Reviews for Core PYTHON Programming

1. Would benefit from proof-reading

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, September 12th, 2009

   When I bought this book, I noticed there were eight reviews on Amazon, all of them giving it five stars. I thought at the time this was too good to be true, and so it proved. The book is full of errors.
   
   Some of the errors are merely an irritating distraction. For instance, on pages 14 and 17, there are headings with three superfluous thorn characters, "þþþ". Some are simply baffling, like the distinction between the 2-parameter full syntax of the range() function on page 301 and the 2-parameter abbreviated syntax on page 302. Some are more serious. For example, page 81 has what purports to be a discussion of Example 3.1 on the facing page; unfortunately, much of the discussion concerns the use of the os.linesep attribute, which doesn't appear anywhere in the example.
   
   Those errors could be forgiven; others are unacceptable. As a newcomer to Python, I struggled with the eval() example on page 104. The preamble suggests that it is an example of the use of repr(), when it isn't - it uses backquotes. Granted, we've just been told the two are equivalent, but there's no need to complicate what should be a straightforward illustration. But that's not all; the point of the example is to show that some values passed to eval() will return an "invalid syntax" error. Unfortunately, the "invalid syntax" error demonstrated is not the one intended; it arises from an extra parenthesis in the code.
   
   The most glaring error is that many of the page numbers in the index are wrong. That renders the book almost completely useless as a reference.
   
   A little effort could make the third edition (if there is one) a useful text, but I would not recommend the second edition.

2. Great book

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, May 12th, 2009

   I bought this book while on holiday, i'm from a Perl / Java / *nix background and I found this book excellent. I'd recommed it to anyone looking to try Python out, and its been an invaluable reference ever since. I couldn't be parted from this great book! I was so impressed with Wesley Chun's writing style, i'm about to buy his (co-authored) Django book.

3. A curate's egg of a book

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2009

   I read the previous reviews in which statements like "It brings beginners from no previous programming skills up to being adept programmers" were used and thought this is the book for me. However within 30 pages this assumption was dispelled. No doubt Chun has written a very comprehensive tome on Python, but even he says that "This book is meant for you if you are a programmer completely new to Python..." not as some reviews stated above. Hence do not buy this book, if like me your last programming experience was on a BBC computer using BASIC over 15 years ago. Why a curate's egg? Because it does introduce the basics of Python, but then refers to user-level threading libraries or using examples in which jargon obscures the purpose of the example. I'll keep on with this and let you know how it goes.

4. A wealth of knowledge

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, October 12th, 2008

   core PYTHON programming SECOND EDITION is a well laid out respository of powerfull knowledge, all in one place. A brilliant aid to understanding Python programming at all skill levels. If like me you can't resist the urge to dig deeper and find out what makes things tick, then this is a resource second to none. A big thank you to WESLEY J CHUN and everyone who supported him in putting together this great piece of work. I will recommend this book everytime.

5. Very good Python primer for newcomers

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, July 12th, 2008

   I learned Python basics thanks to this book. It is divided in two parts. In the first one, all the foundations of the language are clearly explained, whereas in the second one more andvanced stuff and applications are presented. Thanks to the many small scripts and examples, which you can try out on the fly, you can master all the basic syntax very quickly. Highly recommended reading for newcomers, it makes you appreciate the beauty of programming in Python.