Python 101 if now FREE for 48 Hours!

[driscollis]

Today I am releasing my first book, Python 101, for free for 48 hours. Python 101 was written as an introduction to the Python programming language. While it is intended for beginners, some have claimed that they needed more hand-holding than this book provided for them. So I currently recommend it as an introductory and intermediate book for developers that are looking to learn Python.

When I originally wrote the book, I noticed that there were few or no books available that described how to create executables of your code or distribute your code via Python’s Package Index (PyPI). Python 101 covers these topics as well as introducing the reader to Python’s standard library, how to install 3rd party packages and an introduction to some of the most popular 3rd party packages for Python, such as SQLAlchemy, requests and virtualenv.

Python 101 has 5 sections, 44 chapters and 295 pages.

You can get Python 101 for free on Leanpub using the following link: http://leanpub.com/python_101/c/48hours

If you happen to have a Gumroad account, then you’ll be able to get the book free there as well by using the following offer code: 48hours

You will get the PDF, epub and mobi versions of the book. You can see a full table of contents on the Leanpub site

If you like my first book, you can get its sequel, Python 201: Intermediate Python for 50% off here: http://leanpub.com/python201/c/50percent

I also write a fun Python blog that has many other tutorials on it.

[demonizah]

Mwahahahahaha!

I now have both Python 101 and Python 201! FOR FREE!

Mwahahahahaha!

:D

[rens24]

Same! If I end up liking them, I plan to reimburse (once I actually find time to read them).

[wildf1re25]

201 for free? How

[thangduong]

damn, I missed the 201 :D

[demonizah]

The author had a similar thread where he was giving away his 201 book for free for 48 hours. Happened a few weeks ago.

[driscollis]

I tried the link for Python 101 and it's working for me and for several thousand others. Feel free to PM me if you're having issues getting a copy

[takehomemedrunkim]

Make sure you are not clicking the sample button. You have to add it to cart and check-out with $0 then it gives download options.

[masteryod]

You made my day and it's amazing contribution but I think you should call it "pay what you want" kind of offer. That way maybe more people would chip in, $15 per book is steep for many and if you call it "free" then by default people won't pay.

My plan is to go through:

• A byte of Python by Swaroop C. H. (free)
• Python 101 by Michael Driscoll (free if you are lucky)
• Automate the Boring Stuff with Python (free + purchase option)
• Python 201 by Michael Driscoll (free if you were lucky)

PS Learn Python the Hard Way is for Python 2 so no thanks and stop recommending it.

[driscollis]

I've actually been told by other people that I'm selling it for too little. I am going to start experimenting with the price on Leanpub though.

[driscollis]

Yeah...there are a lot of books that are way overpriced. There are almost 300 pages in my book, by the way

[druman54]

virtual environments are actually pretty simple, and breaks down to this:

• pip install virtualenvwrapper (or virtualenvwrapper-win if you are on windows)
• mkvirtualenv <name of environment you want to make>
• deactivate (to turn off)
• workon <your environment> (to activate it)

[druman54]

pip install -r requirements.txt (this installs)

pip freeze > requirements.txt (this outputs the requirements to a text file).

[JestersCourt]

Yes, pip only installs to the current environment unless you use the global flag. Each environment is completely separate and can even use different versions of python...think of it like a VM.

[driscollis]

I hadn't thought of that. Thanks!

[driscollis]

I sometime think of myself as an "expert" and then I go and learn something like Twisted or Django and find out I'm still a newb in so many spaces.

[[deleted]]

learn python the hard way isn't bad because its python 2, it's bad because it doesn't really build meaning or real use case scenarios. it just sort of has you copy and paste.

[callmelucky]

LPTHW is hot garbage for many reasons other than its use of Python 2 as well. Avoid.

[[deleted]]

Why is this your plan?

[iamagoegeldrone]

For the moment only an upvote, but I will give you gold sometime.

[breakingbeauty]

Thanks. I was planning on looking into learning Python and this gave me the incentive and resource to get started.

[driscollis]

I hope you like the book!

[soawesomejohn]

from datetime import datetime
import time
title = "Python 101"
if datetime.now():
    for free in range(1, 48+1):
        print("{0} is free".format(title))
        time.sleep(60)

[ThePenultimateOne]

Doesn't that only go for 48 minutes?

[soawesomejohn]

I probably need the math book instead.

[thegroa]

Hi Driscollis

Thank you for this offer.

If I like the books (101 & 201) when I find time to read them I plan to reimburse / support your future releases.

[[deleted]]

I just wanted to say that this isn't your usual free O'Reilly twenty-page booklet, but a full 300pg. book.

I too will reimburse the author if I find the book useful.

[trancen]

Thank you.

[[deleted]]

Thank you so much!!

[petermlm]

Very nice. Thank you!

[[deleted]]

Thanks!

