By Alex Martelli
First Edition
March 2003
Pages: 654
Series: In a Nutshell
ISBN 10: 0-596-00188-6 |
ISBN 13: 9780596001889
(Average of 6 Customer Reviews)
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In the tradition of O'Reilly's "In a Nutshell" series, Python in a Nutshell offers Python programmers one place to look when they need help remembering or deciphering the syntax of this open source language and its many modules. This comprehensive reference guide makes it easy to look up all the most frequently needed information--not just about the Python language itself, but also the most frequently used parts of the standard library and the most important third-party extensions.
Full Description
Ask any Python aficionado and you'll hear that Python programmers have it all: an elegant language that offers object-oriented programming support, a readable, maintainable syntax, integration with C components, and an enormous collection of precoded standard library and extension modules. Moreover, Python is easy to learn but powerful enough to take on the most ambitious programming challenges. But what Python programmers have lacked is one concise and clear reference resource, with the appropriate measure of guidance in how best to use Python's great power. Now Python in a Nutshell fills this need.
In the tradition of O'Reilly's "In a Nutshell" series, this book offers Python programmers one place to look when they need help remembering or deciphering the syntax of this open source language and its many modules. This comprehensive reference guide makes it easy to look up all the most frequently needed information--not just about the Python language itself, but also the most frequently used parts of the standard library and the most important third-party extensions.
Python in a Nutshell focuses on Python 2.2 (and all its point releases), currently the most stable and widespread Python release. This book includes:
Browse within this book
- A fast-paced tutorial on the syntax of the Python language itself
- An explanation of object-oriented programming in Python, covering both the classic and new-style object models
- Coverage of other core topics, including exceptions, modules, strings, and regular expressions
- A quick reference for Python's built-in types and functions, as well as the key modules in the Python standard library, including sys, os, time, thread, math, and socket, among many others
- Reference material on important third-party extensions, such as Numeric and Tkinter
- Information about extending Python and embedding it into other applications
Cover | Table of Contents | Colophon
Featured customer reviews
The best book for, September 15 2005
Rating:
Submitted by
Humle
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I've read around 15 books on Python by now, and this is definitely the best for understanding how to make good use of Python. Alex Martelli is profoundly knowledgable about Python, which is also evident from the Python Cookbook.
It's an excellent reference, it covers more areas than the other books I've read and in the Network and Web Programming part it compares different frameworks for writing Internet applications. It was from this parts recommendation that I started to use twisted that has turned out to be really great for making advanced server and client applications.
Beginners should not start with this book, but rather Learning Python 1st edition (the 2nd ed. is a bit longish and explains too much for beginners) or even better: Quick Python. However, both of these are a bit out of date.
Python in a Nutshell Review, December 23 2003
Rating:
Submitted by Danny Yee
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A great book! I've written a full review.
Python in a Nutshell Review, August 05 2003
Rating:
Submitted by Mike
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Worst Python book by ORA since Learning Python. Why can't some publisher find a good writer that knows Python. Obviously, ORA can't. I was really looking forward to the release of this book and have been very disappointed. I'm only on Chapter 5, but am dusting off my Python 2.1 Bible and giving it another chance. The quality of books from ORA seem to be declining rapidly. Hopefully, this will be changed.
Python in a Nutshell Review, May 26 2003
Rating:
Submitted by kc
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This is a great book, or will be in the corrected printing. The errata page shows that there is on average one error per twenty-five pages. And I'm generously counting the index in the page count. This is far too many errors for such an important volume. ORA should have invested the resources and time to do better. This community will wait for -- and reward -- quality.
Python in a Nutshell Review, May 03 2003
Rating:
Submitted by Istvan
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My search for the ultimate Python bookis over.
Having a good programming background I needed a comprehensive but short book that talks about everyting I need and nothing I don't. Python in Nutshell was the real deal.
Python in a Nutshell Review, April 01 2003
Rating:
Submitted by Bernhard Straub
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Being a ObjectiveC developer of yore, I had changed sides a long time ago to become a pure user and earn a living as a banker. After nearly ten years of abstinence I was recently introduced to Python by a student working at our office. Happy to recognize many of the concepts of ObjectiveC I decided to learn Python for pure fun. I found the online documentation not as helpful as proclaimed on python.org, but I got into Python with the help of 'Learning Python' by Mark Lutz and then got on with 'Programming Python' by Mark Lutz.
What I was missing dearly, however, was a concise but comprehensive reference book. In 'Python in a Nutshell' I have found what I had been looking for and more. Aimed at Python programmers with some prior knowledge of Python, it is not exactly a starting point for beginners, but it is a truly excellent guide to programmers conversant with other programming languages. The book is well organized and clearly arranged with a good index. It offers all the syntactic and morphologic specifications required for application development, accompanied by well written code samples. The coverage of Tkinter is brief (I am still looking for a thorough coverage of that topic), but sufficient for a reference book. In short, I am happy with Alex Martelli's work - it is sitting next to my keyboard all the time !
Media reviews "'Python in a Nutshell' is now the one Python book that never strays far from my desk...Covering the core language, the standard libraries, and networking and C/Java extensions, it is pretty comprehensive -- with redundancy avoided and information compactly presented, it packs a lot in. In the best O'Reilly tradition, it is also reliable and easy to use, with good explanations, a clear layout, and an extensive index.
Though invaluable as a reference, however, 'Python in a Nutshell' is discursive enough that chapters can be read comfortably, making it a great tool for learning new material."
--Danny Yee, dannyreviews.com, December 2003
http://dannyreviews.com/h/Python_Nutshell.html
"In a nutshell, 'Python in a Nutshell' serves one primary goal: to act as an immediately accessible goal for the Python language. True, you can get most of the same core information that is presented within the covers of this volume online, but this will invariably be broken into multiple files, and in all likelihood lacking the examples or the exact syntax description necessary to truly understand a command."
--Richard Cobbett, "Linux Format," September 2003
"O'Reilly has several good books, of which 'Python in a Nutshell' by Alex Martelli (O'Reilly & Associates, 2003, 0-596-00188-6) is probably the best for giving you some idea of what Python is about and how to do useful things with it."
--Jerry Pournelle, "Byte Magazine," May 2003
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