Average Customer Review: 
Without a doubt the best and most helpful python book that I've read to date.
| Good Tutorial and Reference Book | |
Filled with clear, detailed explanations of it's many functions and modules, and organized into distinct topics by chapter, the Python 2.1 Bible is one of the better books about Python programming.The first 12 chapters cover all the basics from expressions and strings to working with files, directories, and data storage. The remaining pages discuss some of the most common applications of the language from networking to user interfaces as well as some topics that aren't really covered in other books like image and sound processing. Despite it's detail, the Python 2.1 Bible does gloss over Object Oriented Programming a bit, preferring to describe the syntax and Python-centric operations rather than explain the hows and whys of OOP in and of itself. Suffice to say that if you have many questions about OOP in general, you will need to consult a different book. Also, there are some typos and other errors which may cause newbies a bit of frustration. For example, a sample program for a simple curses (text-based GUI) menu declared a variable with the incorrect name. This kind of editorial SNAFU is rather annoying, especially for a book geared for beginning to intermediate users, but unfortunately prevalent in many technical books on the market as well. However despite these quibbles, the Bible does provide an excellent starting point for newbies and may even shed some light for advanced users. Overall, this is a well-written book about the Python language that will appeal to novice and intermediate programmers.
This is an excellent tutorial, all included topics are carefully explained. New features of 1.5 and 2.0 are clearly listed, also. Sometimes repetitious, as when says over and over in OOP chapter "can't access unbound class methods without having declared an instance" (&you get to see the associated TypeError over and over). But for the most part, the book is clear and the right size (i.e. doesn't #include man pages or the stuff in Lundh and Beazley's books)2 caveats: In preface, Chun says "would like to have covered databases, XML, number crunching, graphics, ZOPE etc". Databases ,especially, is a decent sized omission, but he gives cites for further reading on all these topics in the Appendix. Also, there's no discussion of the programming environment: IDLE&ActiveState debuggers, emacs, vim, etc. (The Brueck/Tanner Python Bible covers all the topics in Chun's list of omissions, but that book skims topics like OOP). I'd recommend that anybody serious about python look at Chun's book (and the Brueck/Tanner Bible).
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