Product Description

Praise for Core Python Programming

 

"The long-awaited second edition of Wesley Chun's Core Python Programming proves to be well worth the wait—its deep and broad coverage and useful exercises will help readers learn and practice good Python."

—Alex Martelli, author of Python in a Nutshell and editor of Python Cookbook

 

"There has been lot of good buzz around Wesley Chun's Core Python Programming. It turns out that all the buzz is well earned. I think this is the best book currently available for learning Python. I would recommend Chun's book over Learning Python (O'Reilly), Programming Python (O'Reilly), or The Quick Python Book (Manning)."

—David Mertz, Ph.D., IBM DeveloperWorks®

 

"I have been doing a lot of research [on] Python for the past year and have seen a number of positive reviews of your book. The sentiment expressed confirms the opinion that Core Python Programming is now considered the standard introductory text."

—Richard Ozaki, Lockheed Martin

 

"Finally, a book good enough to be both a textbook and a reference on the Python language now exists."

—Michael Baxter, Linux Journal

 

"Very well written. It is the clearest, friendliest book I have come across yet for explaining Python, and putting it in a wider context. It does not presume a large amount of other experience. It does go into some important Python topics carefully and in depth. Unlike too many beginner books, it never condescends or tortures the reader with childish hide-and-seek prose games. [It] sticks to gaining a solid grasp of Python syntax and structure."

—http://python.org bookstore Web site

 

"[If ] I could only own one Python book, it would be Core Python Programming by Wesley Chun. This book manages to cover more topics in more depth than Learning Python but includes it all in one book that also more than adequately covers the core language. [If] you are in the market for just one book about Python, I recommend this book. You will enjoy reading it, including its wry programmer's wit. More importantly, you will learn Python. Even more importantly, you will find it invaluable in helping you in your day-to-day Python programming life. Well done, Mr. Chun!"

—Ron Stephens, Python Learning Foundation

 

"I think the best language for beginners is Python, without a doubt. My favorite book is Core Python Programming."

—s003apr, MP3Car.com Forums

 

"Personally, I really like Python. It's simple to learn, completely intuitive, amazingly flexible, and pretty darned fast. Python has only just started to claim mindshare in the Windows world, but look for it to start gaining lots of support as people discover it. To learn Python, I'd start with Core Python Programming by Wesley Chun."

—Bill Boswell, MCSE, Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine Online

 

"If you learn well from books, I suggest Core Python Programming. It is by far the best I've found. I'm a Python newbie as well and in three months time I've been able to implement Python in projects at work (automating MSOffice, SQL DB stuff, etc.)."

—ptonman, Dev Shed Forums

 

"Python is simply a beautiful language. It's easy to learn, it's cross-platform, and it works. It has achieved many of the technical goals that Java strives for. A one-sentence description of Python would be: 'All other languages appear to have evolved over time--but Python was designed.' And it was designed well. Unfortunately, there aren't a large number of books for Python. The best one I've run across so far is Core Python Programming."

—Chris Timmons, C. R. Timmons Consulting

 

"If you like the Prentice Hall Core series, another good full-blown treatment to consider would be Core Python Programming. It addresses in elaborate concrete detail many practical topics that get little, if any, coverage in other books."

—Mitchell L Model, MLM Consulting

 

"Core Python Programming is an amazingly easy read! The liberal use of examples helps clarify some of the more subtle points of the language. And the comparisons to languages with which I'm already familiar (C/C++/Java) get you programming in record speed."

—Michael Santos, Ph.D., Green Hills Software

 

The Complete Developer's Guide to Python

• New to Python? The definitive guide to Python development for experienced programmers
• Covers core language features thoroughly, including those found in the latest Python releases—learn more than just the syntax!
• Learn advanced topics such as regular expressions, networking, multithreading, GUI, Web/CGI, and Python extensions
• Includes brand-new material on databases, Internet clients, Java/Jython, and Microsoft Office, plus Python 2.6 and 3
• Presents hundreds of code snippets, interactive examples, and practical exercises to strengthen your Python skills

Python is an agile, robust, expressive, fully object-oriented, extensible, and scalable programming language. It combines the power of compiled languages with the simplicity and rapid development of scripting languages. In Core Python Programming, Second Edition, leading Python developer and trainer Wesley Chun helps you learn Python quickly and comprehensively so that you can immediately succeed with any Python project.

 

Using practical code examples, Chun introduces all the fundamentals of Python programming: syntax, objects and memory management, data types, operators, files and I/O, functions, generators, error handling and exceptions, loops, iterators, functional programming, object-oriented programming and more. After you learn the core fundamentals of Python, he shows you what you can do with your new skills, delving into advanced topics, such as regular expressions, networking programming with sockets, multithreading, GUI development, Web/CGI programming and extending Python in C.

