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Show HN: Practical Python Projects book release

88 points by yasoob 6y ago

Hi everyone! I just released the Practical Python Projects book! (https://practicalpython.yasoob.me) I am happy to announce the first version as a release candidate. I have poured a lot of love into writing this book and would love to hear what you guys think. (A limited 100% off and discount coupons at the end) This is not a pure beginner book. The book does assume some background Python knowledge. You need to know the basics like methods, functions, classes, and such. If I use something that is not typically covered in beginner Python books, I will explain it before I use it. There are no tests for these projects as they are really small and teach you how to glue different pieces together. Some projects that we will be making - A Twilio bot that keeps you updated with the latest match scores from the FIFA World Cup - A Facebook Messenger bot the shares latest memes, jokes, and shower-thoughts scraped from Reddit - An automated invoice generator and deploying it using Flask - Making automated cinema-preshow by downloading and stitching together related movie trailers using moviepy - Generating automated article summaries and overlaying them on top of images - Understanding and decoding JPEG images using vanilla Python - Creating a GUI application using PyQt for downloading online videos - Implementing a TUI email client that allows reading emails in the terminal The first 50 people can use the "hn-love" coupon (without the quotation marks) to get 15% off. I am also offering a 30-day no-questions-asked refund policy if you don't enjoy this book and don't learn anything new. You can buy the book from https://practicalpython.yasoob.me You can get a free sample chapter from here: https://practicalpython.yasoob.me/sample/chapter2.pdf You can learn more about my writing style by reading any of my recent articles over at https://yasoob.me (For detailed FAQ, you can head over to the book website: https://practicalpython.yasoob.me)

efxz 6y ago
Heh... "(A limited 100% off and discount coupons at the end)" I see just 15% off
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dotancohen 6y ago
I'm glad to see that you use PyQt for the GUI. Have you examined PySide as well? It's mostly drop-in compatible with PyQt and has a much better license in my opinion.
- yasoob 6y ago
  I have! I don’t use PyQt professionally so never had to worry about the license too much. Also for the most part, PySide should work just fine with the projects in the book :)
- powersnail 6y ago
  I remember trying both last year, and found that for a trivial GUI, PySide had a 100ms slower startup time than PyQt. PySide was 300+ms, PyQt was 200+ms.
  - dotancohen 6y ago
    Thank you for that insight. Other than the startup time, were there any other performance problems with PySide? Honestly, I think that a 100ms slower startup time is a good tradeoff!
    - powersnail 6y ago
      That's all I found. GUI isn't very easy to benchmark, to be honest. 100ms isn't much, indeed. A more complicated GUI program will likely render that trivial.
yasoob 6y ago
Hi everyone! I just released the Practical Python Projects book! (https://practicalpython.yasoob.me https://practicalpython.yasoob.me) You can get a free sample chapter here: https://practicalpython.yasoob.me/sample/chapter2.pdf https://practicalpython.yasoob.me/sample/chapter2.pdf. I am happy to announce the first version as a release candidate. I have poured a lot of love into writing this book and would love to hear what you guys think. (A limited 100% off and discount coupons at the end) This is not a pure beginner book. The book does assume some background Python knowledge. You need to know the basics like methods, functions, classes, and such. If I use something that is not typically covered in beginner Python books, I will explain it before I use it. There are no tests for these projects as they are really small and teach you how to glue different pieces together. Some projects that we will be making - A Twilio bot that keeps you updated with the latest match scores from the FIFA World Cup - A Facebook Messenger bot the shares latest memes, jokes, and shower-thoughts scraped from Reddit - An automated invoice generator and deploying it using Flask - Making automated cinema-preshow by downloading and stitching together related movie trailers using moviepy - Generating automated article summaries and overlaying them on top of images - Understanding and decoding JPEG images using vanilla Python - Creating a GUI application using PyQt for downloading online videos - Implementing a TUI email client that allows reading emails in the terminal The first 50 people can use the "hn-love" coupon (without the quotation marks) to get 15% off. I am also offering a 30-day no-questions-asked refund policy if you don't enjoy this book and don't learn anything new. You can buy the book and see a detailed FAQ at https://practicalpython.yasoob.me https://practicalpython.yasoob.me. If you want to try before you buy, see the sample chapter at https://practicalpython.yasoob.me/sample/chapter2.pdf https://practicalpython.yasoob.me/sample/chapter2.pdf, or you can learn more my writing style by reading any of my recent articles over at https://yasoob.me https://yasoob.me.
chris_wot 6y ago
I work at a school that uses Python extensively. I've purchased the book (haven't yet got the links). Is there a group discount? Our ICT teachers might be interested in this.
- yasoob 6y ago
  Hi Chris, We can definitely work something out! You should have gotten the books by now. Take a look at the book and if you would like to get a group discount I can definitely arrange that. Would love to have more kids get their hands on this. :)
trailrunner46 6y ago
This is exactly the kind of book I was looking for. I learn best by building projects. It’s not the syntax that is hard, it’s learning how experienced python devs do things (coming from other languages). Look forward to diving in. Thank you for your time writing it.
- yasoob 6y ago
  Same here! Syntax is often the easy part and building an end-to-end product is usually a challenge. I wrote this book for precisely this reason. I hope this book helps you :)
moonstruck 6y ago
On the book site Intermediate Python book is linked to codecademy. https://book.pythontips.com/en/latest/ https://book.pythontips.com/en/latest/ is the right one I guess.
- yasoob 6y ago
  Thanks for the heads-up! Just fixed it.
thraway12 6y ago
I like paper books. Can I buy a paper copy? Your purchase flow is unclear.
aliirz 6y ago
Just purchased. Waiting for the link. Looks very interesting. I’ve always loved recipe books like these.

