Rating: 
Summary: Learn to Program Using Python: A Tutorial for Hobbyists
Review: I first learned of Python in school by writing a paper on it. That peaked my interest. I have the other Python books but they did not show me the direction on how to use Python correctly. Thanks for to Alan Gauld, Python is easier to use. This is good bare bones book to teach a new language or if your not a programmer to teach programming correctly in Python. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn Python.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for the beginner!
Review: I really like this book. What a great book for a person with no programming and or scripting experience. I bought it for a friend, and he was able to pick up Python very quickly.
The only cons are that the book lacks excercises. For a beginning programmer excercises are crucial. I would still use the book for a beginning programming and or scripting class though.
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant for beginners
Review: I thought this book wad terrible at explaining programming. Its poorly formatted and unorganized and worst of all, it is boring. Plus it tells nothing about running Python on Mac through a pre-composed text document. I only give this book and extra star because it explained some useful vocabulary. I reccoment Mark Lutz's "Learning Python." Hope I helped.
Rating: 
Summary: Worse than I expected
Review: I thought this book wad terrible at explaining programming. Its poorly formatted and unorganized and worst of all, it is boring. Plus it tells nothing about running Python on Mac through a pre-composed text document. I only give this book and extra star because it explained some useful vocabulary. I reccoment Mark Lutz's "Learning Python." Hope I helped.
Rating: 
Summary: Not much in the way of exercises
Review: I was disappointed by the lack of exercises and problems for the reader to work through. You don't learn programming by reading; you learn it by working problems out. If you've ever tried to teach programming, you know that it's a serious challenge to find exercises that are within the capability of the learner yet are challenging enough to be interesting. The author of this book appears not to have even tried. I thought the Sams book "Teach yourself Python in 24 hours" was actually more successful, but if anything, raced into more advanced material a little too quickly the beginning learner.
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Summary: Basic profgramming intro
Review: I'm biased, I wrote it! But Amazon[.com] keep asking me to review it so here I go... It does have exercises, albeit hidden in the text rather than listed at the end of each chapter. That's because it was never intended to be a classtoom text but for enthusiastic amateurs. The best way to learn is type in the examples, then modify them. There are, sadly, a lot of minor typos, fixes are posted on the web site.
Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good, but you'd better get the errata sheets
Review: I've only made it through the first six chapters (out of 23), so I'm not ready to comment on the effectiveness of this book. One thing I can say is that it is rife with typos & errors from start to finish (many trivial, others serious)....
Rating:
Summary: Excellent intro to programming and Python
Review: I've taught beginning programming at the Junior College level, and not a one of the texts I selected, were as lucid and well written as this one. Especially strong in the introduction of Object programming, the author excels at terse yet appropriate code examples. I'm recommending this book to everyone I know.
Rating:
Summary: fills a niche, but not the ideal beginner's book
Review: In some ways this book seems like it's in search of an identity. It's obviously intended for the novice, and its short chapters and general topics reflect that, but many things are left unexplained or explained poorly, such as the chapter on object-oriented programming. This book definitely fills a niche for introductory python books for an audience with no programming experience, and my frequent frustration has not necessarily outweighed the value of the short chapters on diverse topics. Part of the problem may be that Amazon sold me a copy of the 1st edition rather than the 2nd. I'm going to finish the book soon and print out the Python tutorial to see if that can answer some unanswered questions.
Rating:
Summary: Very good introduction to programming
Review: Most books that aim to teach a programming language assume some knowledge of programming in general. The target for this book is someone with no programming experience at all. Python is simply used as an example language. Python is a good language for such a person, given its clean sytax and underlying simplicity. I've had a little programming experience, and found the book very easy to read. Some of the explanations may be a bit terse for the complete novice. This is probably the books weakest point. Gauld makes it very clear that the book isn't designed to make the reader a Python expert, it is simply to get him or her up to speed on general programming ideas (e.g, loops, conditional statements, etc.), so that the reader can then move on to other books or tutorials (such as the Python tutorial on the included CD). Overall, I think Gauld succeeds in his goal. There are other online resources with similar aims (the "How to think like a computer scientist" site comes to mind). But for those without constant internet access, this book is a great place to start. The complete novice would then be able to tackle something more substantial, such as /The Quick Python Book/ and/or /Learning Python/, or a book on another language (personally, I'd recommend they stick to Python for a while).
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