 

This edition reflects major enhancements in the Python 2.x series, including 2.6 and tips for migrating to 3. It contains new chapters on database and Internet client programming, plus coverage of many new topics, including new-style classes, Java and Jython, Microsoft Office (Win32 COM Client) programming, and much more.

• Learn professional Python style, best practices, and good programming habits
• Gain a deep understanding of Python's objects and memory model as well as its OOP features, including those found in Python's new-style classes
• Build more effective Web, CGI, Internet, and network and other client/server applications
• Learn how to develop your own GUI applications using Tkinter and other toolkits available for Python
• Improve the performance of your Python applications by writing extensions in C and other languages, or enhance I/O-bound applications by using multithreading
• Learn about Python's database API and how to use a variety of database systems with Python, including MySQL, Postgres, and SQLite
• Features appendices on Python 2.6 & 3, including tips on migrating to the next generation! 

Core Python Programming delivers

• Systematic, expert coverage of Python's core features
• Powerful insights for developing complex applications
• Easy-to-use tables and charts detailing Python modules, operators, functions, and methods
• Dozens of professional-quality code examples, from quick snippets to full-fledged applications

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #172775 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1136 pages

From the Back Cover

• New to Python? This is the developer's guide to Python development!
• Learn the core features of Python as well as advanced topics such as regular expressions, multithreaded programming, Web/Internet and network development, GUI development with Tk(inter) and more
• Also includes features found in the new Python 1.6 and 2.0 releases
• CD-ROM: Complete Python distributions (source code, documentation, and various binaries) plus all example scripts in the book

Python is an Internet and systems programming language that is soaring in popularity in today's fast-paced software development environment, and no wonder: it's simple (yet robust), object-oriented (yet can be used as a procedural language), extensible, scalable and features an easy to learn syntax that is clear and concise. Python combines the power of a compiled object language like Java and C++ with the ease of use and rapid development time of a scripting language. In fact, it's syntax is so easy to understand that you are more likely to pick it up faster than any of the other popular scripting languages in use today!

In Core Python Programming, Internet software engineer and technical trainer Wesley Chun provides intermediate and experienced developers all they need to know to learn Python-fast. Like all Core Series books, Core Python Programming delivers hundreds of industrial-strength code snippets and examples, all targeted at professional developers who want to leverage their existing skills! In particular, Core Python Programming presents numerous interactive examples that can be entered into the Python interpreter right in front of you! Finally, we present a chapter that shows you step-by-step how to extend Python using C or C++.

• Python syntax and style
• Development and Run-time Environments
• Objects and Python memory management
• Standard data types, methods, and operators
• Loops and conditionals
• Files and Input/Output
• Exceptions and error handling
• Functions, scope, arguments, and functional programming
• Importing modules and module attributes
• Object-oriented Programming with classes, methods, and instances
• Callable Objects
• Extending Python

Coverage of the Python standard module library and client-server application development includes comprehensive introductions to the following topics in Python programming:

• Regular expressions
• TCP/IP and UDP/IP Network programming using sockets
• Operating system interface
• GUI development with Tk using Tkinter
• Multithreaded programming
• Interactive Web/CGI/Internet applications
• Executing code in a restricted environment
• Inheritance, type emulation, operator overloading, and delegation in an OOP environment

Finally, we provide an introduction to the new features introduced in Python 1.6. These include Unicode string support, the new function invocation syntax which lets the caller provide a tuple of positional arguments and/or a dictionary of keyword arguments, and the new string methods. We also provide a glimpse into features that will only be found in the newer 2.0 release.

Every Core Series book:

• DEMONSTRATES how to write commercial-quality code
• FEATURES dozens of programs and examples!
• FOCUSES on the features and functions most important to real developers
• PROVIDES objective, unbiased coverage of cutting-edge technologies-no
• hype!

Core Python Programming delivers:

• Coverage of the core parts of the Python language
• Real-world insights for developing Web/Internet, network, multithreaded and GUI applications
• Tables and charts detailing Python modules, built-in functions, operators, and attributes
• Code snippets to try live with Python's interactive interpreter, hammering the concepts home
• Extensive code examples-including several complete sample applications

CD-ROM includes complete Python source code and documentation distributions for Unix/Linux along with binaries for Windows and Macintosh platforms plus source code for all examples in the book.

