Reviews

Review: Python Basics (4th Edition)

The latest version of Python Basics by David Amos, Dan Bader, Joanna Jablonski and Fletcher Heisler was published last week. It has been updated to take advantage of recent versions of Python to 3.9 and is a fantastic resource for the beginner / advanced beginner.

If you are new to Python or hoping to develop beyond basic scripts then this contains so much useful guidance. Each section has clear steps, and is backed up by review exercises for you to solidify your learning.

The structure begins with installing Python cleanly on your machine, covering all major OSes. It progresses through writing your first program, Strings, Number types, Functions and Loops. It then delves into debugging, conditional logic, data structures, OOP, modules and packages, then File input and output, and finally managing packages with pip. The final third of the book strings these together helping you build practical programs: creating and modifying PDFs, working with SQLite and other databases, web scraping, and using NumPy and MatplotLib. Finally, you build some small GUI applications. The latter is something I've shied away from but I'll definitely have a go having read this.

I read the full book in three or four evenings - and it is suggested you can work through all of the examples and exercises in under 40 hours.

My one gripe is that it lacks an index which is almost unforgivable in a book of 635 pages and so much detail.

Despite that, I'd highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to get started with Python - or looking to solidify their understanding of current v3.9 syntax or capability.

You can get a copy through Amazon Smile and support Code The City, our charity, in the process. Other suppliers are available.