Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Title is very accurate: "Learning"
Comment: If you want to LEARN Python, this book is a good place to start. The syntax is thoroughly covered, but if you have not had experience with a pointer-based language (C or C++), you may have a difficult time grasping the concept of references.
The book does not cover more advanced topics like sockets and threads. I believe the "Programming Python" book covers those topics. I also have not seen any mention of databases or extensions like PyGreSQL.
Basically, if you want to learn the language, this is your book. If you want to code professionally in Python, you will need at least another book in conjunction with this one or instead of this one.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Python is very productive
Comment: This book is pretty good for an introduction to Python. Coming from a C++ background and a strongly typed enviroment, it was kind of weird to get use to the language but this book outlines the key ponts in the language so that it is easy to learn. I was wrting programs in Python in just a few days. And I was able to write them in a much faster rate than in C++. A tree program took me 2 hours to write in Python where in C++, took me 10 hours.
Customer Rating:
Summary: great book to start with
Comment: very good for beginners who's like to get a systematic and comprehensive grasp of Python.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Learning Python, Second Edition
Comment: Overall this is a well-written book. I highly recommend it to a person learning Python. The concepts are well explained with an economy of words. Some programming books are dry; whereas I found this book answering questions that a person learning Python (like me) has. The authors give a background on the language and do a good job discussing the language. The book is well laid out and has a decent amount of white space in the margins for notes.
The index was fairly good, but has room for improvement in having more entries in it so that key concepts can be zeroed in on quickly. One feature that would have helped would be to have longer program examples listed in the book. Solutions are provided in the back of the book. This comes in handy in case one gets stuck doing an exercise and/or provides insight to an alternative approach. If a person is going to learn Python, this book will definitely get them boot strapped quickly.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Thorough introduction but slow and not good for reference
Comment: I would never try to use this book as a reference. It was not designed and it's not good for that.
It was designed as your first book on Python, especially if this is your first programming language. As such, it gives you a really thorough and extensive introduction written by a renowed authority. The parts on functional programming, Python's OOP and modules lay the solid foundation for the future Python programmer. Beware though: compared to similar "foundation" books in other languages' realms, this one is slow-paced, limited in scope, wordy and even redundant at times.
If you already know a language like C++, Java or Perl, and especially if you've already written some Python code, then this book is not your best choice: it will seem terribly slow paced, tedious, bloated and of no value as a reference (which is what an experienced programmer like you really needs most of the time). In this case, you could use a short and freely available tutorial like Guido's, then a good reference book like Python in a Nutshell and maybe some more advanced books like Python Cookbook and Python 2.1 Bible (provided there will be a new edition).
As an intermediate or experienced programmer, you may still benefit from Lutz's "textbook". You may want to skim quickly through the first 3 Parts (which make 180 pages of beginner's stuff you've learned in highschool, decorated with the occasional gem toward the end of some chapters), then slow down a bit for the rest of the book and pay special attention to chapters 14, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, and 27. This book has too many chapters for my taste, btw.
Part VIII, written by another authority (David Ascher), is a little too short and still bad for reference. In the next edition, I hope it will be expanded to a reasonable level of detail. I found the coverage of regular expressions particularly disappointing -- probably because they are covered by Mr Lutz's other book, Programming Python, which was supposed to be your second book. The exercises at the end of each Part are not the most interesting and useful I know of.
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