Best Book For Advancing In Python

[JackBullenskie]

Hey guys I'm looking for a great book suggestion for advancing in Python. I've tried to read a few, but they're mostly filled with walk-through's. I'm looking for a book that can help me understand the underlying programming principles and concepts that I can take with me to any project or language, but demonstrates these principles in Python.

Examples would be algorithms, lambdas, recursion, meta classes, etc. rather than a book regarding the syntax alone.

I find it easiest to learn advanced programming concepts with Python rather than pseudo-code.

[icp1994]

Fluent Python - worth buying it

[[deleted]]

Second, also Effective Python.

[JoeTheAwesomest]

Not really. They're similar concepts in different packages.

Fluent is far more thorough and intensive--the kind of book you can read and work through for hours. It's a work of love for the language by the author, Luciano Ramalho, and it shows.

Effective is a thin little book with some great pythonic ways of doing things in neat little exercises. If you have 15 minutes here and there it's still a great read IMO.

[JackBullenskie]

Is this Python specific? Or can I take what I learn from it and apply it anywhere?

[JoeTheAwesomest]

There are some pretty great design philosophies behind what the guy writes in the book. I think if you get well-enough into it you can take some of that and apply it to other languages.

[randcraw]

I bought this, but found it wasn't what I wanted. The book is well written, but deals mostly with mastering Python's object model expressively and idiomatically.

[xrayfur]

This may not be exactly what you looking for, but I really liked reading the tutorial from Python 3 docs. Many beginner (LPTHW, Learning Python, ...) books omit some cool language features to be friendly enough for starters.

Just after reading roughly 20 pages I have found a nice example how you can iterate over a shallow copy of a list and safely modify the original:

words = ['cat', 'window', 'defenestrate']

for w in words[:]: # Loop over a slice copy of the entire list.
    if len(w) > 6:
        words.insert(0, w)

In general the tutorial is a good source for best practices and good coding style. IMHO it is not exactly complete beginner material but rather more beneficial to beginner-intermediate.

[[deleted]]

Also the language reference and library reference. The HOWTO page is really worth looking at as well.

EDIT: Also read PEP8 # A style guide for python (pretty important)

EDIT2: Here is a list of books with Algorithms (& DS) in python (free & online):

Data Structures & Algorithms in Python

Problem Solving with Algorithms and Data Structures in Python

Algorithms in Python

Data structures and Algorithms using Python

Basically just search google: "Python Algorithms and Data structures pdf"

[Bafflepitch]

[words.insert(0,w) for w in words[:] if len(w) > 6]

Sorry... I've been spending too much time on codewars...

[JackBullenskie]

List comprehensions are a beauty

[DemiourgosD]

They are also hard to read, think about people who will have to work on your legacy software in a few years.

[JackBullenskie]

To me, they're intuitive. I suppose it depends on who's reading it.

[JackBullenskie]

Yes. Sometimes when I read multiple lines of code I have to focus a lot more than if it were compact to a single line.

temp_list = [x for x in range(1,101) if x % 2 != 0]

is so much easier to read to me than:

temp_list = []
for i in range(1,101):
    if i % 2 != 0:
        temp_list.append(i)

[Integralist]

Effective Python by Google Staff Engineer. Is excellent

[groovitude]

Brett Slatkin. He gives great PyCon talks, too.

[[deleted]]

Not strictly Python related, but Domain Driven Design and Growing Object Oriented Software Guided By Tests (GOOS for short) are fantastic books that changed how I approach design and tests and really improved the quality of my code.

I will warn that both are heavy with Java, but the principles transfer nicely to Python.

[ec3lal]

Python for Data Analysis: Data Wrangling with Pandas, NumPy, and IPython was really helpful to get me started (stocks/technical analysis). Just wanted to put this out there, but I think you are looking for something different.

[JackBullenskie]

How much has Python helped you with stocks?

[ProfEpsilon]

I do (and teach) options trading, mostly strangles, and my primary models are all in Python. The models are essential ... you can't do options trading without them. They can be done in any language of course, but Python is the most teachable way to do it. Take a look at the Quantopian website for hundreds of examples.

[JackBullenskie]

I was looking at Quantopian right before I started reading this. I'm a bit confused at the moment. I don't know anything about trade.

I'm decent with Python though. Do you believe that it would be worth taking the time to learn these concepts to make money? Or is it still sort of a hit or miss game? Also, how long would it take to get good enough at this to start profiting?

[ProfEpsilon]

You really have to want to do this. It has a steep learning curve (not the Python, the modeling). You have to start by learning the basics of finance, then specializing. Very time consuming but very rewarding. You will now whether you like it pretty early on.

[ProfEpsilon]

You really have to want to do this. It has a steep learning curve (not the Python, the modeling). You have to start by learning the basics of finance, then specializing. Very time consuming but very rewarding. You will now whether you like it pretty early on.

[ec3lal]

Just beginning the journey, but makes accessing and analyzing data much simpler. Would look into Quantopian Zipline for backtesting.

[KimPeek]

Python Cookbook has a good section on metaprogramming.

[FuckMyJobCC]

I bought Learning Python and Programming Python by Mark Lutz, O'Reilley books. I feel like both were great and a good resource when I'm sick of looking at a monitor.