quite a few at amazon to choose from.
> Any recommendations?
>
> (BTW i already program in perl/php)
>
> Mark
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