Learn Python The Hard Way 2nd Edition Released

by Ntagg • 15 years ago

243 58 15 years ago

creativeone2• 15 years ago

What is the advantage of the course (on discount today)?

Ntagg4• 15 years ago

The course is on sale at AppSumo: http://www.appsumo.com/learn-python-promo/?act=dealtwt (referral code comes from the original source -- does not belong to me)

The course includes video lectures and a Q&A feature. I have not taken the course, but I really liked the first edition book.

zedshaw10• 15 years ago

The course has 8 (I might do more) videos where I go through most of the exercises and show you how to do them with tips as I go. You basically get to watch me make mistakes typing the exercises in and learn how I do it. In addition to that I answer questions people ask on the site.

rgarcia• 15 years ago

What's new in the 2nd edition? Couldn't find a list of updates/additions anywhere.

sigzero5• 15 years ago

For lack of an FAQ:

https://gitorious.org/learn-python-the-hard-way/learn-python...

shii• 15 years ago

Reading the git log for the site with some of the book mixed in isn't the greatest way for a student to figure out what's changed...

Zed, I think many people would really appreciate a changelog of some sorts between the two versions.

edit: also see this comment by Zed which basically goes over what's changed: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2700557

Ntagg4• 15 years ago

I can't tell either. You can review the new edition in HTML for free here: http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/

bstar• 15 years ago

I think the new version has an updated section for the rails 3.1 assets engine...

...Oops, I thought this was Learn Ruby the Easy Way with an introduction by DHH and Ryan Bigg. Sorry.

zedshaw10• 15 years ago

I just put that on the main site page. I've basically rewritten exercises 50,51, and 52 to have you create a web application out of the game in 41 and 42. I also rewrote 41 and 42 to be a more challenging game that's a bit more complex to create. Finally I fixed bugs and errors in about 50% of the exercises, mostly minor typos here and there.

Sukotto2• 15 years ago

LPTHW has a good rep, but it looks like it focuses on teaching someone who's never programmed before.

Would anyone like to recommend something similar for people already well versed in (a) mainstream language(s)?

zedshaw10• 15 years ago

http://docs.python.org/tutorial/

then do:

http://www.djangobook.com/en/2.0/

But, I'll also say, LPTHW is deceptively simple. Try doing it anyway, since if you know a language already you can blaze through it, and when you get to around 30 or so it sneaks up behind you.

Sukotto2• 15 years ago

Thanks Zed. I'll have a look.

(What's that about 30?)

ineedtosleep• 15 years ago

Coming from experience with the last version, it definitely does sneak up behind you around part 30. The pacing and attitude for programming is the reason why this is one of the books I recommend to people starting to learn general programming. Specifically for me, however, I need something a bit more concise as when I'm in programming mode I tend to lose focus when there's too much fluff.

But anyway, great job.

beaumartinez• 15 years ago

Try Dive Into Python 3[1] (although it deals with Python 3, it's more recent than the original Dive Into Python and a lot of what it teaches {to not say everything} is applicable to Python 2, and it touches on the potentially troublesome bytes-Unicode difference).

It's a good, well-informed, easy read.

[1] http://diveintopython3.org/

bradleyland• 15 years ago

Don't let that stop you from trying the book. I started programming "way back when" in ASP/VBScript. These days we're a RoR shop, but I needed to pick up Python rather quickly for a side project.

LPTHW is structured well for beginners, but it just so happens it's structured well for pros too. The exercises are a great way to discover portions of Python that aren't intuitive to you. You'll hit roadblocks where your code won't run. That's when you'll really learn.

pyarch• 15 years ago

"LPTHW is structured well for beginners" absolutely !

jarnold• 15 years ago

I would still recommend it, even to those who know how to program. A lot of the book is just non-stop typing as fast as you can. The benefit to me was how it improved my 'muscle memory' when actually sitting down to write something on my own. There was less stumbling over little things like -- "how do import a library again? 'require?' 'load?'"

As with most things, you get out of it what you put into it. For example, I wrote unit tests in one of the 'extra credit' assignments to explain a bunch of python's symbols.

civilian• 15 years ago

http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkpython.html

Think Python is fantastic, it was our "textbook" in a python course.

sigzero5• 15 years ago

I am doing all of it with Python 3. So far, very little needs changing to make the examples work. Very clean and concise. Thanks Zed.

RexRollman• 15 years ago

So this targets an earlier version of Python?

sigzero5• 15 years ago

Yes, the 2.x series. I am learning with Python 3 because of a class I am taking and supplementing with Zed's tutorial and just writing the examples in Python 3 format. So far, so good. I might hit a snag when I get to the web.py stuff but I will try to convert that to P3 before using it. All of it rolled together is helping me a lot.

listic• 15 years ago

Yes, and for a reason. Python 3 is still not widely adopted [sic].

Python 3 Wall of Shame: http://python3wos.appspot.com/

bane• 15 years ago

Awesome! 1st ed was invaluable to my co-Founder when she started learning Python for our startup a few months ago.

rubergly• 15 years ago

Does anyone know of any good books for people that are proficient with Python and want to learn more about the language and come closer to being an expert?

The idea of LPTHW has always seemed cool, but I've looked at the table of contents a couple of times and thought "huh, 80% of these topics seem trivial to me"; maybe I could still benefit by skimming through and reading anything that I don't already know. Also, it's kind of a bummer that there's no .mobi version.

zedshaw10• 15 years ago

Yeah, LPTHW isn't for you if you already know Python. I guess I would recommend Mark Lutz books, but really, if you are already proficient in Python then I'd say go out and read code and implement algorithms in Python to learn more.

