Rating: 
Summary: Nice!
Review: If you are a beginner, this book will get you going. If you program in 10 different languages, this book is a quick reference for Python basics. The author is clear and has selected examples that can be understood quickly. Python is a great programming language.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Incredibly well written and insightful. This book was *exactly* what I needed to learn python quickly. Instead of filling the book with useless examples that no one would ever use in 'real' life, Mr. Fehily has refreshingly provided just the right amount of code and commentary that got me up to speed with the language so that I could focus on using python in my own development.Mr. Fehily has found just the right balance between a tutorial style teaching book and a well-organized reference book. Not only was it great while I was learning the language, but now it's the first place that I look when I run into trouble. While not for first time programmers, this is definitely the book to buy if you need (or want) to learn python.
Rating:
Summary: I am ready for my first lesson, Dr. Chandra
Review: Previous reviewers have noted that this book is lucid and well organized. True, but what really sets it apart are the numerous and clever examples (along with resulting output) that accompany each topic. The examples progress from simple to challenging and I found myself covering the answers and mentally figuring each result as I worked my way down each page. I found this "piecemeal" approach a much more effective (and entertaining) way of learning the mechanics of a programming language than traditional (and often impractical) line-by-line expositions of page-long programs.
Rating:
Summary: Good reference for Python's syntax and core APIs.
Review: Summary Python 2.1 is used in this book. A "cookbook" style reference of Python's core syntax and core APIs. Beginner and intermediate Python programmers will find this book a great reference to get up to speed with the Python language. This book does not teach general programming skills or how to use Python to solve common programming problems. It just provides the core Python framework for a programmer to build on. Details This book covers all the basics that a programmer needs to learn about any new language, such as I/O, file handling, functions, strings and flow control statements. It also covers features that Python handles uniquely, such as lists and tuples, dictionaries, modules and classes. These topics are presented in a "cookbook how-to" fashion. It's a fantastic way to quickly find out how to do some common programming techniques or the syntax of a Python statement. Screen dumps provide visual feedback on how commands should work. Occasionally there are tips about special considerations for a particular command. I use this book as a handy hard copy reference or "dictionary" of Python's syntax and core APIs to help me transition over from other languages that I use to Python in a quick and easy manner.
Rating: 
Summary: You don't need this book
Review: This book is not bad. The problem is that everything that teach you, you can learn it for free on the internet. If is the first contact with the language maybe is useful, it wasn't, so I can't tell. That's why you don't need this book if you have access to internet and who haven't. If you know how to program try the tutorial included in the standard distribution and then Mark Lutz's books. If you don't know about programming try How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python. Is an online book and a good one.
Rating:
Summary: Justifies the title
Review: This book lives up to it's promise of being a visual quickstart guide. The concepts are explained clearly with tons of examples - in fact, there are very few pages that don't have examples. The 'Tips' sections are pretty useful. The book is also tastefully laid out and the publishers have stuffed the pages with just the right amount of information. If you are a programmer trying to come up to speed on Python over a weekend, then this is the book for you. Folks who send lot of time in airports or trains might also want to consider this book. Diligently reading this book and trying the examples, should give the reader a solid foundation in Python basics. The author has done an amazing job.
Rating:
Summary: Alternative to O'Reilly
Review: When we start a new project at work, my manager usually just buys a bunch of the relevant O'Reilly books and hands them out to the team. For a recent web project (with Zope), he bought this book instead because O'Reilly's _Learning Python_ is so outdated. I was surprised to like it because Peachpit mostly publishes books for learning Excel or Photoshop or HTML and isn't known for programming books. The author must have put one over on Peachpit because this book has a lot of advanced stuff (and clearly written). For example, to be a Python expert you need to know namespaces backwards and forwards -- they're as important in Python as pointers are in C. The explanation of namespaces in the Python documentation is pretty obscure and scattered throughout a few manuals, but in this book all you need to read are three consecutive sections (Understanding Namespaces, Understanding Scoping Rules, and Nesting Functions) to understand the concept well enough to start coding. There are lots of clever code snippets too. I definitely recommend buying this book!
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