Learning Python   (book)

Learning Python

Python is "that language with the whitespace rules." In particular, what that means is that code blocks are defined by indentation. Which seems weird and annoying, until you try to read somebody else's program and the meaning just slides quite painlessly right on into your cerebral cortex, almost effortlessly. So yeah. And, to quote Bruce Eckel,

With Python, it has always felt like the designers were saying, "We're trying to make your life easier, and that's it. Making your life easier is the thing that we're not compromising on."

That's why I'm learning Python, because most of what I (and probably most programmers today) do is edit other people's code. I want that to be as easy as possible.

This book was a good intro to the language. I think actually programming in python is a better next step than purchasing Programming Python, though. I started reading that book and it felt really slow, and there was lots (lots) of repetition (repetition). Programming in python is relatively painless, even with only a cursory knowledge of the language, and it's fairly easy to refactor when you find out you're doing something in a stupid way. Pick a pet project, use the Twisted framework (client/server networking) if you can (I like it), and start hacking away!

Posted by yargevad at June 12, 2004 01:38 PM