Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner, 3rd Edition

I was a little hesitant to buy this book since some reviews pointed out that due to a publisher change the sample files were no longer available for download. I grabbed the Kindle sample anyway, though, and found that the author's website (the url of which is in the book) has the files. So while it may be slightly confusing to have the wrong url in the text of the book, the author's website (which is also printed right in the front of the book) does have the files you need. So this criticism of the book is not warranted. Anyway, as for the book itself, I'm about halfway through and have found it very useful. I was taking a beginner's class in Python before buying this book, but since the classes were only once per week I wanted to learn faster. As such, I'm able to compare how this book teaches the concepts of Python programming against how the teachers in my class present the same concepts. And while there's no substitute for personal, interactive instruction, I can say that I'm very impressed by the readability of this book and the way it teaches programming. The code samples are very useful for showing how Python works, and the writing style is very easy to follow. He uses good analogies to illustrate concepts, and in general I've made steady progress through the book and am retaining a lot of knowledge. The searchability of the Kindle version is especially helpful, since it's easy to skip back to previous concepts if you need a quick refresher. Anyway, I just wanted to share my thoughts on this book and let people know that the code samples are indeed available, though the url in the book is sadly incorrect. But again, just check the author's website and you can obtain them, which is highly recommended because they do make the learning much more interactive and hands-on.

I have tried many programming books. I have even taken a programming class or two but it has never really clicked before. There have always been to many jumps from explanation to assumed understanding. I would get lost and things never clicked. Recently I decided to give programming another chance because I believed somewhere in the back of my mind that I should be able to figure this out. I have been a system administrator for years but have never delved into scripting or programming before because I thought maybe I was just never meant to be a programmer. I decided maybe it was just the way I learn. So I decided first to start out with a HeadFirst book. It lost me immediately. The way it was presented in that book definitely didn't click for me. I set back to the task of finding a book and came across this one. This is it. I love the way he goes through the code and then has you run it and then explains what every line of code is doing. This approach has finally made things start making sense. I am even able to figure out the Challenges at the end of the chapter and I am loving it! Thank you Michael Dawson! On another note...I notice that people are having problems finding the files that go with the book. If you take the link recommended it the book and then go to downloads it is rather confusing, but if you go to the link recommended in the book and then do a search for python and then take the link for this book, another screen will come up that will give you an option to view available downloads. Harder than it needs to be admittedly, but that is how I found them.

I am a beginner with respect to programming, and do not have a particularly technical background: I know almost no math though I know formal logic pretty well. I was interested in learning something about computer programming just for fun and have looked through a number of books about a number of languages. I even spent some time with C before I decided on Python. To an absolute beginner, it seemed a relatively intuitive language without some of the messy detail required by C, for example, about memory allocation. I chose this book simply because it looked fun and very clear. Each chapter focuses on tools needed to create games. I do not have any interest at all in playing computer games of any kind, but it is a relatively painless way to learn Python. I also found the exercises at the end of each chapter very good. They are hard enough but not too hard. They generally required a fair amount of time and effort, but I was able to finally figure out all of them. This is important since I am doing this on my own. The Cons: The book aims to be simple and brief, but sometimes it is too simple and brief. Yes I learned to get the computer to do this or that, but I did not fully get some of the concepts. In fact, I think the book moved on to fancy stuff like graphics before I got down all I needed of the basics such as file control. Perhaps someone who already knew something about programming would have had less trouble. For example, the material on writing to a file stored on the hard drive for future use was fine, as far as it went. But I realized, when trying to write a program of my own, that I did not understand a key point. If you have recorded some data to a file, and then want to revise that data, Python rewrites the entire file. Huh? What about my original data? It gets over written. There has to be a solution to this problem, but I did not find it in the book. After hours of work I devised a way to get the right result, but it was very messy and, when I posted a question on a Python forum, I found there was a simple way to do what I wanted. Maybe I am a bit thick, but I think this could have been directly covered in the book. There were several other topics that needed more discussion. Still, keeping in mind that this book only goes so far, it is a very good introduction to Python. But if you are serious about learning Python, at some point, you are going to need one of those big fat and far more boring books.

