Book recommendation please

[Alex Martelli]

Geoff wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I am starting to learn python. I have been away from programming for a
> long time, but 10 years ago I was ok in pascal and forth.
> 
> I am working through a couple of the helpful tutorials on the web, but I
> want a book.  The classic seems to be Lutz / Asher, but I notice that it
> is getting little old and predates current versions of python.  I have

Yep -- Lutz and Ascher are starting to revise it to cover current
Python, I hear, but that will take a while, of course.

> seen Gupta "Making Use of Python" advertised.  It is recent and looks

Haven't seen that -- but I made the mistake of purchasing "Making Use
of Ruby", from the same series (by Mahadevan, while the Python one is
by Gupta), and it's probably the worst small book I've bought in many
years -- full of technical mistakes, non-idiomatic and sometimes
almost-incomprehensible use of English, and so forth; I was appalled
that John Wiley, once quite a reputable technical publisher, could
have sunk so low.  Quite apart from the author's problem with English
and technical concepts, technical reviewing and copy-editing SHOULD
have caught all of those problems; the fact that the book went out of
the door in that state is, to my way of thinking, sufficient to advise
people against buying ANY other book in that series (one MIGHT happen
to be good, if the author's a demigod needing no technical reviewing
nor copyediting, but the gamble's just too wild, given that there are
so many other good, *well-reviewed, well-edited* books on the market).

> good.  I would be grateful for any views as to which of the two I should
> go for.

If you're in a hurry and can't wait for the Python 2.2 version of
"Learning Python" (sorry, I can't forecast when it might be ready),
I think you would be well advised to look at other books yet.  If
you're interested in other technologies to be used side by side with
Python (such as relational databases, networking, XML, ...), then
Holden's "Web Programming With Python" (New Riders) is very good,
as it gives you just the right amount of grounding in those other
technologies as well as Python.  Another good alternative is Magnus
Lie Hetland's "Practical Python", by Apress -- lots of very substantial,
fully worked-out examples there.

Be warned -- I'm biased, having been a technical reviewer for both
books (only for the first half, i.e., examples excluded, in the
case of "Practical Python"), and being friend with each of the two 
authors (each kindly reciprocated my reviewing, by serving in turn
as technical reviewers for my "Python in a Nutshell").


Alex