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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python

137 points by dsego 13y ago

tdicola 13y ago
Nice! I remember when this was posted about a year ago and it's nice to see it's been steadily maintained since then. Great list of tools, etc. that are a must know for python users.
pdeuchler 13y ago
Always good to see this on the front page, and as a side note Kenneth is quite possibly one of the best OSS maintainers I've ever encountered. I made a tiny, pedantic edit a year or so ago and he treated my pull request like it was an entirely new chapter plumbing the depths of the GCC.
mdisraeli 13y ago
Useful, however there's a serious element lacking: "Don't Panic" in large, friendly letters ;)
- ersii 13y ago
  The project is open and I feel confident they'd take a merge/pull request for that.. :-) (I know that Kenneth usually has humor and the spirit goes along well with your suggestion. ;-) ). Feel free to swing by https://github.com/kennethreitz/python-guide https://github.com/kennethreitz/python-guide and have a look in any case.
dmoney 13y ago
From the "choosing an interpreter" section: > Also use Python 2.7.x if you’re starting to work on a new Python module. Is this a generally accepted guideline? I'd have thought Python 3 would have caught on by now.
- hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
  It's easy to write Python 3 compatible code with 2.7, you can import most things from __future__. You lose some cool features though.
- pekk 13y ago
  It isn't, but it is the opinion of the people who run this project.
- SoftwareMaven 13y ago
  My thoughts exactly. We use python extensively, so have a large code base laying around, and, even with that, I chose Python 3 for the new project I recently started since it is fairly independent. I'd word this more like "projects should use Python 3 unless you have an existing reason (a core library, existing code base, etc) to stay on 2.7". A year ago, I couldn't have said this. Six months ago, the possibility of missing, critical libraries was still very large, but, today, it's a reasonable approach (IMO, of course :).
- anon4 13y ago
  The other bizarre to me part is how Python 2 is called "Today" and Python 3 "The future". Shouldn't they be "Yesterday" and "Today" respectively? Or maybe "The snakes of yesteryear" and "The contemporary Monty".
  - olivierlacan 13y ago
    Most of the guide was written two years ago: https://github.com/kennethreitz/python-guide https://github.com/kennethreitz/python-guide
aitoehigie 13y ago
Is there a .pdf, .mobi or .epub anywhere? Reading this online might not make economic sense.
- aitoehigie 13y ago
  Spoke too soon. Here's the link to the pdf https://media.readthedocs.org/pdf/python-guide/latest/python-guide.pdf https://media.readthedocs.org/pdf/python-guide/latest/python...

137 points by dsego 13y ago

Nice! I remember when this was posted about a year ago and it's nice to see it's been steadily maintained since then. Great list of tools, etc. that are a must know for python users.

pdeuchler 13y ago

Always good to see this on the front page, and as a side note Kenneth is quite possibly one of the best OSS maintainers I've ever encountered. I made a tiny, pedantic edit a year or so ago and he treated my pull request like it was an entirely new chapter plumbing the depths of the GCC.

mdisraeli 13y ago

Useful, however there's a serious element lacking: "Don't Panic" in large, friendly letters ;)

ersii 13y ago
The project is open and I feel confident they'd take a merge/pull request for that.. :-) (I know that Kenneth usually has humor and the spirit goes along well with your suggestion. ;-) ). Feel free to swing by https://github.com/kennethreitz/python-guide https://github.com/kennethreitz/python-guide and have a look in any case.

dmoney 13y ago

From the "choosing an interpreter" section: > Also use Python 2.7.x if you’re starting to work on a new Python module. Is this a generally accepted guideline? I'd have thought Python 3 would have caught on by now.

hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
It's easy to write Python 3 compatible code with 2.7, you can import most things from __future__. You lose some cool features though.
pekk 13y ago
It isn't, but it is the opinion of the people who run this project.
SoftwareMaven 13y ago
My thoughts exactly. We use python extensively, so have a large code base laying around, and, even with that, I chose Python 3 for the new project I recently started since it is fairly independent. I'd word this more like "projects should use Python 3 unless you have an existing reason (a core library, existing code base, etc) to stay on 2.7". A year ago, I couldn't have said this. Six months ago, the possibility of missing, critical libraries was still very large, but, today, it's a reasonable approach (IMO, of course :).
anon4 13y ago
The other bizarre to me part is how Python 2 is called "Today" and Python 3 "The future". Shouldn't they be "Yesterday" and "Today" respectively? Or maybe "The snakes of yesteryear" and "The contemporary Monty".
- olivierlacan 13y ago
  Most of the guide was written two years ago: https://github.com/kennethreitz/python-guide https://github.com/kennethreitz/python-guide

aitoehigie 13y ago

Is there a .pdf, .mobi or .epub anywhere? Reading this online might not make economic sense.

aitoehigie 13y ago
Spoke too soon. Here's the link to the pdf https://media.readthedocs.org/pdf/python-guide/latest/python-guide.pdf https://media.readthedocs.org/pdf/python-guide/latest/python...