Python Programming (Third Edition)

This is an excellent book!I am a teacher with some programming experience and am in the process of setting up a new course, for my school, OCR GCSE Computing. I needed a computer language that was easy for teenagers to learn, cross-plaform (so it can run on Macs & Windows PCs), modern with the ability to introduce object orientated programming and to lead on to other languages such as Java. I have taught Java via the excellent BlueJ IDE and the wonderful book, "Objects First with Java: A Practical Introduction Using BlueJ", but this is a bit advanced for 14 / 15 year olds. I did consider using "Greenfoot" with another great book - "Introduction to Programming with Greenfoot: Object-Oriented Programming in Java with Games and Simulations (Alternative Etext Formats), but the OCR course needs more basic introduction to loops, if statements, and arrays and doesn't strictly need objects. As for Visual Basic - well too much fiddling with interface objects, not enough "pure" programming and besides not cross- platform. So I chose Python.Next step was to choose a tutorial style textbook, with lots of worked examples, exercises to test the students, a fun learning curve, basics and fundamental concepts explained, practically based and with lots of code to play with. I chose "Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner." I chose well, very well!This book does everything I wanted it to do. Chapters 1 to 7 cover all the programming requirements of the course. The teaching method of building up programming via coding simple games is great. The end of chapter challenges are just about right and some are quite challenging! Any bright and motivated students can easily move on to the rest of the book which introduces Object Orientated Programming. With this book under their belt they will be very good programmers. If they need or want to switch to Java, no problem - The concepts are very similar.I did have trouble, initially, trying to download the code examples from the publisher, but went straight to author's site - [...] - and no problem.So if you want to learn Python yourself, as an absolute beginner, and / or teach Python to absolute beginners this is the book for you and your students. Do not hesitate - buy it. (Oh do get the most recent edition - mine is the 3rd edition - as it is written for Python 3 which is the most up to date version of Python.)

I've had a great deal of programming experience - I started with punch cards and Fortran!! I've also programmed in a plethora of other languages (BASIC, Pascal, various flavours of C and a few languages I can't even remember). My last serious language was Borland Delphi (Object Pascal), which I loved. My licence was for Delphi 7 - a little out of date for my hardware.I needed to update to a language that offered similar possibilities to Delphi - OOP, database applications, web applications, GUIs, simulations. and just general programs that would let me calculate difficult stuff like 2+2. I didn't want to pay a giant licence fee so I looked around to see what was available and Python seemed to be what I wanted.Since I had some programming experience, I actually started with Mark Lutz's book "Programming Python". One of the reviewers of that book had a similar background to me in terms of programming experience. He stated that he had hacked his way through Mark's book (my summary of his words), so I decided to try that. Result...I could have done it, but I too felt that I was having to hack my way through a bit of jungle. So, I decided to take a step back and try a different approach.Don't get me wrong...I strongly suspect Mark's book is a perfect SECOND Python book and I look forward to giving it a great review when I've worked my way through it (notice I didn't say "hacked my way through it").So, I bought Michael's book. And I'm delighted with it. It introduces subjects in a simple manner e.g. constructors and private methods in a program that contains just a few lines of code!!??!! OOP programming is difficult for some people to get their head around (I wonder if it's easier for people with no non-OOP background as opposed to us old hacks who didn't even know what an OOP was until we publicly embarrassed ourselves). But it also gets you into the basement of programming - loops, lists, reading and writing files etc etc. Brill!The writing style is terrific. It's light, humourous (in my part of the world, "humour" comes with a "u" ... or is that AN "u"?) and sometimes a little self-depracating. But it's fun to read...chapters are bite size...the examples are excellent.And Python is a truly great language in which to program (or "to program in" if you're not a grammar Nazi. Its developer has been classified "Benevolent Dictator for Life". What more can you ask?One minor criticism...it would be nice to have an exercise project/thread which started early in the book and developed throughout the book. By that I mean a thread which stands alone from the text. The exercises at the end of each chapter modify the author's code or present fairly simple new projects. It would be nice if readers could develop a program which is not related to the text/exercises but builds succesively chapter by chapter. Of course, programmers with experience can do this for themselves, but it might be handy for newbies.In summary, if you are interested in programming in Python, buy this book. It's a great book.

The book is a good deep dive for beginners, goes a bit further than the surface but keeps it simple enough for someone who has never written a line of code in their lives.It's a pity that they could not keep the companion website that the book references live, it does not make the book worthless but it does reduce the value

This is actually among the best teach yourself programming books I've read for any programming language, not just Python.I've done a fair bit of programming before, in various versions of BASIC, PHP, JavaScript etc., so I was able to skim-read most of the first half of the book, the 'absolute beginner bit' which begins with the first principles of programming such as variables, loops, and functions, just to work out what Python's unique quirks are (above all, it's the first language I've come across where indentation is vitally important rather than just tidy). The section on dictionaries and tuples I had to read carefully, as I found Python's approach to arrays a bit fiddly compared to other languages I've used, but most of it was straightforward.If you've really never programmed a computer before, I think it would be a fairly steep learning curve- this'll be a good book to choose, but you should take things very slowly, absorb each page carefully, and reinforce what you've learnt by trying the extra programming challenges at the end of each chapter. If you don't do this and just plough through from one chapter to the next, then before long it may start going over your head if you're not careful.The second half of the book is generally excellent too, and worth reading if you're new to Python, even if you're not a new programmer. Object Orientated Programming is explained and adhered to nicely, and by using some of Python's pre-prepared libraries, you can jump from simple text manipulation to complex-looking Windows-style applications and games without much trouble.Michael Dawson has a very understandable writing style. Occasional flashes of humour (not too flippant) and some well-chosen example programs that are actually engaging and useful make you want to carry on reading. It's very well ordered and thought-out, and the progression from one challenge to the next, although quite steep in parts, is sensible and just feels right.I'd recommend this highly both to people new to programming, and programmers new to Python.

