Writing solid code book

[Jules Dubois]

On 4 Sep 2003 02:40:50 -0700, post400 wrote:

So maybe you (experienced python guys ) [...]

I'm not experienced with Python.  I wrote my first forty (or so) lines of
code Thursday morning.

> [...] could make some
> suggestions from time to time about the must-read books , not
> necessarily on python but also on stuff about design , project
> management , OOP , etc. be it new stuff or old stuff.

Books I particularly liked:

  _Object Oriented Software Construction, 1E_.  Meyer. (OOP)
  _Design Patterns_.  Gamma, Helm, Johnson, Vlissides.
  _Refactoring_.  Fowler.

For OOP stuff, you might look at the comp.object newsgroup.  There are some
Wars of Religion there, but also some good information; Robert Martin
(Uncle Bob) and Martin Fowler post there.

> But I really wonder
> how a non-programmer could get into python as a first programming
> language since there's not much publicity and not many people around
> to lure you to it.

Publicity and lure are not the most important things to consider when
choosing a first language.  

For education, as opposed to training, I maintain the first two languages a
beginner should learn are Smalltalk and then Common Lisp.  Even though
they're not the most widely-used languages, these two will do more to teach
the fundamentals of programming than will Java, Python, Ruby, C++, Perl,
PHP, C#, or (especially) VBA.