An excellent book for learning Python. The author progresses through the chapters slowly and methodically, threading multiple examples into each concept. The code, while simple, is fairly elegant. The source code can be downloaded from the publishers website (yes, you have to click around a little to find it - but cmon if someone thinks they're going to learn a programming language, that should not be a problem). The source code is simple anyways & I think its better to just type it in myself - that way helps to learn the syntax for ex. "if" works while "If" does not work, or a missing ":" shuts it down. I don't think I would have got that without typing all the source code examples. At the end of each chapter there are uusally 4 "challenges" and if you can do those, then you have pretty much learned the material. I would say this is the best beginning programming instruction book I have ever encountered.

Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner has a great premise: explain programming fundamentals and python language specifics with frequent "games" interspersed to show off new skills. The first six chapters follow the premise and include great explanations. They introduce basics like printing text and interpreting user-entered data and move on to arrays and functions. The games are simplistic but serve as great reinforcement or practice, and they come with challenges to ensure you really understand the concepts. However, beginning in chapter seven and continuing through the rest of the book, topics get increasingly complex while the explanations stay the same length. The code samples still work, but are increasingly difficult to follow, and the challenges appear more and more daunting. As other reviewers have mentioned, the book moves onto new topics without complete explanations of previous topics. After completing the book, you'll recognize objects and classes, graphical user interfaces, and basic games, but you won't feel confident enough in your skills to use any of this knowledge on your own unless you're supplementing this book with others. By the end of the book, you're "reproducing" a simple pizza-dropping game and a version of Asteroids, but most users will have no idea how to make their own game. Indeed, most beginners who start Python don't intend to use the language to build games! Rather than rushing to the games at the end of the book, I wish I could have spent more time really learning and understanding files and the principles of object-oriented programming; those skills would have set me up to continue learning about Python. However, if you'd like to have something to "show" at the end of the book, the games included are great to show off to friends!

Very easy to read, it is the first programming book outside of a forced C++ class that I have read and ENJOYED. Michael Dawson does an excellent job of presenting the material in a fun way. Most of the code examples are focused on creating games, which makes it even more fun. This book should replace all others when needing a resource to teach students or anyone new to programming. This book isn't only for new programmers, the topics get much more advanced in the 2nd half so it is also good for programmers learning another language. I also recommend getting a copy of Python Essential Reference (4th Edition) once you have mastered this book.

Ever since my first computer, a Commodore Plus 4 with its BASIC programming, died some twenty years ago I have been trying from time to time without success to find a way to write a computer program that would run on Windows. Over the course of the last year or two I have been persuaded that the Python language offered the best chances of achieving my goal but it was not until I received Python Programming for the Absolute beginner that I was able to at last understand and to write and run a program. The book progresses through the basic aspects of the language using examples and explanations of increasingly complex algorithms accompanied by suggested exercises for the reader to devise solutions for. I doubt that this will be the last Python book that I will need but it is a great way to get started.

First, to correct some misconceptions: The Python language environment is available for free at python dot org. To get the latest version, this is where to get it from. It comes pre-installed on Mac's, and most versions of Linux. HOWEVER, this book (3rd edition) requests that you do the exercises in version 3.1.x. The Mac, and most Linux machines come with version 2.5.x or 2.6.x right now. So you will want to download 3.1 even if Python is pre-installed on your machine. Windows doesn't come with Python pre-installed, so just select the 3.1.x version for x86 computers. The installer is EXCELLENT. I tested it on WinXP, Vista, Win7, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu Linux, and all are usable. Note that with WIN and Mac, when you save a file, you must put the .py extension when saving. Linux does it for you. The digital version exercises are hard to find. The book points you to the website, but not where they are on the site. One of the menu picks on the bottom of the screen will get you headed in the right direction. This is why I gave it 4 stars. Something like that should not be busted on a fairly new book. ==================================================================== Review: I was a commercial programmer from 1977-1992. So I had some experience with programming and know several languages. My children are 10 and 12 with no programming exposure. I wanted to teach them programming since it is not offered at their school. I picked Python since it's a high-level language that supports OOP (object oriented prog) yet can be used without it. From the first day, it had the kids begging for more, and Dad wasn't bored either. Yes, some of it is a bit (yawn) for me, but it was necessary for the kids to avoid confusion. The tasks use games as examples, which makes the lessons less tedious, if not outright fun. There are homework challenges at the end of each chapter, and working source code for the lesson tasks should you get lost. Whether there is a better book, I cannot say. But I do know it's about as good of a textbook as they come in my experience. If you are an experienced programmer, just make your tasks a bit harder, but do read every page. There is often a bit of humor, or a little insight that makes it worth the read.

