Disclaimer: This review is for the paper version only.
This is a review of The Quick Python Book second edition. by Vern Ceder at Manning Publications. The book is an introduction to Python with the focus on the core language features. There is what did I think of the book.
Short Answer:
The book does a great job overall to bring you up to speed on how to program in Python in a pythonic way.
Long Answer:
The author makes some assumptions about its audience. First, you must have grasped the concept of object oriented design and data structures. Because the book avoids the theoretical explanations and goes directly to the implementation.
When you first pick up the book, you will notice how thin it is compared to other introduction books. And that is because it is terse in presenting the content and examples. The focus is the core Python language and some commonly used libraries found in the standard library. The book also covers some rudimentary GUI programming using TKinker, just enough to create a simple form. The book follows the same rudimentary explanation with the database and networking chapter. The book's strong points are its thorough explanation of the core language and program structure. Which in turn, promotes a pythonic way of programming and engineering your code.
At the end of the book, the reader will have learned to implement a modular tested python application whether it be a desktop or a daemon, which can distribute and run anywhere.
The only problem I have with the book is it does not provide links to reference sites. You could argue that those links are supplemental, but for an introduction book, the links are essential to complete the chapters. Also, adding syntax highlighting to aide in reading the example code, would make following the code easier.
Conclusion
Overall, I'm happy with the book. If you are a programmer with some experience and interested in learning Python, I highly recommend this book.
Thanks for Manning Publication for providing us some free copies of the book. For more information, you should refer to the Manning Publication's website at http://www.manning.com/ceder/
