What is Reddit's opinion of Python Essential Reference?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

What initially caught my attention was the example used throughout the course (a stock portfolio). Using the example below, he walks through different scenarios while increasing the difficulty (goes from scripts, functions, classes including Inheritance, Encapsulation, iterators and Generators, Coroutines, etc), and explains everything along the way.

For example, he’s like what If this was a csv file and I wanted to read it? What if I wanted to create data quality checks? What if I wanted to create a class to handle reading this file? What if I wanted to create a class to output the portfolio in html? Csv file? So on, and so on. Even though I didn't really understand anything past classes (until I watched the video like 10 times), I was reassured by who was presenting (Beazley seems to be kind of a rockstar in Python community) and ultimately decided that what he was talking about was worth knowing.

https://www.amazon.com/Python-Essential-Reference-David-Beazley/dp/0672329786

example used in course:

name, date, shares, price

AA,2007-06-11,100,32.20

IBM,2007-05-13,50,91.10

CAT,2006-09-23,150,83.44

MSFT,2007-05-17,200,51.23

GE,2006-02-01,95,40.37

MSFT,2006-10-31,50,65.10

IBM,2006-07-09,100,70.44

I would recommend you to start with David Beazley's python essential reference - if you know how to program, it will get you up to speed quickly and still provides a good reference. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0672329786/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0672328623&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0VPRA9R4NQAN39563V8E

You can use Beazley's book for both learning and as a reference. This is the best language reference book I have ever used.

I like Dave Beazley's book, though it may be a little tough for a noob as it's a real reference. The beginning does have a quick introduction to python, but it doesn't try to teach python. The rest of the book is a reference for many of the library modules.

Another one to consider is Doug Hellmann's book. If you like his online Python module of the week site you'll like the book.

Both of the above books are references to using the library modules. Once you know the base language this is the sort of reference you need. If you are still learning base python then you need some other reference until you are ready for books like the two above. The nice thing about Amazon is that you can download a free e-book sample before buying, though it's probably wise to do a final check of the paper version before buying as an e-book can be very different from the paper version (usually worse, but who knows). The Hellmann e-book is particularly bad in this respect.

I use this:

https://www.amazon.com/Python-Essential-Reference-David-Beazley/dp/0672329786/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_dt_b_asin_image

There may be newer editions out there.

Not really, since I learned python as a experienced programmer, so I just read the python doc and an excellent reference book. This subreddit does have learning resources that they recommend, so you could look at those.

I would recommend the learning resources in the wiki. The link is to resources for people new to python but not programming.

I used multiple editions of this book a lot when moving to python. It's a bit old now, but there's a new version being released soon.

If you like paper books get a copy of Python Essential Reference. After a brief introduction to python it goes through very many standard library modules plus example code. Just the thing for when you need to know how the mumble module works. I've owned every edition from the 2nd and I'm waiting for the 5th edition. If you want an e-book edition be very careful about the formatting of code samples in the e-book. Kindle books are known for major problems with computer code formatting.

An online resource others have mentioned is Python Module of the Week one of my favourite online resources. The e-book version of this on Amazon is one particularly bad example of code formatting.

Python Essential Reference, by any mean, after Learning Python.

This is a little clumsy (too many words, kinda repetitive and a typo?):

> and will give you more insight in how to get started with more tools than only your browser

Also, you only need one book: http://www.amazon.com/Python-Essential-Reference-4th-Edition/dp/0672329786