Python Resources
Python is a scripting language that is easy to learn, powerful and
fun
to use.
There are many excellent, free resources available on the Internet to
help you learn and use Python. I list some here, many of these links
will take you to other sites as well. Please explore!
Why Python?
These sites evangelize Python in various
ways:
What is
Python? summarizes all that is cool about Python.
The story of Eric Raymond's journey to Python is
here.
The students at Yorktown High School made a fun and informative video
about Python.
An edited version, which is much smaller than the original, is here.
In this essay I give some of the reasons I like Python, with comparisons to Java in many cases.
Getting Started
The official Python web site is http://www.python.org.
The documentation that comes
with
Python is very good. If you are an experienced programmer, it may be all you need to get started.
Download the distribution and
read the tutorial.
For Beginners
The Beginner's
Guide to Python lists many helpful resources including installation
instructions and background material.
Python
for Non-Programmers lists several tutorials aimed at beginning programmers.
This page
lists several books suitable for beginners.
When you get stuck or have a question, join the
python-tutor mailing list
where you will find many friendly, helpful people.
The LiveWires
Python
Course is taught to teenagers at summer camp. The LiveWires
worksheets
include explanations and guided exercises including some graphics and
games.
LiveWires includes two modules that simplify graphics programming with
Tkinter
and Pygame.
Slightly more advanced...
Dave Kuhlman's Python 101 and Python 201 guides provide quick introductions to Python with many links to further details.
How to Think Like a
Computer Scientist: Learning with Python is an introduction to
computer science that also teaches Python programming.
Dive Into Python is an
introduction to Python for experienced programmers.
Steve Ferg's web site
has a variety of Python resources.
Common mistakes and gotchas
Much as I love Python, I have to admit that it isn't perfect and there are some common mistakes
that trip up beginners. Here are some good references:
(This list is excerpted from a
post
by Gene Tani to comp.lang.python.)
Graphics and GUI Programming
There are several packages available for graphics programming in Python.
Tkinter is perhaps the oldest and most common graphics package. It
comes
with the standard Python distribution on Windows. On MacOSX you must
install TclTkAqua and rebuild Python (recipe).
The Python
web site has a page of Tkinter
resources and the standard documentation
has a section
on Tkinter (in the Library Reference). Here is a Tkinter Wiki.
Two other resources for learning Tkinter are An
Introduction
to Tkinter and Thinking in
Tkinter.
wxPython is another popular GUI
library
for Python. It is based on wxWidgets (formerly known as wxWindows). wxPython has many more standard widgets than Tkinter and seems to be the wave of the future.
Python bindings are also available for MFC (win32all), GTK (pyGTK) and Qt (pyQt).
Pygame is a graphics library
oriented
towards writing games, though it can also be used for other
graphics-intensive
applications. Start
Programming is an online course that teaches Python programming
using Pygame with a
wrapper called pygsear.
Teaching Programming
with
Pygame also has some Pygame information.
Books
I recommend Learning Python and
Jython
Essentials
for beginners with some programming background. If you have no previous programming experience, you
might like Python
Programming for the absolute beginner (read my review). Another good beginner's book is Python Programming: An
Introduction to Computer Science.
Python
in a Nutshell is an excellent descriptive summary of the Python
language and libraries.
Python
Cookbook has many recipes for specific tasks. It is a good way to
stretch your knowledge of Python. The on-line Python
cookbook is another source for code snippets.
There is an extensive list of introductory books here.
Many of them have on-line versions.
I buy most of my technical books from bookpool.com,
their prices are usually lower than those at Amazon.com.
Useful Modules
The path module
is very helpful if you work with file and directory
paths.
It does many of the same things as os.path but it is much easier to
use.
The ElementTree
module is a good tool for simple processing of XML files.
As of Python 2.5, it is included in the standard library as
xml.etree.ElementTree.
