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Unrelated: I'm a very experienced developer, and I want to learn Python, and I'm yet to find a book that's sufficiently challenging and doesn't start too slowly

Unrelated: I'm a very experienced developer, and I want to learn Python, and I'm yet to find a book that's sufficiently challenging and doesn't start too slowly to hold my interest. I guess what I'm looking for is something like: "here's a list of array operations. Now do Towers of Hanoi". Any recommendations?

DarkCrusader2 8y ago
What you need, in my opinion, is python docs and not a book. Python official docs has a tutorial[0] and and a library reference[1] section. The tutorial gives you a clear introduction to language syntax and general coding style and ends with a brief overview to standard library. After that you can keep the library reference "under your pillow" and refer to it as you need. I found this the best way to start with python. YMMV. [0] https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html [1] https://docs.python.org/3/library/index.html https://docs.python.org/3/library/index.html
iliaznk 8y ago
This is not really the kind of book you're looking for, I'm, afraid, but still it's the best one I've read on Python in general http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032519.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032519.do As a language reference you could use something like that https://gto76.github.io/python-cheatsheet/ https://gto76.github.io/python-cheatsheet/ or another good book https://doughellmann.com/blog/the-python-3-standard-library-by-example/ https://doughellmann.com/blog/the-python-3-standard-library-...
- sammorrowdrums 8y ago
  I agree that Fluent Python is best choice, even if it's not exactly what was asked for. You can skip bits to use it as more of a list of features, but it contains the information required to understand what Pythonic means, and what's in the extensive standard library. Definitely would recommend to anyone experienced wanting to learn Python.
Izmaki 8y ago
Since python is relatively easy, your best bet is probably to just dive in and see how far you get before you're stuck. Alternatively, join a Discord server or similar for programming and ask the various questions there, like "what are the double-underscore methods even?" or "I've seen this weird syntax, what is this? [x for x in {1, 3, 6}]" Oh, and if you find a book series like that please let me know - I would love to move in to another language like C++ or similar, but I cannot be bothered reading about while-loops again.
petr25102018 8y ago
Get yourself Fluent Python, it is a really good book on Python for developers from other languages.
mbrock 8y ago
https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/python3/ https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/python3/ could be useful.
jventura 8y ago
Well, you can try my "Full Speed Python" book [1]. Each chapter shows the minimal syntax needed for the chapter content, and then it has some exercises to get you going. I use it to teach Python to my Distributed Computing course students (2nd year students, which come mostly from a Java and C background). The first chapters are mostly for beginners, so I guess you can skip them if you want. I also talk about more advanced concepts on the later chapters (such as iterators, generators, coroutines and asyncio). You can get the epubs/pdfs from [2].. [1] https://github.com/joaoventura/full-speed-python/ https://github.com/joaoventura/full-speed-python/ [2] https://github.com/joaoventura/full-speed-python/releases/ https://github.com/joaoventura/full-speed-python/releases/
- peteretep 8y ago
  This looks absolutely perfect!

DarkCrusader2 8y ago

What you need, in my opinion, is python docs and not a book. Python official docs has a tutorial[0] and and a library reference[1] section. The tutorial gives you a clear introduction to language syntax and general coding style and ends with a brief overview to standard library. After that you can keep the library reference "under your pillow" and refer to it as you need. I found this the best way to start with python. YMMV. [0] https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html [1] https://docs.python.org/3/library/index.html https://docs.python.org/3/library/index.html

iliaznk 8y ago

This is not really the kind of book you're looking for, I'm, afraid, but still it's the best one I've read on Python in general http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032519.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032519.do As a language reference you could use something like that https://gto76.github.io/python-cheatsheet/ https://gto76.github.io/python-cheatsheet/ or another good book https://doughellmann.com/blog/the-python-3-standard-library-by-example/ https://doughellmann.com/blog/the-python-3-standard-library-...

sammorrowdrums 8y ago
I agree that Fluent Python is best choice, even if it's not exactly what was asked for. You can skip bits to use it as more of a list of features, but it contains the information required to understand what Pythonic means, and what's in the extensive standard library. Definitely would recommend to anyone experienced wanting to learn Python.

Izmaki 8y ago

Since python is relatively easy, your best bet is probably to just dive in and see how far you get before you're stuck. Alternatively, join a Discord server or similar for programming and ask the various questions there, like "what are the double-underscore methods even?" or "I've seen this weird syntax, what is this? [x for x in {1, 3, 6}]" Oh, and if you find a book series like that please let me know - I would love to move in to another language like C++ or similar, but I cannot be bothered reading about while-loops again.

petr25102018 8y ago

Get yourself Fluent Python, it is a really good book on Python for developers from other languages.

mbrock 8y ago

https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/python3/ https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/python3/ could be useful.

jventura 8y ago

Well, you can try my "Full Speed Python" book [1]. Each chapter shows the minimal syntax needed for the chapter content, and then it has some exercises to get you going. I use it to teach Python to my Distributed Computing course students (2nd year students, which come mostly from a Java and C background). The first chapters are mostly for beginners, so I guess you can skip them if you want. I also talk about more advanced concepts on the later chapters (such as iterators, generators, coroutines and asyncio). You can get the epubs/pdfs from [2].. [1] https://github.com/joaoventura/full-speed-python/ https://github.com/joaoventura/full-speed-python/ [2] https://github.com/joaoventura/full-speed-python/releases/ https://github.com/joaoventura/full-speed-python/releases/

peteretep 8y ago
This looks absolutely perfect!