Overview
Ask any Python aficionado and you'll hear that Python programmers have it all: an elegant language that offers object-oriented programming support, a readable, maintainable syntax, integration with C components, and an enormous collection of precoded standard library and extension modules. Moreover, Python is easy to learn but powerful enough to take on the most ambitious programming challenges. But what Python programmers have lacked is one concise and clear reference resource, with the appropriate measure of guidance in how best to use Python's great power. Now Python in a Nutshell fills this need.
In the tradition of O'Reilly's "In a Nutshell" series, this book offers Python programmers one place to look when they need help remembering or deciphering the syntax of this open source language and its many modules. This comprehensive reference guide makes it easy to look up all the most frequently needed information—not just about the Python language itself, but also the most frequently used parts of the standard library and the most important third-party extensions.
Python in a Nutshell focuses on Python 2.2 (and all its point releases), currently the most stable and widespread Python release. This book includes:
- A fast-paced tutorial on the syntax of the Python language itself
- An explanation of object-oriented programming in Python, covering both the classic and new-style object models
- Coverage of other core topics, including exceptions, modules, strings, and regular expressions
- A quick reference for Python's built-in types and functions, as well as the key modules in the Python standard library, including sys, os, time, thread, math, and socket, among many others
- Reference material on important third-party extensions, such as Numeric and Tkinter
- Information about extending Python and embedding it into other applications
Revised and expanded for Python 2.5, this book now contains the details of Python's new subprocess module and the latest from Microsofts' IronPython project. This easy scripting language comes with a huge library that is enormously rich with highlights of all modules and functions which cover well over 90 percent of users' practical programming needs.
Synopsis
This new title offers Python programmers one place to look when they need help remembering or deciphering the most important tools and modules of this open source language.
Slashdot.org
Perhaps the best book about Python ever written, this is the perfect capstone to anyone's library of Pythonic books, and also the perfect introduction to Python for anyone well versed in other programming languages.