Reviews for Python in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly))

1. One of the few Python books worthy of Python

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

   Python is a brilliantly conceived language, but I've been disappointed, on the whole, by books about it. Programmers seem to have so much fun using it that they can't be bothered to write about it properly.
   
   This book is an exception. It gives an excellent, clear overview of the language, and covers the APIs of all the standard libraries. It's detailed yet concise. It doesn't waffle; it concentrates entirely on tasks and doesn't get bogged down in conceptual airy-fairyness.
   
   I have one minor complaint: method argument data types are not always explicitly stated. Occasionally this necessitates a bit of extra reading or trial-and-error. I wouldn't knock a star of for it though.

2. Great python reference...

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, February 12th, 2007

   Python in a Nutshell is a excellent reference book, all python programmer must have one in the desk.
   The online documentation for the python language is good, but some times is difficult to search for a feature of the language, in this book is easy to find anything about python.
   This book complements perfectly the official library and language references, and covers almost everything you will ever need.
   
   I Learn python with this book, but i only recommend the book for people with knowledge of other programming language, if you are new in programming and wants to learn python this book is not good for you (try Learning python by David Ascher and Mark Lutz), if you already have programming skills this is the perfect book for learn python.
   
   The author explain the language in a very simple way with good examples, and don't wast time explaining the basics of programming, the book starts with a introduction to the python language, in chapter 2 the author explain the installation of various python interpreters, from chapter 4 to 9 the author explain the core of the python language, in the rest of the book the author cover the python library and extensions modules, network and web programming with python and in the last section the author talk about the various ways of embedding and extending the python language, in my opinion the book is well written and very easy to read.
   
   I highly recommend Python in a Nutshell, for all programmers who wants to start coding in python, and for all python programmers as a language reference.

3. Python Must Have

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, November 12th, 2003

   This is the book you need to have in your hand when coding Python. It was clearly written by somebody who has "done it", not just read the docs.

   Read This Fine Manual

4. An excellent overview and superb reference

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, August 12st, 2003

   I had been interested in learning python for some time and had tried to wade through the online documentation. Although this was good, it was not quite enough to get me up and running.. This book filled the gap. Although it goes quite quickly in terms of its coverage of different subjects, there is enough to start programming in Python in this book alone, and it has enough detail to stay useful up to the highest levels of expertise. Read in combination with the online python documentation, it is all you need to start programming in Python and to continue improving. Excellently written, concise and up to date. Recommended.

5. A masterpiece of style and economy

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, July 12nd, 2003

   This is an incredibly good book and covers an enormous amount of ground. You get a potted history of the Python language, a language overview, a guide to OOP and exception handling, modular programming, file manipulation, string manipulation, database programming, threading, GUI development, web development and much, much more. Suprisingly, you can pretty much learn the Python language from the coverage in this book (which is generally not the case for Nutshell books which are aimed by-and-large at the technically savvy). Credit also to the author for his exceptionally clear and concise writing style (which is even more impressive when you consider that Italian is his first language). This may be the only Python book you'll ever need. Certainly it should be the first that you buy.