88 points by yasoob 6y ago

efxz 6y ago

Heh... "(A limited 100% off and discount coupons at the end)" I see just 15% off

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dotancohen 6y ago

I'm glad to see that you use PyQt for the GUI. Have you examined PySide as well? It's mostly drop-in compatible with PyQt and has a much better license in my opinion.

yasoob 6y ago
I have! I don’t use PyQt professionally so never had to worry about the license too much. Also for the most part, PySide should work just fine with the projects in the book :)
powersnail 6y ago
I remember trying both last year, and found that for a trivial GUI, PySide had a 100ms slower startup time than PyQt. PySide was 300+ms, PyQt was 200+ms.
- dotancohen 6y ago
  Thank you for that insight. Other than the startup time, were there any other performance problems with PySide? Honestly, I think that a 100ms slower startup time is a good tradeoff!
  - powersnail 6y ago
    That's all I found. GUI isn't very easy to benchmark, to be honest. 100ms isn't much, indeed. A more complicated GUI program will likely render that trivial.

yasoob 6y ago

Hi everyone! I just released the Practical Python Projects book! (https://practicalpython.yasoob.me https://practicalpython.yasoob.me) You can get a free sample chapter here: https://practicalpython.yasoob.me/sample/chapter2.pdf https://practicalpython.yasoob.me/sample/chapter2.pdf. I am happy to announce the first version as a release candidate. I have poured a lot of love into writing this book and would love to hear what you guys think. (A limited 100% off and discount coupons at the end) This is not a pure beginner book. The book does assume some background Python knowledge. You need to know the basics like methods, functions, classes, and such. If I use something that is not typically covered in beginner Python books, I will explain it before I use it. There are no tests for these projects as they are really small and teach you how to glue different pieces together. Some projects that we will be making - A Twilio bot that keeps you updated with the latest match scores from the FIFA World Cup - A Facebook Messenger bot the shares latest memes, jokes, and shower-thoughts scraped from Reddit - An automated invoice generator and deploying it using Flask - Making automated cinema-preshow by downloading and stitching together related movie trailers using moviepy - Generating automated article summaries and overlaying them on top of images - Understanding and decoding JPEG images using vanilla Python - Creating a GUI application using PyQt for downloading online videos - Implementing a TUI email client that allows reading emails in the terminal The first 50 people can use the "hn-love" coupon (without the quotation marks) to get 15% off. I am also offering a 30-day no-questions-asked refund policy if you don't enjoy this book and don't learn anything new. You can buy the book and see a detailed FAQ at https://practicalpython.yasoob.me https://practicalpython.yasoob.me. If you want to try before you buy, see the sample chapter at https://practicalpython.yasoob.me/sample/chapter2.pdf https://practicalpython.yasoob.me/sample/chapter2.pdf, or you can learn more my writing style by reading any of my recent articles over at https://yasoob.me https://yasoob.me.

chris_wot 6y ago

I work at a school that uses Python extensively. I've purchased the book (haven't yet got the links). Is there a group discount? Our ICT teachers might be interested in this.

yasoob 6y ago
Hi Chris, We can definitely work something out! You should have gotten the books by now. Take a look at the book and if you would like to get a group discount I can definitely arrange that. Would love to have more kids get their hands on this. :)

trailrunner46 6y ago

This is exactly the kind of book I was looking for. I learn best by building projects. It’s not the syntax that is hard, it’s learning how experienced python devs do things (coming from other languages). Look forward to diving in. Thank you for your time writing it.

yasoob 6y ago
Same here! Syntax is often the easy part and building an end-to-end product is usually a challenge. I wrote this book for precisely this reason. I hope this book helps you :)

moonstruck 6y ago

On the book site Intermediate Python book is linked to codecademy. https://book.pythontips.com/en/latest/ https://book.pythontips.com/en/latest/ is the right one I guess.

yasoob 6y ago
Thanks for the heads-up! Just fixed it.

thraway12 6y ago

I like paper books. Can I buy a paper copy? Your purchase flow is unclear.

aliirz 6y ago

Just purchased. Waiting for the link. Looks very interesting. I’ve always loved recipe books like these.