As for .mobi version, it's a pain in the ass to generate it well enough for a "code book". It's supposed to be coming out on the Kindle store soon, but all of my previews of it just look like junk. I got it as close as I could, but .mobi just doesn't cut it when there's strictly formatted code. If you've got a suggestion on making code look nice in .mobi I'd love to hear it.

edj• 15 years ago

Amazon recommends using JPEGs to display table data in Kindle books. Perhaps the same solution could work with code in .mobi files.

jerf• 15 years ago

With no sarcasm intended, carefully read over the Python manual, sentence by sentence, every so often. You'll learn something each time for quite a few iterations. Things that seemed a mass of pointless double-underscores will start to make sense.

Plus, you can't understand the solution until you encounter the problem. Reading the language manual every so often after you've encountered more problems is often enlightening. I've been working through the bash man page this way for years. (It's taking me a while because I don't really do much shell scripting, so I don't encounter very many problems that I need solutions to.)

Ntagg4• 15 years ago

Zed, are you going to be writing any other books for Python, like Python 3 or more advanced topics? Maybe "Advanced Python the Hard Way?"

zedshaw10• 15 years ago

Nope, I'm not writing any more Python books, instead I'm writing a book on C.

codebsd• 15 years ago

Cool...when's that coming out?

Troll_Whisperer• 15 years ago

If you're open to suggestions, I and I'm sure lots of others would love to see one for objective C.

nospoolin• 15 years ago

Just bought the PDF, Damn paypal tricket me into paying $1.00 with billmelater =/

ltamake• 15 years ago

Just bought a copy for my iPad. I look forward to reading it!

nin_appa• 15 years ago

Has the book "Learn C the hard way" released yet?

telemachos• 15 years ago

There's an open Git repo for it[1], but so far it's quiet. (Stick the repo's RSS feed into your favorite feed reader to see when it updates.)

[1] https://gitorious.org/learn-c-the-hard-way

zedshaw10• 15 years ago

I've laid a stake in the ground for it, and will start writing it for sure in a couple of weeks. I sort of need a break after this. :-)

jolosan• 15 years ago

Now on exercise 15! Best US$1 I've ever spent so far! Thanks Zed!

zedshaw10• 15 years ago

Glad you're liking it, and thanks for buying it.

ChikkaChiChi• 15 years ago

I just picked this up on AppSumo. I'm coming from PHP and C, so this will be a nice chance to try out Python.

malabar• 15 years ago

Thanks Zed, I just bought the epub for my kindle. I am going to give it a go.

cvg• 15 years ago

Planning to buy the paperback. While checking out the paperback info, I noticed that the pdf is still free on lulu.

amirmc• 15 years ago

So it is. When I saw it was $1 for the PDF of v2 I didn't think twice. Been using v1 and pretty pleased with it so far and I was happy to pay such a low amount for v2.

Might buy the paperback in time just so I can have it on my bookshelf.

zedshaw10• 15 years ago

Yeah, I changed that. I was trying to give people who bought the paper versions the PDF for free, but lulu considers "free" to mean you get it without buying the book. I've had to remove that option for now since they don't allow it.

On a side note: WTF is up with these companies? This stuff isn't hard, but the whole time I'm trying to do this it's been nothing but friction. So annoying.

cantbecool• 15 years ago

This reminds me of Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl. I love the idea of the book being online in HTML for free, but you can pay for a better learning experience: screencasts, PDF files, and online training courses.

mhartl2• 15 years ago

It reminds me of the same thing, and I think it's a great trend. I wonder why Zed only charges $1 for the PDF/ePub, though. Maybe he doesn't realize how much people are willing to pay? I still sell lots of copies of the Ruby on Rails 3 Tutorial PDF at $26, and I previously sold hundreds of copies at $39. I bet he's leaving a lot of money on the table with his current pricing scheme.

Maybe it's not just about the money? It isn't for me, either. But when the HTML version is 100% free, people have little grounds to complain about the price of an e-book. (Indeed, I've never received a single complaint about the price of any Rails Tutorial product.)

zedshaw10• 15 years ago

Actually, I researched it quite a bit, and I found I had 300k downloads of the PDF last year, but that 150k of those were from bookmarks into the middle of the PDF. My hypothesis is that 1/2 of the readers want HTML they can bookmark, and 1/2 want to download a PDF. I'm guessing that if I set the price of the download really low, then I'll get more downloads and purchases than just a few hundred.

We'll see how it turns out. I'll be writing about it shortly. Interestingly enough, people seem to be willing to pay $2.99 for an ePub version. I may try doing two prices if that's the case.

aorshan• 15 years ago

What are the advantages of using this book over the online tutorials that are available on the python website or even using some of the MIT OpenCourseWare courses?

karlzt• 15 years ago

"This book teaches a lot more than the basics of programming, and python. It teaches important life skills in every facet of life: attention to detail, persistence & that dedicated practice and application lead to results." ~ taotetek

Ideka• 15 years ago

I checked the first couple of sections, and I'm sure learning Python "the Hard Way" would have been much more exciting than reading the official documentation... Oh, well. What is done is done.

capkutay• 15 years ago

love this book. very little verbal fluff, allows the reader to figure out the material on their own with the exercises and extra credit.

creativeone2• 15 years ago

Just bought the Kindle version. Now I have the book on my Kindle and iPhone Kindle App (Looks really crisp on my iphone and has anchor links to each chapter, although it could use a better table of contents)

Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00586LJ2O/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

Learn Python The Hard Way 2nd Edition Released

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