I got this book, instead I could have bought the other one

This book explains things clearly and works slowly through concepts in progression. I have minimal programming experience from over 10 years ago and I've been slowly but steadily learning python in my spare time. As long as you have the aptitude for programming and the will to keep going, this is the guide you need. However, I've been using the second edition because python 3 is not yet used in my industry (film/VFX). It doesn't matter if you run windows, linux or a mac... once you get up and running the actual programming is the same.

This is an excellent book! I am a teacher with some programming experience and am in the process of setting up a new course, for my school, OCR GCSE Computing. I needed a computer language that was easy for teenagers to learn, cross-plaform (so it can run on Macs & Windows PCs), modern with the ability to introduce object orientated programming and to lead on to other languages such as Java. I have taught Java via the excellent BlueJ IDE and the wonderful book, " Objects First with Java: A Practical Introduction Using BlueJ ", but this is a bit advanced for 14 / 15 year olds. I did consider using "Greenfoot" with another great book - " Introduction to Programming with Greenfoot: Object-Oriented Programming in Java with Games and Simulations (Alternative Etext Formats) , but the OCR course needs more basic introduction to loops, if statements, and arrays and doesn't strictly need objects. As for Visual Basic - well too much fiddling with interface objects, not enough "pure" programming and besides not cross- platform. So I chose Python. Next step was to choose a tutorial style textbook, with lots of worked examples, exercises to test the students, a fun learning curve, basics and fundamental concepts explained, practically based and with lots of code to play with. I chose "Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner." I chose well, very well! This book does everything I wanted it to do. Chapters 1 to 7 cover all the programming requirements of the course. The teaching method of building up programming via coding simple games is great. The end of chapter challenges are just about right and some are quite challenging! Any bright and motivated students can easily move on to the rest of the book which introduces Object Orientated Programming. With this book under their belt they will be very good programmers. If they need or want to switch to Java, no problem - The concepts are very similar. I did have trouble, initially, trying to download the code examples from the publisher, but went straight to author's site - [...] - and no problem. So if you want to learn Python yourself, as an absolute beginner, and / or teach Python to absolute beginners this is the book for you and your students. Do not hesitate - buy it. (Oh do get the most recent edition - mine is the 3rd edition - as it is written for Python 3 which is the most up to date version of Python.)

Il libro è molto ben strutturato e molto chiaro. Mio figlio di 15 anni lo sta studiando con molto interesse. L'originale approccio, che usa la costruzione di giochi come mezzo per insegnare la programmazione in generale è davvero un'ottima idea, che l'autore ha realizzato in maniera davvero efficace ed esaustiva. Il testo è perfetto per far apprendere i fondamenti della programmazione ai ragazzi. La scelta di Python è ottima, perché Python dispone di un'interprete che consente un riscontro immediato anche a una singola istruzione e tuttavia consente di creare applicazioni che possono essere eseguite dal SO. Inoltre Python è, notoriamente, un linguaggio indipendente dal sistema operativo usato, anche se il libro fa riferimento soprattutto al suo uso in ambiente Windows.

Es ist ein klasse Buch, um Programmieren zu lernen, allerdings auch für Leute, die Spielen etwas abgewinnen können, denn die Beispiele und Challenges basieren darauf. Ich habe vor dem Buch in meinem Leben keine einzige Zeile Code geschrieben, nach dem Durchlesen konnte ich einige Game-Klassiker kopieren und mich in andere Richtungen weiterentwickeln.