TE
TechEcho
Home24h TopNewestBestAskShowJobs
GitHubTwitter
Home

TechEcho

A tech news platform built with Next.js, providing global tech news and discussions.

GitHubTwitter

Home

HomeNewestBestAskShowJobs

Resources

HackerNews APIOriginal HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 TechEcho. All rights reserved.

Fundamentals of Python Programming [pdf]

302 pointsby lainonover 5 years ago

8 comments

anongraddebtover 5 years ago
Love this book. I decided to make a career change about six months ago, found this book, and started learning Python. Over the past six months I&#x27;ve built four apps (after learning JS and a couple different frameworks), and have multiple interviews lined up for back-end roles.<p>For anyone interested in possibly writing an intro book (or some such material) in the future, here are a beginners thoughts on what makes this a good read:<p>(1) Heavy use of code examples, with accompanying explanations. For myself, at least, I learn a lot through examples, and seeing so many examples of functioning code was very beneficial. The explanations are easy to grasp, without dumbing the material down. Moroever, the examples are integrated with the flow of the material presented (so never arbitrary) and many build on each other as the chapters progress.<p>(2) Functions are presented before lists.<p>(3) He takes time to provide clear, precise, and deep definitions and explanations of the concepts. There is a near-philosophical exactness (like the exactness of analytical philosophy) in the descriptions.<p>(4) Formatting and organization. There was never a time where I felt lost as to where I was, where I was going, or where prior material was. Skim the book yourself to see the myriad ways it formats and presents the material to make study easy on the reader.<p>(5) The number of exercises&#x2F;problems at the end of each chapter.
评论 #21161660 未加载
评论 #21161341 未加载
评论 #21159175 未加载
评论 #21160853 未加载
评论 #21160535 未加载
评论 #21163086 未加载
评论 #21158792 未加载
undecidabotover 5 years ago
I apologize for going off topic, but if the author is reading this (perhaps I should email him instead), please be informed that your work has been plagiarized on Amazon, by a book called &quot;Python Programming: A Step By Step Guide From Beginner To Expert&quot; [1]. Read the first few pages of the print book&#x27;s &quot;Look inside&quot; and you&#x27;ll see a word for word copy of the book.<p>Not only did they plagiarize your work, but they did a really poor job of it too. The print is full of formatting issues. The code blocks are not properly indented, which is not only poor style but also broken given that python is white-space sensitive. And bizarrely enough the letter &quot;q&quot; is continuously in bold throughout the whole book. You can easily verify this from the pictures by the reviewers. I don&#x27;t actually own a copy of the book myself.<p>To make matters worse (or better?), they only decided to include the first four chapters, ending at &quot;Conditional Execution&quot;. Yes, the plagiarized book claims to be a guide &quot;from beginner to expert&quot;, yet it didn&#x27;t reach the chapters on loops and functions!<p>If you read the reviews, you&#x27;ll quickly notice that it&#x27;s full of fake five-star reviews with very vague sentences, some of which don&#x27;t even make sense. You&#x27;ll also (now) see a lot of real one-star review, which means that quite a number of people have fallen for this scam.<p>Surprisingly, one of the fake reviewers even got in Amazon&#x27;s top 100 reviewer list. Check the profile of &quot;Kip Krenz&quot; [2], who is currently at rank #53. Somehow he managed to review two to four books on a near daily basis for maybe a year or more, mostly five-stars (the rest are four-stars) and full of generic sentences. The books reviewed are most likely &quot;fake&quot; as well. They often fall under one of the following: a beginner book, a self-help book, a cookbook, a trading book, or a book on one of the latest fads.<p>This book is unfortunately just one of the many fake books (not the jazzy kind) that have proliferated on Amazon. If you look at the other recommendations, you&#x27;ll probably find another one of these books (Python seems to be one of those profitable topics).<p>A common technique used by these books is to put themselves under some niche category in order to get a high rank. For example, this book categorized itself under &quot;Microsoft C &amp; C++ Windows Programming&quot; [3], and is currently at #9 there (it used to be #1, but thankfully the real reviews probably dragged it down). For a more peculiar example of this, take a look at what&#x27;s #1 under &quot;Windows XP Guides&quot; [4].<p>Sorry for going on a tangent with such a long wall of text. I spent a night &quot;investigating&quot; this whole thing a few weeks ago, and after seeing this post, thought that it would be best to spread awareness of the issue here.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Python-Programming-Beginner-Intermediate-Advanced-ebook&#x2F;dp&#x2F;B07N4QDH92" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Python-Programming-Beginner-Intermedi...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;gp&#x2F;profile&#x2F;amzn1.account.AGXMOOP4UKWVEKKFAL33DYHAJ67Q" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;gp&#x2F;profile&#x2F;amzn1.account.AGXMOOP4UKWV...</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;gp&#x2F;bestsellers&#x2F;books&#x2F;3967" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;gp&#x2F;bestsellers&#x2F;books&#x2F;3967</a><p>[4] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;gp&#x2F;bestsellers&#x2F;books&#x2F;6134002011" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;gp&#x2F;bestsellers&#x2F;books&#x2F;6134002011</a>
评论 #21161219 未加载
评论 #21160653 未加载
评论 #21161051 未加载
评论 #21163424 未加载
Animatsover 5 years ago
This is an intro beginning programming book that uses Python, not a Python book for programmers. That&#x27;s fine, but there&#x27;s a distinction, which should be clear in the title.
rpmismsover 5 years ago
Aw hell yeah. Programming books that teach you how to actually think like a programmer are THE best ones. Thanks for the resource.
评论 #21158651 未加载
reacharavindhover 5 years ago
Looks like a very comprehensive coverage of basic Python (from skimming the TOC). I will pass this as an option alongside &quot;The Quick Python book&quot; to my wife who wants to use Python to replace her STATA anaylses.
selfipaprazziover 5 years ago
I wish there was an abridged version of this book for experienced devs. I guess I can just skip past the parts I feel confident about. I know Python pretty well, but I want to get a back-end job doing it. Like, I wanna develop services in Python for other devs. Sorry that is off-topic. Thank you!
Bostonianover 5 years ago
Skimming the book, it does not use type annotations in its functions. I would talk about type annotations and encourage their use soon after presenting the concept of functions. Agree?
评论 #21160005 未加载
评论 #21158852 未加载
评论 #21158812 未加载
评论 #21159831 未加载
评论 #21159060 未加载
lepasanaover 5 years ago
I see a book, I click! I&#x27;m a simple man. Thanks for sharing!!!