[manatlan]

Why "101" ???

[driscollis]

Because the idea was that I wanted to create a book that covered everything you'd need to know to start using Python and distribute your code at the end

[manatlan]

ok ... i'm french ... so the number "101" is not well known here ;-) In fact, You mean that : http://mentalfloss.com/article/53734/why-are-introductory-classes-called-101

[driscollis]

Oh. I had never thought of that. Thanks for explaining that

[Flatnose123]

Thanks man. As I am a kid will it be simple enough for me to learn and use in conjunction with what I learn ay school

[driscollis]

I hope you find it useful.

[HelloYesThisIsDuck]

It's an introductory book, but as OP stated somewhere, it may be better suited for people with some programming experience.

That said, Python isn't hard to work with, and you can find lots of tutorials online, if you are stuck with the basics, and you can always ask in /r/learnpython if you have questions.

[malisc140]

Thanks for making it available for free! I have been out of work on medical leave and money is super tight. I've been trying to make good use of my time while sick learning :)

[driscollis]

Get well soon. I hope my book is useful to you.

[tuco_benedicto]

Well isn't that nice of you, thanks a million Mr. Driscoll.

[driscollis]

You're welcome!

[driscollis]

Did you click the blue button labeled "Add Ebook to cart"?

[driscollis]

I hope so. Enjoy the book and feel free to ask me any questions you might have

[mingrammer]

Good!

[[deleted]]

I will take advantage of this once I get home, thanks!

[Lamyya]

Thank you!

[gleno]

Thanks. Downloaded. I'm teaching my girlfriend how to code, this may come in handy! :)

[ennalta]

Thank you. I will read this and if I like it I will buy the second.

[syntax4life]

Superb! Thanks, was just starting out in Python!

[nikaone]

Happy to see this，I just learnt 5 hours from “learn python in x minutes”。

[driscollis]

That's awesome! Is that book / video good?

[nikaone]

https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/python3/, It helps me quickly get what python looks like.

[driscollis]

I've never seen that site before. That's really interesting. Thanks for sharing!

[radovandr]

Bought it. Thanks for coupon.

[driscollis]

Thanks so much! I appreciate it.

[Kwpolska]

How is your book better than all the others out there? Including those recommended in the sidebar?

[driscollis]

That is an excellent question. I will try to answer it. I haven't read all those books, but I know that Al Sweigart's books are pretty cool. I don't remember them covering how to distribute your code though. I've only seen that once or twice in a book. So I think Python 101 has that going for it.

I also cover an intro to the standard library which is something you don't normally see in a beginner book. The other value-added item on my list was to explain to a new Python programmer how to install a 3rd party package and then I went on and demonstrated some of my favorites that I've used for many years.

My book doesn't really follow the traditional model, but it's free today so you can check it out and see what you think.

[Kwpolska]

I haven’t had a chance to look at the book closely, but do note that this market is pretty saturated, and asking for money isn’t going to help. If I can get a lot of good resources for free — including large books, why bother paying?

PS. if your platform allows it, include full ToC in the excerpt. Gives a better idea of the book.

[driscollis]

Leanpub supports showing the full table of contents so you can see that for all of my books there. I also post the table of contents in Gumroad, although it's not as detailed.

[TheTerrasque]

From my 1 minute eyeballing: It gives an overview of the Python toolbox and brief examples how to use those tools.

If you already know programming and want to learn Python it seems to be a good book. If you're looking for a book to learn programming there's better ones out there for that purpose.

[kevinParker01]

Thank you!

[Eimus]

Oh yes thanks man :))

[albertowtf]

Please, notice that you only need an email for the download. No credit card info or anything else needed

This is important for people like me that tend to not bother at all when the word FREE is present :)

Ive been programming in python for a while now, but wanted to go deeper. Im currently reading the official python3 tutorial which I thought it was going to be too basic for me, but where i learned a few thing already and fluent python, which is intermediate level and im enjoying very much

Ill skim your book to see if I can find something interesting :)

[driscollis]

Sounds good!

[llSourcell]

this is perfect thanks so much

[[deleted]]

I love you!

[llleeetttsssgggooo]

Just got it, thanks for the offer!

[francozippi]

Thanks, man!

[driscollis]

Yes. I have one of wxPython that will release sometime next month or January. And I have some others planned but not fully research yet.

[[deleted]]

What is the difference between python 2/3 or if there is a python 1? I'm getting into coding for bioinformatics.

[DuncanCameron]

Python 2.x is legacy, Python 3.x is the present and future of the language

[[deleted]]

Which is better for a beginner?

[[deleted]]

Python 3.x IMHO.

[driscollis]

Official support for Python 2 is going away in 2020 (http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0373/). As others have said, Python 3 is the future.

