Python Developer's Handbook

Rating:
Summary: A USEFUL PYTHON BOOK AND WHY
Review: A quick word about myself - a retired computer scientist, in the profession since 1956, also an engineer and theoretical physiciat. Bought the book along with several others when I needed suddenly to integrate several Microsoft/Intuit programs to work together without human intervention. Usually use LINUX not WINDOWS. This and "The Quick Python Book" have been very useful. The "Developer's Handbook" provides a roadmap to the libraries I need. It contains enough information about each library ( about 1/2 page more or less ) to tell me what the library does, without so much detail that I must "sift" to decide if I am likely to need the library in question, and without distracting from learning the language. I have found the two books I have mentioned here, an HTML browser to look up details in the official project documents, and a PYTHON interpreter on LINUX or WINDOWS, support rapid learning and my system planning far better than I have any right to expect.

Rating:
Summary: Time to move on
Review: I bought this at a Borders store after comparing all the Python books they had in stock (they had no O'Reilly book at the time). The basic language is pretty simple, so I was looking for something that had a lot of library chapters.

This fit the bill fairly well, but there are a number of frustrating things. The poor editing job to clean up the author's English is the biggest. The layout of paragragh name, content, examples is sometimes accidentally inconsistant, i.e. more poor editing.

While it covers a lot of library code in its 900+ pages, it leaves out some stuff I would use a lot. Perhaps the sections on interacting with Java and C should be in a separate book. Think of this book as something that touches on everything but needs to be augmented by more detailed books in areas of interest.

Finally, the Python 2.x information was added late in the process. That was not a big deal, as I had been writing to 1.5 specs.

All in all, the book was worthwhile and I expect to keep using it, but I'm about to buy "Web Programming In Python" sight unseen. It's time to move on.

Rating:
Summary: a good overview of pythons' capabilities
Review: I bought this book because it provided an overview of all the areas Python had been used in. My particular interest was how well Python integrated with Java and that is my only use for it. Python, however, must compete with other scripting languages, particularily Perl. Users of other scripting languages site the large libraries available for their language. This book did the best job of presenting the numerous areas that Python has been used in.

Rating:
Summary: Just like the LINUX JOURNAL said.
Review: I decided to buy this book just after reading the wonderful review posted on the february edition of the LINUX JOURNAL (page 180). The review was written by Phil Hughes (LJ's publisher), what in my oppinion, gives a lot of credibility to the review.

After reading things like: - "THIS IS ONE of those rare cases when the book title seems to match the book content"; - "Besides covering the language, this book fills in all the blanks"; - "All in all I found this to be an excellent and accurate book well worth the space it will take on a Python programmer's bookshelf."

...I decided to give it a try, and boy!!! the book really covers a lot of cool stuff.

I don't know why LJ doesn't mention that the book also covers Python 2.0. For my surprise, when I started reading it, I noticed that the book had more to offer than the review in the magazine has told me about.

In other words, I liked it a lot. I am still in the middle of chapter 5, but I've already come up with several useful Python routines.

Rating:
Summary: Still waiting for a good Python book...
Review: I have two complaints about this book:

* The publisher didn't bother to have a native speaker of English correct the author's quirky language. (On multiple occasions, for example, the author talks about "informing" an item into a list when he clearly means "inserting.") After awhile, this kind of thing begins to grate on the reader.

* Like all the other Python books on the market, this one is just another cut-and-paste job from the python.org website. I want something that tells me *more* than what's on the website. I want a book that clarifies and goes beyond the website. I want to find out about "gotchas", and workarounds, and things I wouldn't know just from reading the website. In that regard, this book really doesn't deliver. Too bad...

Rating:
Summary: Too many errors - not enough info for the number of pages
Review: I was looking forward to reading another python book, but there are too many errors in the Python Developer's Handbook, for it to be useful to its intended audience. I glanced through a few pages randomly, and saw many blatant mistakes that I am surprised the author didn't catch. Here are some examples of mistakes caught glancing just through the first 200 pages of the book:

major mistakes
p.105. The author gives an example of the copy module.

>>> import copy
>>> x = [1,2,3,[4,5,6]]

>>> y = copy.copy(x)

The author states here, "As you can see, this function provides the same result that y=x[:] does. It creates a new object that references the old one. If the original object is a mutable object and has its value changed, the new object will change too."

The author's statement is totally wrong, given the example he presents. In this case, y is a copy of x, and changing either one will not change the other, as the following shows:

>>> x=[1,2,3,[4,5,6]]
>>> x

[1, 2, 3, [4, 5, 6]]
>>> y = x[:]
>>> id(x) == id(y)
0
>>> x
[1, 2, 3, [4, 5, 6]]
>>> y
[1, 2, 3, [4, 5, 6]]
>>> x.append(7)
>>> x
[1, 2, 3, [4, 5, 6], 7]
>>> y
[1, 2, 3, [4, 5, 6]]
>>>

major mistake:
p.191. This example makes no sense at all, and surely, typing it in produces a traceback. Yet the author shows an answer he got as 2. Makes me really wonder, how many drinks did the author have while proofreading this book?