About the Author

Wesley J. Chun, MSCS, is the author of Python Fundamentals, a companion video to Core Python Programming, and the coauthor of Python Web Development with Django. In addition to being a senior software architect, he runs CyberWeb (cyberwebconsulting.com), a consulting business specializing in Python software engineering and technical training. He has more than twenty-five years of programming, teaching, and writing experience, including more than a decade with Python. While at Yahoo!, he helped create Yahoo!Mail and Yahoo! People Search using Python. He holds degrees in computer science, mathematics, and music from the University of California.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Welcome to Core Python Programming!

We are delighted that you have engaged us to help you learn Python as quickly and as in-depth as possible. Learning the syntax is one goal of this book; however, we also believe that if you learn how Python works under the covers, you won't just be able to program in Python, but you will write more effective Python applications even as a beginner to the language. As you know, just because you learn a language's syntax does not make you competent in it right away.

Throughout the book, you will find many examples that you can try right in front of your computer. To hammer the concepts home, you will also find fun and challenging exercises at the end of every chapter. These easy and intermediate exercises are meant to test your learning and push your Python skills. There simply is no substitute for experience. We believe you should not only pick up Python programming skills but also be able to master them in as short a time period as possible.

About This Book

This book differs from other Python books on the market by presenting a broad range of topics, providing numerous examples, and going in-depth where necessary. This book does not require a specific background such as prior knowledge of C or object-oriented programming. It is also not a large case study book that does not facilitate picking up the language quickly. Finally, this book is not a pure reference nor is it meant to be a quick "dive" into Python. What we have is an extremely comprehensive introduction to the core features of the language (Part I) followed by a set of chapters that delve into specific areas of intermediate Python programming.

This book is 40 percent introductory, 40 percent intermediate to advanced, and 20 percent reference. It is targeted toward technical professionals who are already familiar with programming in one other high-level language, as well as university/college and secondary students. Because Python is used in larger solutions such as Zope, Plone, MailMan, and Django, this book may be used by principals developing, managing, maintaining, or integrating with those systems.

With regard to the code in this book, about a third of the first edition readers sent in complaints that there were not enough large, full-fledged applications in the book, or that the code examples were not long or comprehensive enough. Everyone else wrote that they loved the short, easy-to-understand examples and were not bored of page after page of mind-numbing code. The philosophy behind more short examples is to give you the ability to look at a piece of code and grasp its entirety. These turn into building blocks to understanding and then can be incorporated into larger applications as well. There are line-by-line explanations for most of the larger programs in the book. The abundant interpreter code snippets scattered throughout the book are there for you to try on your computer as you are learning Python—use the interactive interpreter as much as possible. You not only learn and improve your Python from using it, but you can also benefit from working out bugs in your code before you paste it into your source file.

Because you cannot learn Python well without practice, you will find the exercises at the end of every chapter to be one of the greatest strengths of this book. They will test your knowledge of chapter topics and definitions, as well as get you to code as much as possible. There is no substitute to learning a programming language faster and more effectively than by building applications. You will find easy, intermediate, and difficult problems to solve. It is also here that you may have to write one of those "large" applications that many readers wanted to see in the book, but rather than having me do it, you gain the most from such exercises. Appendix A features answers to selected problems from each chapter.

Another set of first edition readers remarked how useful the reference tables were throughout the book, and how they meticulously copied them for reference. Well, instead of flipping through each chapter looking for the tables, we have summarized the most highly used ones in Appendix B. Thanks for all of your feedback. I encourage you to keep talking to us and help us make a third edition possible and better than its predecessors!

Finally, both the "Other References" appendix and the CD-ROM from the first edition are not included with this edition. You would not believe how quickly Web links can become obsolete in six months much less six years! The most up-to-date source code and Python interpreters can easily be downloaded for offline use at the book's Web site, so there really is no reason to include a CD-ROM.

About the Reader

This book is meant for you if you are a programmer completely new to Python or already know some Python but want to know more and improve your Python skillset. Python is used in many fields, including engineering, informa*tion technology, science, business, entertainment, and so on. This means that the list of Python users (and readers of this book) includes but is not limited to:

• Software engineers

• Hardware design/CAD engineers

• QA/testing and automation framework developers

• IS/IT/system and network administrators

• Scientists and mathematicians

• Technical or project management staff

• Multimedia or audio/visual engineers

• SCM or release engineers

• Web masters and content management staff

• Customer/technical support engineers

• Database engineers and administrators

• Research and development engineers

• Software integration and professional services staff

• Collegiate and secondary educators

• Web service engineers

• Financial software engineers

• And many others

Some of the most famous companies using Python include Google, Yahoo!, NASA, Lucasfilm/Industrial Light and Magic, Red Hat, Zope, Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks.

The Author's Experience with Python

I discovered Python over a decade ago at a company called Four11. At the time, the company had one major product, the Four11.com White Page directory service. Python was being used to design our next product: the Rocketmail Web-based e-mail service that would eventually evolve into what today is Yahoo!Mail.