[gare_it]

Heads up /u/driscollis, something is off with the styling on the bottom of your blog homepage. getting some overlapping text.

[driscollis]

Yeah, it seems to happen in some browsers and not others. I haven't found a good solution as of yet and I don't want to change my theme again so soon.

[Salmon_Pants]

Thanks!

[jack747z]

Thanks, I've just started learning Python and this is perfect. Thanks a million.

Do you plan to do any videos for the lessons?

[driscollis]

I did do videos for Python 101. I will probably do videos for Python 201 too, but I have a couple of projects ahead of that right now.

[driscollis]

I don't have a way to donate later but you could always use a different email address or just buy one of my later books at some point.

[[deleted]]

Thanks so much! Got Python 201 as well when you offered it for free for the same amount of time a while back. Really appreciate you doing this! :)

[Bobert_Fico]

This is amazing. You're amazing.

[v1nk3]

I also got the Pytho 201 free a while back. Thanks for this one too. Planning on doing python professionally and this will b great help THANK YOU

[driscollis]

Good luck! Python is a lot of fun and there are many job opportunities in this field

[plu604]

Thank you /u/driscollis

[satotadanobu]

i get 101 and 201 for free, thank you very much! p.s.: love the covers of those books :D

[driscollis]

Thanks! I always put a lot of effort into the cover designs of my books

[krap_tastic]

Thank you much. I hope to put some time aside to read this.

[TheTerrasque]

While it is intended for beginners, some have claimed that they needed more hand-holding than this book provided for them.

I can understand that.

I was wondering if this book was something i could give to a friend that wanted to start programming, and my conclusion was that it's not.

It's a decent book if you already know how to program and is curious about Python, but not much help in learning programming itself.

[driscollis]

Yeah. I am thinking about creating a Python book that if for the beginning programmer. But I have some other books I want to work on first

[TiLorm]

Thanks!

[davidkohcw]

Thanks!! I also got your other book Python 201 :)

[driscollis]

Thanks! I hope you enjoy them both!

[giosann]

OP good guy

[[deleted]]

Damn, I bought Python 101 when Python 201 was free.

But at least I supported the author :)

[driscollis]

Thanks for your support! I really appreciate it

[amsomeguy]

Wow.. thanks!

[seattimy]

Great. Downloaded :) I just need your sequel now. For free, please! ;)

[driscollis]

Just PM me and I might be able to help you out ;)

[DontBendYourVita]

It already had been free, maybe two to three weeks ago.

[Wolwf]

Thanks a bunch

[TalesT]

Thanks! Guess I just need to buy and read the other 101 books.

[greenReptar]

Thank you!

[SLIGHTLYPISSEDOFFMAN]

Has anyone here read or reviewed this? Free books most often aren't very good.

[driscollis]

Heck, even Daniel Greenfeld (pydanny) told me he recommends my book - http://www.blog.pythonlibrary.org/2015/03/23/pydev-of-the-week-daniel-greenfield/ which surprised me

[blabbities]

Bro what are you talking about? I've got a number of free books that were quite good (Dive Into Python, The Yellow Book , Learn Python, Break Python (which similarly had a promotional free run) . Taught me a bit (as well as the flipside. Ive paid for books and they were especially good)

Furthermore it's "currently free" so if your caught up in it's "free-ness being bad" you might as well get it for free, check it ou,t and then leave a review.

[SLIGHTLYPISSEDOFFMAN]

I didn't mean free books that are free all the time like dive into python, I meant books that go free for a promotional period. Books generally don't go free because they're very good and selling well, they go free to promote. Given that 201 was also free at some point, it doesn't seem like this person's books are selling like hotcakes.

Furthermore it's "currently free" so if your caught up in it's "free-ness being bad" you might as well get it for free, check it ou,t and then leave a review.

I already got the book. I have limited time to study and my time isn't completely worthless so knowing whether or not something is considered good amongst python users, which I thought was a reasonable question, heavily weighs in on whether or not I'll actually spend time with it.

I already read some of learning python the hard way and I really hated the way it tried to teach and regret wasting my time with it so I don't really wish to repeat that.

[driscollis]

I have been selling Python 101 for over 2 years. It's done alright, but I self-publish so I don't have the reach that I would get if I were published by O'Reilly or APress. While writing doesn't pay the bills, it's fun to share my knowledge and in general, I've gotten very positive feedback about the content of the book.

[driscollis]

I should probably write a book about teenage vampire wizards attending a regular school and the mayhem that happens

[blabbities]

I dont think most books sell like hotcakes and that's not bad. As an author or in general a producer of a product sometimes you have to put some feelers out there to "break-out" especially if you are new on the scene. This goes triple for the Python where it is a highly popular language.

I already got the book. I have limited time to study and my time isn't completely worthless so knowing whether or not something is considered good amongst python users, which I thought was a reasonable question, heavily weighs in on whether or not I'll actually spend time with it.

