Anything like "Effective Java" for Python?

[kj]

Subject line pretty much says it all: is there a book like "Effective
Java" for Python. I.e. a book that assumes that readers are
experienced programmers that already know the basics of the language,
and want to focus on more advanced programming issues?

~K

[Simon Brunning]

<http://www.packtpub.com/expert-python-programming/book> is good.

--
Cheers,
Simon B.

[Chris Withers]

kj wrote:
>
>
> Subject line pretty much says it all: is there a book like "Effective
> Java"

oxymoronic, no?

Sorry, couldn't resist ;-)

Chris

--
Simplistix - Content Management, Batch Processing & Python Consulting
- http://www.simplistix.co.uk

[Stefan Behnel]

Chris Withers, 10.03.2010 17:46:

> kj wrote:
>> Subject line pretty much says it all: is there a book like "Effective
>> Java"
>

> oxymoronic, no?
>
> Sorry, couldn't resist ;-)

Nothing to excuse for. I thought exactly the same thing.

Stefan

[James Harris]

I don't know about the Java book you mention but I find Python in a
Nutshell published by O'Reilly to be a good reference.

James

[Stefan Behnel]

James Harris, 11.03.2010 09:30:

There's also the Python Cookbook that has a couple of useful recipes that
can become handy at times.

http://code.activestate.com/recipes/langs/python/

Stefan

[kj]

In <mailman.561.12682395...@python.org> Chris Withers <ch...@simplistix.co.uk> writes:

>kj wrote:
>>
>>
>> Subject line pretty much says it all: is there a book like "Effective
>> Java"

>oxymoronic, no?

>Sorry, couldn't resist ;-)

I hear you, but still: read "Effective Java" some day; it will make
you a better programmer, whatever your language preference. I'm
certainly no fan of Java, but I still rank Effective Java as one
of my best reads on programming ever. I felt that my maturity as
a programmer went up a notch or two after digesting this book.

Cheers,

~K

[Steve Howell]

On Mar 11, 7:05 am, kj <no.em...@please.post> wrote:

I'll second that. I much prefer Python to Java, but Effective Java is
an excellent book.

Many of its topics would be applicable to Python, although the
solutions in Python would obviously be different.

Eliminate obsolete object references (use None to break reference
counts)
Avoid finalizers (use the "with" statement)
Favor immutability
Design method signatures carefully (including the x=[] gotcha)
Optimize judiciously
Don't ignore exceptions
Avoid excessive synchronization

There are also some topics in Effective Java where the advice is
almost the opposite of Python tradition.

[Kevin Walzer]

I haven't read "Effective Java," but I have found Lutz's "Programming
Python" to be a very useful guide to solving various programming issues
with the language. It's a big, big book, so there's lots to look at.

--
Kevin Walzer
Code by Kevin
http://www.codebykevin.com

[mk]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned Dive Into Python:

http://diveintopython.org/

Available for free online. Most Python books contain a lot of 'hello
world' material which for someone who knows at least one programming
language is boring, this one doesn't, it cuts straight to the point. I
found it very readable.

Regards,
mk

[Steve Holden]

Neo wrote:
> I have learned java for half a year and now I want to learn Python,
> should I learn python 3k or the traditional version?
>
That depends on whether you need to use specific libraries that haven't
yet been ported to Python 3. If so then start with Python 2. If not,
start with 3 - the differences are small enough that you can relatively
easily fall back to 2 if you need to get access to non-ported libraries.

regards
Steve

> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>
>

--
Steve Holden +1 571 484 6266 +1 800 494 3119
See PyCon Talks from Atlanta 2010 http://pycon.blip.tv/
Holden Web LLC http://www.holdenweb.com/
UPCOMING EVENTS: http://holdenweb.eventbrite.com/

[Gabriel Rossetti]

Effective Java is a good book, it is not like most people responding to
this topic a "how to program in Java"
book but a "I know how to program in Python, but I want it to run fast
and use a minimal amount of memory".
I would have liked to have such a book for Python when I was past the
language learning stage.

Gabriel

[John Bokma]

Gabriel Rossetti <gabriel....@arimaz.com> writes:

> kj wrote:
>>
>> Subject line pretty much says it all: is there a book like "Effective
>> Java" for Python. I.e. a book that assumes that readers are
>> experienced programmers that already know the basics of the language,
>> and want to focus on more advanced programming issues?
>

> Effective Java is a good book, it is not like most people responding
> to this topic a "how to program in Java"

I had more the feeling that these responses were more of the "Look, you
actually need a book to learn how to program effectively in Java
*snigger*" fanboism.

> book but a "I know how to program in Python, but I want it to run fast
> and use a minimal amount of memory".
> I would have liked to have such a book for Python when I was past the
> language learning stage.

High Performance Python by Anthony Lewis (Author), et al. (*snigger*!)

might be such a book but we have to wait a few more months:
Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (September 15, 2010)
(It has been on my wish list for several months)

To the OP: right now, Dive into Python is clearly written with people
who have experience with programming in mind. I've both the Python 2 and
Python 3 version (books). You can download a version of each for free:

http://www.google.com/search?q=dive%20into%20python

--
John Bokma j3b

Hacking & Hiking in Mexico - http://johnbokma.com/
http://castleamber.com/ - Perl & Python Development