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Amazon.co.uk Review
Completely revised and improved, the second edition of Programming Python is an excellent compendium of material geared toward the more knowledgeable Python developer, including dozens of reusable scripts for common scripting tasks. It is one of the best available sources of information for this popular object-oriented scripting language.

In over 1,200 pages of material, this book offers an extremely comprehensive guide to Python development. Though densely packed with information, Lutz is a lively and witty writer whose focus is on getting things done using the natural strengths of the Python language. To that end, after an introduction and history of the language, the book describes how to use Python for performing automated tasks with files and directories (for example, for doing backups, both locally and on Web servers). Not only will this book teach you more about Python, it will also give you a library of code that you can use as is, or adapt for your own projects.

The text covers every conceivable facet of Python and its support for networking, files and directories, task management and even persistence (through its support for shelves). Complete Python programs show how to create e-mail clients, do reporting, and create Web applications (for an online errata database). Chapters on doing graphics programming in Python, as well as coverage of both built-in and custom data structures, are especially good. Because Python is often used for automating installations (in some Linux distributions, for instance), readers will appreciate the sample code and tips for using Python to create bulletproof installs.

Later sections show how get Python to work with C, Java (through JPython) and other languages. The book concludes with useful reference sections summarising key aspects of Python, such as its revision history, relationship to C++ and other material. There aren't many titles on Python, and fans of this up-and-coming language are lucky to have such a solid tutorial and guide available in Programming Python. Perfect for those with just a little previous exposure to the language, it's all you need to master Python in depth and tap its considerable power for virtually any software project. --Richard Dragan

Gregory Wilson, Dr Dobbs Jornal, March 2002
If you want to build a full-scale application in Python, and don't want to reinvent any wheels...

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Learning Python (Learning) by Mark Lutz  (9)  £16.24

Python Cookbook by Alex Martelli  (5)  £22.99

Core PYTHON Programming by Wesley J. Chun  (6)  £17.39

Python Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) by Mark Lutz  (6)  £3.99

Dive Into Python by Mark Pilgrim  (2)  £24.99

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6 Reviews 5 star:  (1) 4 star:  (2) 3 star:  (1) 2 star:  (1) 1 star:  (1)           Average Customer Review (6 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   12 of 12 people found the following review helpful: A good resource of limited usefullness to the python experienced., 2 May 2006 By  Robert M. Durnin - See all my reviews    The first disappointment of this book is its win32 approach. It focuses all the examples on execing within a stiff windows environment and does little to orient the scripts to a linux shell. This would be acceptable, were the book providing insight into python programming not freely available on the internet. The modules being discussed are, for the most part, the well documented std libs which come with python version 2.2. Most of the high-level features of the language are ignored: Packaging modules, Class inheritance models, and general process control (including exceptions). In my experince, this book should include a disclaimer stating that it teaches basic programming tricks in a python context, and doesnt offer advanced python techniques. If you are an intermediate to beginner script writer and would like to advance your python skills, this is a good book for you. If you are an advanced programmer looking to streamline python code or transition to python this book should be overlooked. For those of us able to wade through a long library reference it would be preferable to visit the online docs of your python version; it will be much more intuitive and up to date regarding the exotic usage or advanced manipulations the language offers.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)   21 of 24 people found the following review helpful: NOT Python's answer to Programming Perl, 29 Jun 2002 By  "mintyboy" - See all my reviews I bought this book by its title, expecting it to be the Python equivalent of Programming Perl (the best programming book I've ever read), I was suprised to find it was so different. The book is basically a run through of a vast array of example programs (all provided on the CD-ROM bundled with the book) which Lutz has written for various tasks (CGI, TKinter GUI building, sysadmin). He spends 1200 pages running through the main Python library modules and how he has applied them to these tasks. Some of the programs are quite impressive (an e-mail client for example), and Lutz is clearly making good use of the language. This is not a reference book _at all_, you'll need the online docs or another book for that, but surely such a huge book could have made room for _some_ reference material. I was also very shocked when I opened up the book to find Lutz was using Windows to demonstrate program output (I always thought O'Reilly were on _our_ side). In the end I did enjoy reading the book, but I think that is probably because Python is such a good language to learn and use.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you?