Disclosure: I received a free review copy of Dive into Python 3 from Apress.
Unlike a ton of people I know in the Python world, my experience in learning Python didn't include the original Dive into Python at all, in fact I didn't encounter it until quite a while later when I was teaching a friend Python and I was looking for example exercises. Since Dive into Python is really a book for people who don't know Python a lot of my views on it are based on how helpful I think it would have been while teaching my friend, since it's pretty difficult to imagine myself not knowing Python as I do.
The first thing to note is that Mark Pilgrim has an absolutely brilliant writing style, even when I was reading about stuff I already knew it was an absolute pleasure. The next thing to note is that this book is squarely targeted at people who are already programmers who want to learn Python, I don't think it would make a good "my first programming book". Dive into Python 3 jumps into Python full steam ahead, it dives into Python's datatypes, generators, unit testing, and interacting with the web.
The book is strongly example based, Mark does a great job of showing code and explaining it clearly. He also does a good job of emphasising best practices such as unit testing. It also covers some external libraries like httplib2, plus there's stuff on porting your existing libraries to Python 3, and a great appendix.
For all these reasons I think Dive into Python 3 makes a good introduction to Python 3. But don't take my word for it, Mark has made a point of releasing all of his books online, free of charge. So if you think you're in the target audience (or even if you aren't) check it out, it doesn't cost you a dime, which Mark goes above and beyond the call of duty to ensure.
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Disclosure: I received a free review copy of the book.
Today I finished reading the Python Essential Reference and I wanted to share my final thoughts on the book. I'll start by saying I still agree with everything I wrote in my initial review, specifically that it's both a great resource as well as a good way to find out what you don't already know. Reading the second half of the book there were a few things that really exemplified this for me.
The first instance of this is the chapter on concurrency. I've done some concurrent programming with Python, but it's mostly been small scripts, a multiprocess and multithreaded web scraper for example, so I'm familiar with the basic APIs for threading and multiprocessing. However, this chapter goes into the full details, really covering the stuff you need to know if you want to build bigger applications that leverage these techniques. Things like shared data for processes or events and condition variables for threads and the kind of things that the book gives a good explanation of, as well as good examples of how to use them.
The other chapter that really stood out for me is the one on network programming and sockets. This chapter describes everything from the low-level select module up through through the included socket servers. The most valuable part is an example of how to build an asynchronous IO system. This example is about 2 pages long and it's a brilliant example of how to use the modules, how to make an asynchronous API feel natural, and what the tradeoffs of asynchronous versus concurrency are. In addition, in the wake of the "* in Unix" posts from a while ago I found the section on the socket module interesting as it's something I've never actually worked directly with.
The rest of the book is a handy reference, but for me these two chapters are the types of things that earns this a place on my bookshelf. The way Python Essential Reference balances depth with conciseness is excellent, it shows you the big picture for everything and gives you super details on the things that are really important. I just got my review copy of Dive into Python 3 today, so I look forward to giving a review of it in the coming days.
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Disclosure: I received a free review copy of Python Essential Reference, Fourth Edition.
I've never really used reference material, I've always loved tutorials, howtos, and guides for learning things, but I've usually shunned reference material in favor of reading the source. Therefore, I didn't think I'd have a huge use for this book. However, so far (I've read about half the book so far) I've found it to be an exceptional resource, and I definitely plan on keeping it on my bookshelf.
The first third or so of the book is a reference on the syntax and other basic constructs of Python, it's probably not the part of the book you'll be consulting very frequently if you're an experienced Python programmer, however the end of this section is a bit of "Testing, Debugging, Profiling, and Tuning", this I can see myself flipping back to, as it extensively documents the doctests, unittests, pdb, cProfile, and dis modules.
The next third of the book is all about the Python library, including both the builtins and the standard library. This section is organized by functionality and I can definitely see myself using it. For example it has sections on "Python Runtime Services" (like atexit, gc, marshal, and weakref), "Data Structures, Algorithms, and Code Simplification" (bisect, collections, heapq for example), "String and Text Handling" (codecs, re, struct), and "Python Database Access" (PEP249, sqlite, and dbm). There's more, but this is as far as I've read. Reading through like a novel each of these sections has exposed me to things I wasn't aware of or don't use as frequently as I should, and I plan on using this book as a resource for exploring them. David Beazley has painstakingly documented the details of these modules, paying particular attention to the functions and classes you are likely to need most.
All in all I've found the Python Essential Reference to be a good book, especially for people who like reference documentation. Depending on how you use Python this book can serve as an excellent eye opener into other parts of the language and standard library, and for me I think that's where a ton of value will come from, as a day to day Python user I don't need a reference for most of the language, but for the bits it's introducing me to, having it handy will be a leg up.
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