[Pythonmac-SIG] Apple installed vs. Manual

[Bob Ippolito]

On Feb 9, 2005, at 9:56 PM, eichin at metacarta.com wrote:

>> what is currently Essential Reading on Python, I mean in print rather
>
>> Of course, "it depends".  Dive into Python looks pretty good.  Python
>
> I've been beating on people with, err, recommending Dive Into Python,
> for two reasons - you can read it online to see if it suits you, *and*
> it's *very* different in style from most language teaching books, none
> of that 'useless hello world nonsense', it really does start out with
> hairy code - because you can *read* it and learn interesting points
> in a context which makes it clear that they're not just pedantic
> points, but that they apply to real problems.  (I've found it useful
> for porting perl programmers, too :-)
>
> I also suggest (especially if you like working from Real Paper Books)
> the Python Standard Libraries book - not to read through, but to pick
> up, thumb through and random, and say "oh, that's a cool
> thing"... getting familiar with "batteries" that are in reach, along
> a different path from the usual (google :-) path...

I find myself typing "foo site:docs.python.org" into the Safari search 
bar when I want to find something in the stdlib or C API, but usually I 
already know more or less what I'm looking for.  I do the same thing 
looking up Cocoa docs at developer.apple.com.

-bob