As an absolute beginner I was excited to take my first step into the world of Python. This is a good book, but I started to struggle a bit once I hit chapter 3, mainly the challenges at the end of this chapter. Personally, I think this would be a good intermediate book because some of the terminology is complex (for me anyway). I am still working my way through the book, it could be that I may find things easier as I go...

A great book for python begginers. This book can be used as a standalone reference for the learner who want's to get involved with python programming in a fun manner. The examples and programs of the book utilize a game creation approach. Although the way to learn is not at all a game and actually is very effective. I have participated in MOOCs about python language and also have used the python.org site to get help on commands and examples. Although you can find too much info about python online, this book is a great way to have all the basic info included in one single document. The book covers python basics like mathematical operations if/elif/while/for loops, lists, tuples, dictionaries etc, but also the gui tk interface for windows applications. All the programs can be found in a dedicated website for copy/paste and this can be halpful if you just want to test things quickly. This is not a book for an advanced programmer who want's to find wireless solutions, or even interaction with other devices such as microcontrollers or pcbs. This is a course series that guide you step by step to the more complicated commands and usage of python in a way that is intuitive and fun.

I'm currently doing a computer science degree and found it a real struggle to get the hang of python but this book was such a help. Even though I had already done some of the basics this book still gave me a few extra hints that has helped enormously. This works is on the v3 of python which is what I needed and I worked my way through every single page which gave me practice on what I already knew and help on the places I struggled. You can view the code online too which was quite helpful especially as some of the programs have a long 'picture' where you have to use the keyboard to manipulate a picture but I could just c/p as I found this too time consuming. The challenges at the end of each chapter are good way to test out what you have learned and some of the programs along the way are fun to do.Would recommend highly for anyone who has no previous programming experience as each step is explained in detail and you can see quite easily where your mistakes are (such as loops not ending!)There is one piece of advice I would give to someone and that is make sure you get the right book for the version that you want to use as some code works in v3 but not in v2 and vv.

I worked threw this book quite fast and it kept my interest mostly which is unique as I normally lose interest, FAST!. It starts out with all the basics on how to setup all the programs needed step by step and then goes into the basics of Python scripting.After it gets you familiar to the Python code it then teachs you how to apply that code and create a GUI using the "tkinter" package which is great and will boost your confidence and motivation with Python.Lastly it will introduce game programming threw a GUI using a modified pygame package, I would recommend skipping this and just learning Pygame, its alot more rewarding than using the modified package they teach and you will get alot more out of it as you will probably continue using Pygame far beyond this book.Note: When I talk about packages I am refering to code created by other people to make things easier for you by allowing you to use their code of 100 lines by typing just 5 lines, more or less.Thanks for reading. Enjoy.

I was a little hesitant to buy this book since some reviews pointed out that due to a publisher change the sample files were no longer available for download. I grabbed the Kindle sample anyway, though, and found that the author's website (the url of which is in the book) has the files. So while it may be slightly confusing to have the wrong url in the text of the book, the author's website (which is also printed right in the front of the book) does have the files you need. So this criticism of the book is not warranted.Anyway, as for the book itself, I'm about halfway through and have found it very useful. I was taking a beginner's class in Python before buying this book, but since the classes were only once per week I wanted to learn faster. As such, I'm able to compare how this book teaches the concepts of Python programming against how the teachers in my class present the same concepts. And while there's no substitute for personal, interactive instruction, I can say that I'm very impressed by the readability of this book and the way it teaches programming. The code samples are very useful for showing how Python works, and the writing style is very easy to follow. He uses good analogies to illustrate concepts, and in general I've made steady progress through the book and am retaining a lot of knowledge. The searchability of the Kindle version is especially helpful, since it's easy to skip back to previous concepts if you need a quick refresher.Anyway, I just wanted to share my thoughts on this book and let people know that the code samples are indeed available, though the url in the book is sadly incorrect. But again, just check the author's website and you can obtain them, which is highly recommended because they do make the learning much more interactive and hands-on.

I got this book, instead I could have bought the other one

This book explains things clearly and works slowly through concepts in progression. I have minimal programming experience from over 10 years ago and I've been slowly but steadily learning python in my spare time. As long as you have the aptitude for programming and the will to keep going, this is the guide you need. However, I've been using the second edition because python 3 is not yet used in my industry (film/VFX).It doesn't matter if you run windows, linux or a mac... once you get up and running the actual programming is the same.

Il libro è molto ben strutturato e molto chiaro. Mio figlio di 15 anni lo sta studiando con molto interesse. L'originale approccio, che usa la costruzione di giochi come mezzo per insegnare la programmazione in generale è davvero un'ottima idea, che l'autore ha realizzato in maniera davvero efficace ed esaustiva. Il testo è perfetto per far apprendere i fondamenti della programmazione ai ragazzi. La scelta di Python è ottima, perché Python dispone di un'interprete che consente un riscontro immediato anche a una singola istruzione e tuttavia consente di creare applicazioni che possono essere eseguite dal SO. Inoltre Python è, notoriamente, un linguaggio indipendente dal sistema operativo usato, anche se il libro fa riferimento soprattutto al suo uso in ambiente Windows.

Es ist ein klasse Buch, um Programmieren zu lernen, allerdings auch für Leute, die Spielen etwas abgewinnen können, denn die Beispiele und Challenges basieren darauf. Ich habe vor dem Buch in meinem Leben keine einzige Zeile Code geschrieben, nach dem Durchlesen konnte ich einige Game-Klassiker kopieren und mich in andere Richtungen weiterentwickeln.