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Python Guide

Started by Kit, 2006-11-15T00:03:37-06:00 (Wednesday)

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Kit

If any of you are interested in learning more Python, and find that the actual documentation is a bit much to take in all at once, you might like this downloadable book:

A Byte Of Python
SIUe Computer Science Graduate

Rick Lynch

I like this book. It is easy to learn from.
Rick Lynch - Junior
Applied Mathematics Major
(Don't let this fool you. I love CS as well!)

Kit

Well I'm glad you like it!

(I'm also amazed you found this post haha)
SIUe Computer Science Graduate

Rick Lynch

To be honest, I am also amazed, haha. Well, I guess it would help if the forums were a bit more updated... I think I just went to suggested downloads and it was one of the ones in the middle.
Rick Lynch - Junior
Applied Mathematics Major
(Don't let this fool you. I love CS as well!)

William Grim

I haven't read that book on Python, but I do think the online tutorial is quite good.  It really gives you all the necessary info you need to get started right away, while leaving some of the more obscure facets of Python to you to determine from the other documents on the site.

Some things that should be mentioned about Python's current implementation:
1) In my own benchmarks, it can perform up to 300x slower for number crunching applications.
2) CPython (the primary Python distribution) is single-threaded, which means that multiple threads are simulated in a single-threaded environment.  This was good during the single-core days, but it is no longer true with the advent of multiple cores.
3) It uses reference counting for its garbage collector.  This can lead to issues such as memory leaks when your code calls native code that holds a reference to a Python object and then raises an exception before releasing the reference.  You should really be using RAII principles in native code, but that is beside the point.

However, having made those points, I just have to say I'm a Python fanboy.  Though, when Perl 6 gets released with its new object model and syntax, I might just zip over to there since they have a massive amount of libraries and probably some proper multithreading capabilities.
William Grim
IT Associate, Morgan Stanley

chopper

This Python is interesting I might try to learn it but after my .net project finish.