The authors of Learning Python show you enough essentials of the Python scripting language to enable you to begin solving problems right away, then reveal more powerful aspects of the language one at a time. This approach is sure to appeal to programmers and system administrators who have urgent problems and a preference for learning by semi-guided experimentation.

First off, Learning Python shows the relationships among Python scripts and their interpreter (in a mostly platform-neutral way). Then, the authors address the mechanics of the language itself, providing illustrations of how Python conceives of numbers, strings and other objects as well as the operators you use to work with them. Dictionaries, lists, tuples and other data structures specific to Python receive plenty of attention including complete examples.

Authors Mark Lutz and David Ascher build on that fundamental information in their discussions of functions and modules, which evolve into coverage of namespaces, classes and the object-oriented aspects of Python programming. There's also information on creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for Python applications with Tkinter.

In addition to its careful expository prose, Learning Python includes exercises that both test your Python skills and help reveal more elusive truths about the language.

2008-04-26 Good grounding in concepts, but needs more contextualising

I've been learning Python from this book now for a few months. The book is well written, it's clear and the authors 'take care' of the reader. However I doubt whether many total beginners (as I was and still am) are going to read this book and finish feeling that they can now go away and start to work out how to write a decent, simple program. The problem as I see it is that whilst there are good, well explained examples of what a FOR loop might be, and what you would be typing if you want to use functions, WHY you might be wanting to do this is often not covered. It's a bit like learning French by learning the punctuation, the alphabet, the pronunciation, and the vocabulary without knowing what the meaning of the words are, how they are used or how to make sentences. Many more examples of how one might display graphical output for budding gamewriters, or how one might use Windows style interfaces for those who want to write applications are needed for the content of this book to make sense. What is missing here is 'the point' behind learning to program. It's a very 'bottom-up' approach.

Having said that, this book is great for when you might need clarification on elements of Python, and as a general detailed resource on Python fundamentals.