With the exception of K&R, It’s very rare to see “Learn Language X” books in people’s list of best/favorite programming books of all time. Bill Lubanovic’s “Introducing Python” has immediately vaulted into my top tier of programming books--and I’ve read too many to count and don’t give out this distinction easily.
Being the geek that I am, I analyzed about 30 Python books through Amazon before deciding this book was the best match for where I was at. Looking at each book’s table of contents will tell you a lot. As a long time Ruby developer making the switch to Python, I noticed that almost all Python books were targeting either (1) new programmers (2) experienced Pythonistas or (3) folks who wanted to focus on only a particular aspect of the language, such as Data Science. I also wanted a book that was well reviewed and up-to-date (at least at the time of my December 2017 purchase).
Not only was this book the right choice, it was such a good technical text in general that I had to write a review about it. Here are some of the characteristics I found worthy of note:
1.) The book length is just right. Not too long and not too short. About 350 pages if you don’t count the appendices. Also a steal at under $20 at the time of this writing.
2.) It starts from the very basics of Python but gets into some deep(ish) territory without either (1) making the assumption that you have instantly become an expert at some point in the middle of the book (too many technical texts fail here) or (2) going into rabbit holes that won’t be relevant for the type of Python developer that would be reading this book
3.) The humor is perfect. It is not forced at all, not overdone and appears in just the right places.
4.) Covers some interesting areas that most intro language books don’t touch upon: web programming, concurrency, networking (sockets!), why queueing systems are all the rage these days, NoSQL, and a full chapter of miscellany about being a Pythonista which covers things like IDEs, testing, debugging, timing code, conferences, websites of interest, linting, etc.
5.) There are no code samples where the author is overcomplicating things unnecessarily. This is a failure of many technicals authors. Lubanovic makes most code snippets as simple as possible to demonstrate the concept he is teaching.
And to be fair, my minor quibbles:
1.) Redis gets quite a bit of coverage (relatively)
2.) The section on decorators was the only section in the book where I read it and I couldn’t wrap my head around how it was working given the examples. Could just be me though.
3.) I would have liked to see a little more coverage of unit testing (e.g. pytest?)
Highly recommended. If you’re a somewhat experienced engineer looking to get up to speed on Python, look no further.
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