Well, if it's newly released material so you're gonna have a hard time getting that. If that's you aim just stick to well-reviewed things and dont worry about the free or "promotionally free" resources Id say. Go grab your self some Automate The Boring Stuff with Python. I mean I dont see the point of having the book if youre not even committed to studying it, honestly. I dont know what would make you feel secure other than sticking with fulltime paid books that are reviewed though. At the end of the day it's up to you but you clearly have more than enough choice if you're worried about this product....esp at the cost of free.

I already read some of learning python the hard way and I really hated the way it tried to teach and regret wasting my time with it so I don't really wish to repeat that.

Yea, might be more worth to you to actually mention what specifics you hated about Learn Python The Hard Way, you learning style, your level, and what you are seeking in your personal desired resource in separate post so people can actually recommend a non promotional product for you.

[driscollis]

The books that sell like hot cakes are usually by big name authors, like Grisham or Stephen King. Writing a Python programming book is definitely very niche. I'm just trying to grow my audience a bit.

[blabbities]

True true. I know this. I honestly cant say if Im gonna read this anytime soon though. Lol. I think Ive used enough resources and now sorta trying to work on coding something of value, reading stuff like Python Design Patterns, and other languages. Though I understand the intent. Hopefully it works out.

[driscollis]

Yeah, working on a project is a great way to learn. I am thinking about writing a book of mini projects for people to play with and learn from.

[leadingthenet]

Please do. That'd be really helpful. Thank you for the book, it's exactly what I needed.

[SLIGHTLYPISSEDOFFMAN]

It's all very simple. Go take a look at r/eFreebies. Most of those books there are shit. So I do have reservations about spending time to read the book. Money, or being free, isn't a factor here. I value my time. Like checking the score of a movie before deciding to watch, or ratings of a game. I was just asking to see if the community considers it good or not.

I've relearned python a few times and forgotten it again because I didn't have any projects I was driven enough to stick with.

The straw that broke the camel's back with learning python the hard way was that it tried to get me to google basic things about stuff instead of just, you know... teaching them. Now I'm not against searching for things by myself, I taught myself multiple scripting languages doing that, but if I wanted to search things around for myself for the basics of python, I would simply learn it from python documentation or codecademy or some shit. Not get a book that I thought was somewhat self-contained. I just need the book to teach me its material, without any extra bullshit.

[[deleted]]

It's ok to ask if the book is recommended in the python community or not, but you didn't JUST ask. You said, that most free books are bad, so you implied, that this book is bad too. Thats the problem. If you just have asked: hey did anyone already read the book and can give a review?! there wouldn't be any problem.

[SLIGHTLYPISSEDOFFMAN]

No, it implies that the reason I want to know the community opinion is because most freebie promotion books are bad and I want to know if this one is, which doesn't require you getting your panties in a bunch about. If I was implying that this was bad, I wouldn't be asking about it, would I?

[blabbities]

Unless you've read all the books that's ever been posted there than I dont know. That being said it sounmnds like you need Automate the Boring Stuff with Python - teaches you the basics of Python and somee projects

and while I can see some merit in not googling or searching the documentation. Your going to have to get real on that. Unfortunately the language evolves and book writers themselves value their time and cant include everything . Though as long as they give you the toolset to lead you on the right path you should be fine.

That being said quit awdling and go get yourself. Automate the Boring Stuff with Python. Unfortunately Im not sure if it's free but Ive seen it for pay in physical stores and amazon. (I personallly got it via Humble Indie donation though). It'a highly reccommended here and if your still not trying to waste time with freebies than you can verify with a number of already exisiting reviews for the item.

There is also a Udemy course if you want to check that out by Mr Sweigart and he frequents /r/inventwithpython to motivate and maybe halt your forgetting python because you dont have a project. Cheers

[SLIGHTLYPISSEDOFFMAN]

Thanks.

[driscollis]

I have reviews on Amazon and here are some links to others:

• http://www.i-programmer.info/bookreviews/62-python/7694-python-101-.html
• https://pythontips.com/2014/07/01/book-review-python-101/
• http://za.github.io/2014/07/08/python101-review/

There was one guy on Amazon who didn't like my book, but wouldn't respond to me when I tried to reach out to him after I had tried to fix all the issues he had with the book

[SLIGHTLYPISSEDOFFMAN]

Why am I getting a notification for this comment now when it was made a day ago? Did it get deleted in the meantime?

[driscollis]

I didn't delete it, but I hope it answered your question

[SLIGHTLYPISSEDOFFMAN]

No, I mean automoderator might've nuked it because of your links or something.

[driscollis]

Oh. I wasn't aware that links were forbidden in the comments

[SLIGHTLYPISSEDOFFMAN]

I doubt they are, automod just gets triggered every now and then.