how to become a really good Python programmer?

[Roger Binns]

Randall Smith wrote:
> Following Guido around would be ideal, but I will settle for
> a good book.  Any recommendations for learning resources?

Becoming really good generally means also making your own mistakes
and/or learning from the mistakes of others.

The Python cookbook is full of excellent ways of doing things
you may not have stumbled upon by just reading the doc or in your
day to day work.  I prefer the book, but the content is all on
the website as well.

I would recommend programming in the "open".  Find an open source
project and do some code for it.  That will give the chance for
others to critique what you have coded, as well as you seeing
what others code all out in the open.  You also get an appreciation
for other issues if you want such as release engineering, documentation,
configuration management which are all part of programming.

Here is a list of over 3,300 Python projects at SourceForge:

   http://sof.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php?form_cat=178

The first page alone has a wide variety of areas so you should be
able to find some areas that interest you.  It also makes good
resume filler :-)

Roger