Waterstones Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner
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Price: £39.99
Brand: Waterstones
Description: If you are new to programming with Python and are looking for a solid introduction, this is the book for you. Developed by computer science instructors, books in the for the absolute beginner series teach the principles of programming through simple game creation. You will acquire the skills that you need for practical Python programming applications and will learn how these skills can be put to use in real-world scenarios. Throughout the chapters, you will find code samples that illustrate concepts presented. At the end of each chapter, you will find a complete game that demonstrates the key ideas in the chapter, a summary of the chapter, and a set of challenges that tests your newfound knowledge. By the time you finish this book, youéll be well versed in Python and be able to apply the basic programming principles youéve learned to the next programming language you tackle. Waterstones Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: Waterstones
Product ID: 9781435455009
Delivery cost: 0.00
ISBN: 9781435455009
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Author: Joseph Mcdonnell
Rating: 5
Review: I've had a great deal of programming experience - I started with punch cards and Fortran!! I've also programmed in a plethora of other languages (BASIC, Pascal, various flavours of C and a few languages I can't even remember). My last serious language was Borland Delphi (Object Pascal), which I loved. My licence was for Delphi 7 - a little out of date for my hardware. I needed to update to a language that offered similar possibilities to Delphi - OOP, database applications, web applications, GUIs, simulations. and just general programs that would let me calculate difficult stuff like 2+2. I didn't want to pay a giant licence fee so I looked around to see what was available and Python seemed to be what I wanted. Since I had some programming experience, I actually started with Mark Lutz's book "Programming Python". One of the reviewers of that book had a similar background to me in terms of programming experience. He stated that he had hacked his way through Mark's book (my summary of his words), so I decided to try that. Result...I could have done it, but I too felt that I was having to hack my way through a bit of jungle. So, I decided to take a step back and try a different approach. Don't get me wrong...I strongly suspect Mark's book is a perfect SECOND Python book and I look forward to giving it a great review when I've worked my way through it (notice I didn't say "hacked my way through it"). So, I bought Michael's book. And I'm delighted with it. It introduces subjects in a simple manner e.g. constructors and private methods in a program that contains just a few lines of code!!??!! OOP programming is difficult for some people to get their head around (I wonder if it's easier for people with no non-OOP background as opposed to us old hacks who didn't even know what an OOP was until we publicly embarrassed ourselves). But it also gets you into the basement of programming - loops, lists, reading and writing files etc etc. Brill! The writing style is terrific. It's light, humourous (in my part of the world, "humour" comes with a "u" ... or is that AN "u"?) and sometimes a little self-depracating. But it's fun to read...chapters are bite size...the examples are excellent. And Python is a truly great language in which to program (or "to program in" if you're not a grammar Nazi. Its developer has been classified "Benevolent Dictator for Life". What more can you ask? One minor criticism...it would be nice to have an exercise project/thread which started early in the book and developed throughout the book. By that I mean a thread which stands alone from the text. The exercises at the end of each chapter modify the author's code or present fairly simple new projects. It would be nice if readers could develop a program which is not related to the text/exercises but builds succesively chapter by chapter. Of course, programmers with experience can do this for themselves, but it might be handy for newbies. In summary, if you are interested in programming in Python, buy this book. It's a great book.
Author: ke2uke
Rating: 4
Review: I worked threw this book quite fast and it kept my interest mostly which is unique as I normally lose interest, FAST!. It starts out with all the basics on how to setup all the programs needed step by step and then goes into the basics of Python scripting. After it gets you familiar to the Python code it then teachs you how to apply that code and create a GUI using the "tkinter" package which is great and will boost your confidence and motivation with Python. Lastly it will introduce game programming threw a GUI using a modified pygame package, I would recommend skipping this and just learning Pygame, its alot more rewarding than using the modified package they teach and you will get alot more out of it as you will probably continue using Pygame far beyond this book. Note: When I talk about packages I am refering to code created by other people to make things easier for you by allowing you to use their code of 100 lines by typing just 5 lines, more or less. Thanks for reading. Enjoy.
