Python for Beginners Paperback – October 31, 2013

I received this ebook free in exchange for my Amazon review. There are alternatives, some free online, to learn Python, but it never hurts to have more sources for review or to solidify your knowledge.This is the eBook version of a 10 times more expensive video course by the same author. It covers Python from the very basics, including installing Python 3 and a very useful and free IDE (Integrated Development Environment) called Eclipse. Helpful Quizzes end each chapter.This course is made for complete beginners to programming, but can still be useful for people that have programmed in other languages and are looking for a reference on the basics of Python. If you are looking for in-depth programming, you won't find it in this book, only the basics of how to program and in a specific language, Python.For only $10, it is a worthy competitor to other resources online.

The editing in the book is terrible. It is clear that it was never read carefully and the labs/examples were never tried by a "beginner" before publishing. I would say that 25% of the examples or code results have errors. For a "Beginner" programmer this would be extremely frustrating. I have enough programming experience (C, Fortran, Basic) that I was able to get past that and did learn about Python.I think the organization of the book was useful and as I said above, I did learn about the basics of Python.

I searched for a good beginner's book on Python 3 and settled on this title after reading the other glowing reviews. My wife indicated that she wished to learn the basics of Python and I was delighted as I've been dabbling in Python 2 for several years. I received this book last week and my wife immediately began reading. Here are her comments:***I'm a retired programmer with experience in Cobol, Clipper, VB.Net, C# and JavaScript. I thought it would be interesting to learn Python. I got into chapter 3 and decided to stop reading it because of the writing and the errors that kept distracting and annoying me. This is NOT a book for learning how to program (IMHO). I kept running into Python code snippets that the author did not explain. Because of my background I could mostly figure out how the snippets worked, but I found the lack of explanation clumsy. These are some of the issues I found:1. Page 25: The example snippet explaining variables includes a reference to the function type(), but the author does not explain what a function is or that "type()" happens to be a built-in Python function.2. Page 31: The author explains how to work with a Python "list." For his examples he starts out with lists containing only integers. That's fine, but then writes "We can use the same notation to extract a range of numbers within the list." For this example he then shows a list containing alphabetic characters! I believe this will be very confusing and frustrating to a nooby. He should have written "We can use the same notation to extract a range of elements within the list."3. Page 33: The first line of the example is "a, b = 0, 1" and the author explains that he is assigning the value of 0 to a and 1 to b. He neglects to clearly explain this syntax, which was foreign to me but is a common idiom in Python. Furthermore, this code snippet is intended to explain boolean logic and so using this unexplained syntax muddies the author's attempt to explain boolean. He should have made the snippet as clear as possible, e.g.,a = 0b = 14. Page 33: In the "Tip" about the = and == operators, the author adds "(Just be thankful Python doesn't have a === operator, like Javascript does!)" This is irrelevant and confusing for someone who is not familiar with Javascript, especially in a 228 page book for "beginners."5. Page 35: Arithmetic operators: The example "round (3/4)" is followed by this statement "The program first divides four by three." It does? Of course not -- it divides three by four.6. Page 35: In what is ostensibly a discussion of rounding the author throws in the "modulus" operator. This adds nothing substantive to the rounding discussion at all, at least, for a beginner. Modulus should probably be left out of a book like this, or, at most, be relegated to a table of operators.7. Page 40: The chapter 2 Lab Exercise tells the reader to calculate "a" in the formula, v = u + at. The "Hint" shows how to rearrange the formula as "a = (u - v)/t." Of course, it should read "a = (v - u)/t." This correct formula is then referenced later.8. Page 45: The author refers to Python's bitwise operators as "or" and "and." Actually, these are logical operators. The bitwise operators are &, |, ^, ~, <<, and >>, and are intended for manipulating the bits in a byte.9. Page 47: The "elif" statement example isa, b = 0, 1if a == b:print ("a is equal to b")elif a < b:print ("a is less than b")elif a > b:print ("a is less than b")else:print ("a is greaterthan b")Notice that lines 5 and 7 are identical. Any program using this snippet will contain a critical bug.These may seem like a list of petty issues but I felt like I was wasting my time on a book that apparently did not get edited properly. Somewhere in chapter 3 I put the book down because I was spending more time making corrections than absorbing information on Python. The book went into the recycle bin (for shredding) and I have moved on to another book.***After perusing the book I agree with all of my wife's comments. Now I regret purchasing this. In retrospect I should have purchased "Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner" by Michael Dawson (3rd edition). It covers Python 3 and may be the most gentle introduction to Python available. His explanations are well-crafted. I read his first edition, but it covers only Python 2. Also, the second half of Dawson's book uses the "Livewires" framework which I don't think anybody else uses! Another excellent writer is Mark Summerfield, but his "Programming in Python 3" goes into way too much depth for a beginner who may only be interested in the broad sweep of the language.

I enjoyed this book, but I found that I was through it very quickly and I ended up with really no useful skills in Python. I would recommend someone interested in this book to google 'free online python classes.'Personally I prefer learning from real books rather than websites, and I did learn the basics of Python from this book... I just wish it went into a bit more depth.

I've taken a few courses from LearnToProgram.tv and have enjoyed them, so I thought I'd check out the text format of Python for Beginners. For a person like myself, with no IT background and a rudimentary understanding of basic coding, this book was a fantastic introduction to a new programming language. It breaks down the many pieces of Python into manageable chunks - each chapter starts with objectives and contains numerous definitions, comparisons, screenshots, and examples. A summary, review questions, and lab exercises conclude each chapter, and a glossary completes the book. I know that I will be referring to this book often in the future; I like having a hard copy of information to refer to after I've completed video lectures.

Like other readers state, this is definitely a book for beginners, which is exactly what it states it is. It's the kind of book I wish I'd had when I started with Python. Well explained, lots of code examples, progresses logically. And I like that it covers Python 3 because lots of beginner books out there cover Python 2. So this is a great book to get if you're just starting with Python now. Totally recommend it, Alex has done a great job with this one.

Oaky

Nice way to start. Simple writting and nice screenshots to orientation. The exemples could be better elaborated! Weak material for intermediate and advanced users.