Books I'd like to see

[Dave Benjamin]

In article <TU%sb.24521$hV.920784 at news2.tin.it>, Alex Martelli wrote:
> Michele Simionato wrote:
>    ...
>> But Python is designed in such a way that a lot of it can be taught
>> without talking about objects. Yes, you are right that in its heart
>> it is very strongly object oriented (maybe even more than Java or Ruby),
> 
> I don't know about "more than Ruby" -- Ruby's pretty thoroughly OO, too.
> I'd call it a wash.

Ruby certainly claims to be more OO (and if Smalltalk is your definition of
OO, it's a logical conclusion). Of course, everyone has a different
definition of what OO really is. Including Alan Kay. =)

>> a metaprogramming/advanced OOP book by the Martellibot, but this would NOT
>> be a book for beginners.
> 
> If it had "advanced" in the title it sure wouldn't:-).

This reminds me of a book I purchased last year called "Macromedia Flash MX
ActionScripting: Advanced Training from the Source". Given that title,
wouldn't you expect advanced concepts in ActionScript to be covered? Think
again - it's advanced *training*. In other words, it's the training that's
advanced, not the subject matter. Needless to say, I felt pretty shafted. ;)

>> other hand, if you already knew OOP from another language, then you
>> are an experienced enough programmer and you can learn Python from
>> the Nutshell, isn't it?
> 
> But the Nutshell only gets into OO _after_ it has covered functions, flow
> control, etc; it doesn't _start_ from OO, which is the original poster's 
> request.

Was this a conscious decision? If so, what were your motivations behind
procedural-first vs. objects-first?

-- 
.:[ dave benjamin (ramenboy) -:- www.ramenfest.com -:- www.3dex.com ]:.
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