Concise python3 tutorial 2. Preface

Python may be one of the few simple and powerful programming languages. This is conducive to beginners and even experts, and more importantly, the fun of programming with it. This book aims to help you understand this magical language and show you how to accomplish things quickly and easily-in fact, "a perfect solution to programming problems !"

Readers of this book

This book can be used as a guide or tutorial for the python programming language. It is mainly designed for beginners, but it is also useful for experienced programmers.

The goal is that even if you only know how to save files, you can still learn python from this book. If you have previous programming experience, you can also learn python from this book.

If you have programming experience, you will be interested in the differences between Python and your favorite programming languages-I have already emphasized many of these differences. But I would like to remind you that python will soon become the programming language you are most interested in.

History

I first started with Python when I needed to write an installer for software I had written called 'Diamond 'So that I cocould make the installation easy. I had to choose between Python and Perl Bindings for the QT library. I did some research on the web and I came authentication SS an article by Eric S. raymond, the famous and respected hacker, where he talked about how Python had become his favorite programming language. I also found out that the pyqt bindings were more mature compared to Perl-QT. so, I decided that python was the language for me.

Then, I started searching for a good book on python. I couldn't find any! I did find some O 'Reilly books but they were either too expensive or were more like a reference manual than a guide. so, I settled for the documentation that came with python. however, it was too brief and small. it did give a good idea about Python but was not complete. I managed with it since I had previous programming experience, but it was unsuitable for newbies.

About six months after my first brush with python, I installed the (then) latest Red Hat 9.0 Linux and I was playing around with kword. I got excited about it and suddenly got the idea of writing some stuff on python. I started writing a few pages but it quickly became 30 pages long. then, I became serious about making it more useful in a book form. afterLotOf rewrites, it has reached a stage where it has become a useful guide to learning the Python language. I consider this book to be my contribution and trigger to the open source community.

This book started out as my personal notes on Python and I still consider it in the same way, although I 've taken a lot of effort to make it more palatable to others :)

In the true spirit of open source, I have received lots of constructive suggestions, criticisms and feedback from enthusiastic readers which has helped me improve this book a lot.

Status of the book

Changes since the last major revision in March 2005 is updating for the python 3.0 release (released in December 2008 ). since the python 3.0 language itself is still not finalized/released, this book is constantly undergoing changes. however, in the spirit of the open source philosophy of "release early, release often", the updated book has been released and is constantly being updated.

The book needs the help of its readers such as yourselves to point out any parts of the book which are not good, not comprehensible or are simply wrong. please write to the main author or the respective translators with your comments and suggestions.

It's a constant tussystemic to balance this book between a beginner's needs and the tendency towards 'completeness 'of information. it wowould be helpful if readers also gave feedback on how much depth this book shoshould go.

Official Website

The official website of this book is http://www.swaroopch.com/notes/python. you can read it online, download the latest version of this book, buy a printed version, and send me suggestions.

License

1. This book is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-nonequalcial-Share Alike 3.0 unported license.

    

   • This means:

      

     • You are free to share I. e. to copy, distribute and transmit this book
     • You are free to remix I. e. to adapt this book
   • Under the following conditions:
     • Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of this book ).
     • Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.
   • For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this book.
   • Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
   • Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.
2. AttributionMustBe shown by linking back to http://www.swaroopch.com/notes/Python and clearly indicating that the original text can be fetched from this location.
3. All the code/scripts provided in this book is licensed under the 3-clause BSD license unless otherwise noted.
4. Volunteer contributions to this original book must be under this same licenseAndThe Copyright must be assigned to the main author of this book.

Feedback

I have put in a lot of effort to make this book as interesting and as accurate as possible. however, if you find some material to be inconsistent or incorrect, or simply needs improvement, then please do inform me, so that I can make suitable improvements. you can reach me via my user page.

Buy the book

If you wish to support the continued development of this book, please consider purchasing a printed copy or making a donation.

Something to think about

There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is
Make it so simple that there are obviusly no deficiencies; the other
Is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.

-C. A. R. Hoare

Success in life is a matter not so much of talent and opportunity
Of concentration and perseverance.

-C. W. wendte