17 Feb, 2010, Grumny wrote in the 1st comment:
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Recently I have had the desire to get back into learning a little programming. I will never be much more than a minor hobbyist programmer so I think that something like Python might be good for me to try.

The problem is that I am living in Japan so I can't just run down to the book store and browse around for a book. I can browse the web for tutorials and will start doing that this weekend. For now though, I would like to ask if anyone here has any suggestions for books on learning Python.

I would like something that has some excercises. I have Learning Python by O'Reilly. It's ok for a sky high overview of the language, but I need something a little meatier. Also, suggestions on something about Object Oriented Programming as well would be really nice. Since Python is OOP I should really get a grasp of those concepts as well.

Any help would be most appreciated.
17 Feb, 2010, Barm wrote in the 2nd comment:
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Free Stuff

Steven Lott has a couple of free books that look pretty good including Building Skills in Python and Object-Oriented Design and Programming.

Then there's Mark Pilgrim's Dive into Python and Dive into Python 3.

Lastly, I never seem them mentioned but Python.org has a massive document set at http://docs.python.org/download.html


Bought Stuff

I highly recommend David Beazley's Python Essential Reference 4th Ed and Alex Martelli's Python in a Nutshell(but the last one really needs an update)..

Of all of those, I like Beazley's book the best.

–Edit–

I re-downloaded Lott's books and damn he did a nice job on them – the formatting is gorgeous and, while I haven't read them yet, skimming through them they look very promising. His Python book is 568 pages.
17 Feb, 2010, Idealiad wrote in the 3rd comment:
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How to Think Like a Computer Scientist is a good beginner book too.

I looked through the Lott OO book, and the thing I don't like about it is it's basically a Java OO book in Python. Don't I use Python so I don't have to use Java? ;)
17 Feb, 2010, JohnnyStarr wrote in the 4th comment:
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Japan?
Ruby! *cough, RUBY!
17 Feb, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 5th comment:
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FWIW having worked in both Python and Ruby (admittedly more extensively in the former) I prefer Python quite a bit, but that's just preference I suppose.

Having learned Python quite a while after learning other languages, esp. OOP languages, I can't really be much help in this thread though. For me Python was just another syntax for expressing rather familiar concepts. I found the manual & other materials online to be useful (Barm referred to these already).
17 Feb, 2010, Famine wrote in the 6th comment:
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Python is handy in the gaming industry as well. Many studios have use for it with their projects.
18 Feb, 2010, Runter wrote in the 7th comment:
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Quote
I will never be much more than a minor hobbyist programmer so I think that something like Python might be good for me to try.


Yes, something like Python would be a good choice.

David Haley said:
FWIW having worked in both Python and Ruby (admittedly more extensively in the former) I prefer Python quite a bit, but that's just preference I suppose.


Since we're sharing, having worked in both Python and Ruby (admittedly more extensively in the latter) I prefer Ruby quite a bit.
18 Feb, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 8th comment:
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Oh Runter. You could at least pretend. :tongue:
18 Feb, 2010, Idealiad wrote in the 9th comment:
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I'm just curious, Runter – after all those years, why did they rename Perl, 'Ruby'?
18 Feb, 2010, Runter wrote in the 10th comment:
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Idealiad said:
I'm just curious, Runter – after all those years, why did they rename Perl, 'Ruby'?


Lawl is all I can say to that. Doesn't really merit anything else.
18 Feb, 2010, Grumny wrote in the 11th comment:
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Thanks to everyone who has replied already. MB is great for quick responses to this kind of thing. My wife will be especially happy with all the PDF type books that don't cost money. :tongue:

But first I need to upgrade my fedora. I'm still using 10.

If I don't get too busy in the next couple of weeks, I hope to come back and ask lots of questions.
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