>>> def printGlobalcount():
print Globalcount.n

>>> class Counting:
n = 0
def __init__(self):
Globalcount.n = Globalcount.n + 1

>>> inc = Counting()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 1, in ?
inc = Counting()
File "", line 4, in __init__
Globalcount.n = Globalcount.n + 1
NameError: global name 'Globalcount' is not defined
>>>

more subtle mistakes:
stick with the same case, for example p.186:

The class names are first mentioned as Student and NewStudent, but in the next few pages they change case, and mysteriously become student, and newstudent.

>>> studentfile.newstudent.__name__
'newstudent'

Final Word:

Overall, I have serious reservations about recommending this book to anyone but a proofreader. I found way too many mistakes in the initial analysis of the book for it to be very useful to any serious python programmer.

Overall Rating:

I give this book 2 stars out of 5.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but ...
Review: I'm not quite as impressed with this book as the first reviewer. I've just begun it, but so far I notice:

* It's rather shallow and upbeat in its reviews of Grail (a Python web browser that seems not being actively developed, but which this book gives a nice one page listing of features for) and Zope (a web server, with a similar one page upbeat review here, which is a rather complex and intriguing beast, in my view).

* It's comparisons of Python with other languages is also shallow. For example, under the intriguing subhead of "Python Versus C/C++", it has about 15 lines total, which make the points that (1) Python arrays "don't have the same problems", (2) Python manages memory, for fewer errors, (3) Python checks array references, and (4) Python requires less code. Whoopee - I don't think much time or genius was spent on considering this ...

* It's a heavy book - in the recent tradition of selling books by weight. The density of considered information per page is modest, and the style of writing doesn't pack alot in per word.

* The style of writing is ever so slightly off - seems that the author likely has another language besides English that he speaks well (unlike myself - English only ;). Mind you the English is fine - just slightly strange phrasing at times.

* The production of the book seems fine.

* Alot of stuff is covered (the index alone is just short of 100 pages !), but what I've poked at so far seems a tad more superficial and pedestrian than I would like.

Seems that the book was pretty clearly written by constructing an outline that covered every topic, well organized, then some modest number of words were provided, per each topic, in a disciplined effort, with good editing. But the cheery lightness ultimately depresses me (perhaps I am just a darker soul ...).

I don't think this book will replace the awesome Essential Reference. I might even send this one back, which I don't do that often at Amazon -- more because I don't want to spend the 2 inches of shelf space on a book that lacks any special value for me, than because of the money.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but ...
Review: I'm not quite as impressed with this book as the first reviewer. I've just begun it, but so far I notice:

* It's rather shallow and upbeat in its reviews of Grail (a Python web browser that seems not being actively developed, but which this book gives a nice one page listing of features for) and Zope (a web server, with a similar one page upbeat review here, which is a rather complex and intriguing beast, in my view).

* It's comparisons of Python with other languages is also shallow. For example, under the intriguing subhead of "Python Versus C/C++", it has about 15 lines total, which make the points that (1) Python arrays "don't have the same problems", (2) Python manages memory, for fewer errors, (3) Python checks array references, and (4) Python requires less code. Whoopee - I don't think much time or genius was spent on considering this ...

* It's a heavy book - in the recent tradition of selling books by weight. The density of considered information per page is modest, and the style of writing doesn't pack alot in per word.

* The style of writing is ever so slightly off - seems that the author likely has another language besides English that he speaks well (unlike myself - English only ;). Mind you the English is fine - just slightly strange phrasing at times.

* The production of the book seems fine.

* Alot of stuff is covered (the index alone is just short of 100 pages !), but what I've poked at so far seems a tad more superficial and pedestrian than I would like.

Seems that the book was pretty clearly written by constructing an outline that covered every topic, well organized, then some modest number of words were provided, per each topic, in a disciplined effort, with good editing. But the cheery lightness ultimately depresses me (perhaps I am just a darker soul ...).

I don't think this book will replace the awesome Essential Reference. I might even send this one back, which I don't do that often at Amazon -- more because I don't want to spend the 2 inches of shelf space on a book that lacks any special value for me, than because of the money.

Rating:
Summary: A great Python book
Review: If you never had any experience with Python, this book is the place to start. Although it doesn't give many full programs for you to see, it does help you understand the way the language works. As I said, this is a great book to start learning Python. I've been using Python since 1997 and this book is on my shelf. Even those that already know Python (like me) will find this book useful because it covers all the topics that I need to perform my daily tasks.

Rating:
Summary: Poor handbook
Review: The book purports to "guide you step-by-step through the universe of Python," but falls on its face. I picked it up (after comparison with Core Python Programming) because it devotes a full section to network programming and a full chapter to web programming.

A handbook, to be useful, must provide three things: Clear, concise descriptions of the material; clear, focussed examples applying the material; and full (or, at least, adequate) documentation of the material. In this case, the examples are fair, the descriptions marginal (leaving aside issues of language usage), and the documentation completely missing. Case in point: the "documentation" for the rfc822 module consists of a 10-line code sample and a single-line statement that the example "demonstrates the use of the rfc822 module." This is typical of the level of documentation and tutorial material in this book.

In short, this book is a reasonably well-organized, thoroughly-indexed, but ultimately not very useful collection of summary information and minimal code samples. With some rewrite and thorough editing--and a companion reference!--it might become useful. But as it stands, the book does not provide sufficient information for the price.