It was fun learning Python and being on the original Yahoo!Mail engineering team. I helped rearchitect the address book and spell checker. At the time, Python also made its way as part of a number of other Yahoo! sites, including People Search, Yellow Pages, and Maps and Driving Directions, just to name a few. I was the lead engineer for People Search.

Although Python was new to me then, it was fairly easy to pick up—much simpler than other languages I had learned in the past. The scarcity of textbooks at the time led me to primarily use the Library Reference and Quick Reference Guide as my tools in learning, and also led to the motivation for the book you are reading right now.

Since my days at Yahoo!, I have been able to use Python in all sorts of interesting ways at the jobs that followed. In each case, I was able to harness the power of Python in solving the problems at hand and in a timely manner. I have also developed several Python courses and have used this book to teach those classes, truly eating my own dogfood.

Not only is Core Python Programming a great book to learn Python from, but it is also the best book to teach Python with! As an engineer, I know what it takes to learn, understand, and apply a new technology. As a professional instructor, I also know what is needed to deliver the most effective sessions for clients. This provides the experience necessary to be able to give you real-world analogies and tips that you cannot get from someone who is "just a trainer" or "just a book author."

About the Author's Writing Style: Technical, Yet Easy Reading

Rather than strictly a "beginners" book or a pure, hard-core computer science reference book, my instructional experience indicates that an easy-to-read, yet technically oriented book serves our purpose the best, which is to get you up to speed on Python as quickly as possible so that you can apply it to your tasks posthaste. We will introduce concepts coupled with appropriate examples to expedite the learning process. At the end of each chapter you will find numerous exercises to reinforce some of the concepts and ideas acquired in your reading.

We are thrilled and humbled to be compared with Bruce Eckel's writing style (see the reviews to the first edition at the book's Web site (http://www.corepython.com). This is not a dry college textbook. As the author, I am having a conversation with you, as if you were attending one of my well-received Python training courses. As a lifelong student, I constantly put myself in my student's shoes and tell you what you need to hear in order to learn the concepts as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. You will find reading this book fast and easy, without losing sight of the technical details.

As an engineer, I know what I need to tell you in order to teach you a concept in Python. As a teacher, I can take technical details and boil them down into language that is easy to understand and grasp right away. You are getting the best of both worlds with my writing and teaching styles, but you will enjoy programming in Python even more.

About This Second Edition

At the time the first edition was published, Python was entering its second era with the release of version 2.0. Since then, the language has seen significant improvements contributing to the overall continuing success and acceptance of the language. Deficiencies have been removed and new features added that bring a new level of power and sophis...

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Customer Reviews

Highly recommended for beginners
For the last few months I was developing in Perl. But I found myself very frustrated with the syntax, and the Perl books on the market did a so-so job on explaining how everything worked.

And then I came across this book. I had read a review about in the Linux Journal. In 2 days I "inhaled" 200+ pages of this book, about 7 chapters. To begin with, this book is easy to understand, has numerous examples to go long with the text, and does an excellent job in progessing through Python.

The first 400 pages cover syntax, style, functions, classes, modules, etc. If you've ever programmed in another language (C, C++, Java, Perl), Mr. Chun compares Python to each of them in simularities and differences. You should be pick up on these quite easily. The last part of the book in more advanced topics, which I found quite enjoyable.

I don't program in Perl anymore. After reading this book, I wonder why I didn't look at Python first. Aside from a book on Tkinter, this is the only book that I keep on my desk. It's great for teaching and learning, but makes a great reference book also.

I agree with the reader from Menlo Park, CA...
The author's writing style is very similar to Bruce Eckel's. Both authors present somewhat abstract concepts in a clear and concise way that makes reading their material enjoyable. I highly recommend this book for any novice programmer wanting to learn Python. Chun does a good job explaining OOP concepts, so if you only have experience with a procedural language (C, Pascal, etc.)don't worry. If you are a programming expert, purist, guru, or OOP king you may find this book a bit long and shallow.:)

good all around python book
This book is an excellent read for someone new to python but with some other programming knowledge. This was my first exposure to Python (coming from Perl) and I found this book very helpful. The author explains things very thoroughly and intuitively. He writes a lot of prose and not just all code examples, but good explanations also. I found myself reading this most times without a computer in front of me. So by the time I actually sat down and dug into the syntax, I was already very familiar with the basic concepts of the language. It touches on most subjects I was looking for.

It may not be for the extreme beginner or as the end-all reference for gurus, but for us in between its just whats needed.

this is easily one of the better programming books I've read.