Programming in Python 3: A Complete Introduction to the Python Language

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Editorial Reviews

A Fully Revised Edition Featuring New Material on Coroutines, Debugging, Testing, Parsing, String Formatting, and More

 

Python 3 is the best version of the language yet: It is more powerful, convenient, consistent, and expressive than ever before. Now, leading Python programmer Mark Summerfield demonstrates how to write code that takes full advantage of Python 3’s features and idioms. Programming in Python 3, Second Edition, brings together all the knowledge you need to write any program, use any standard or third-party Python 3 library, and create new library modules of your own.

 

Summerfield draws on his many years of Python experience to share deep insights into Python 3 development you won’t find anywhere else. He begins by illuminating Python’s “beautiful heart”: the eight key elements of Python you need to write robust, high-performance programs. Building on these core elements, he introduces new topics designed to strengthen your practical expertise—one concept and hands-on example at a time. Coverage includes

  • Developing in Python using procedural, objectoriented, and functional programming paradigms
  • Creating custom packages and modules
  • Writing and reading binary, text, and XML files, including optional compression, random access, and text and XML parsing
  • Leveraging advanced data types, collections, control structures, and functions
  • Spreading program workloads across multiple processes and threads
  • Programming SQL databases and key—value DBM files
  • Debugging techniques–and using Test Driven Development to avoid bugs in the first place
  • Utilizing Python’s regular expression mini-language and module
  • Parsing techniques, including how to use the third-party PyParsing and PLY modules
  • Building usable, efficient, GUI-based applications
  • Advanced programming techniques, including generators, function and class decorators, context managers, descriptors, abstract base classes, metaclasses, coroutines, and more

Programming in Python 3, Second Edition, serves as both tutorial and language reference. It assumes some prior programming experience, and it is accompanied by extensive downloadable example code–all of it tested with Python 3 on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.



Related Reviews

Put Your Seatbelt On

B. Blazer @ 2010-09-05

This is a great book that covers Python 3 in a very orderly and concise manner. Readers are quickly introduced to the power of the language in the first 2 chapters, then each of the topics are covered in a more in depth way later in the book. This, however, is why I gave it only 4 stars. These beginning chapters may feel intimidating to some as the may feel as though they have been dropped in the deep end of the pool. More complex concepts like short-circuit logic are given but a few lines of explanation where a more detailed analysis may be warranted. All that said, it is the book I chose as the text for the python course I teach at the college level. I have limited time to get the students up and running, and this book surely does that. It also is a good stand alone reference that many of my students have chosen to keep on their bookshelves rather than return to the bookstore at the end of the semester. In short, it is concise, fast-paced, and in depth - covering enough of the language that the reader can come out the end feeling like they have a fairly good grasp of the language, concepts, and "pythonic thinking."

A Thorough Introduction to Python

Swiftboat @ 2010-08-29

Mark Summerfield's text: "Programming in Python 3" is a very good introduction to the Python programming language for people with prior programming experiance in another language. I came to Python from MatLab and prior to that, C and Fortan. So I'm pleased with the book and find myself refering back to it quite often. Having said that, this is not a "For Dummies" type book. Familiarity with with directory structure, file handling, and command prompt (console) operation is assumed.

The book covers all of the built in types and programming constructs of the Python language. It also introduces some of the useful (batteries included) standard library functinality along with details for working with modules and packages.

Finally, as I'm working my way into the middle of the book, I'm finding that it's a good introduction to object-oriented (OO) programming concepts and techniques in the clean syntax of the Python language. The OO concepts are not obfuscated by a language that is too criptic or too messy. Since this is about where I'm at on my own learning curve, the book is proving quite useful.

Good book, weak exercises

David K. Wittenberg @ 2010-12-24

As others have noted, this is a fast paced book which covers Python 3 very well. The only reason I give it 4 stars instead of 5 is that the exercises are not very useful. They almost all consist of minor modifications to a program which has been discussed in the text. This is not enough to learn the language. One must also write programs from scratch, or at least make major changes to existing programs.

good book, Kindle version not formatted properly

Mikel Ward @ 2011-03-22

The Kindle version has major issues with code samples. The font size varies from far too small (hard to read) to far too large (taking up a large part of the screen) on a regular Kindle.

Wait until the formatting is fixed before buying.

Fully revised to include new material on debugging, testing, string formatting and more

Midwest Book Review @ 2010-03-15

The second edition of Mark Summerfield's PROGRAMMING IN PYTHON 3 has been fully revised to include new material on debugging, testing, string formatting and more, and is a 'must' for any programmer's library strong in Python programming. From creating custom packages to writing and reading binary, text and XML files, this comes packed with keys to successful Python programming.

I feel cheated...

JASA "JASA" @ 2010-07-01

I bought the 1st edition of this book about one year ago, and would give it 3 to 4 stars (it is too verbose for my taste). According to the review, this 2nd edition, which became available as soon as 1 year after the first one (and Python 3 specs haven't change in this period of time) is "A Fully Revised Edition Featuring New Material on Coroutines, Debugging, Testing, Parsing, String Formatting, and More". So, certainly the 1st edition I bought was the "draft" of the book which was probably thrown out to the shops due to marketing pressure. I feel cheated.

I'm NOT buying this 2nd edition (certainly the 3rd will arrive in a few months...). Instead I'll buy David Beazley's Python Essential Reference (4th Edition), whose 1st and 2nd editions I own have served me very well, and each edition lasts for 3 or 4 years.
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