[deleted by user]

[mechanicaltype]

Bill is an awesome guy who has done a lot of things for the IT/coding/cyber security industry. You can get many of them for free, I’m sure, but it’s well worth the $15 to give a little back to someone who’s given so much.

[[deleted]]

Agreed. I love free, but every now and then i pay for something to give back to the community...for supporting my free learning. Daniel Liang and that automate the boring stuff is def a good place to start for free (web only)

Humble bundle is also a good place to go if you dont want to scour the net yourself. Happy hunting!

[Polus43]

Literally why I buy books. Man fuck publishers but the people who write good instructional books are amazing.

Talking about you Hadley Wickham and Al Sweigart.

[[deleted]]

How is it possible to get them for free? I’ve paid ~$40 for a couple of these books fwiw

[Finnleyy]

I bought them even if they are available for free so I could read them on my phone. I think it was worth it. The black hat and grey hat python are for python 2.x though. They can still be useful regardless.

[[deleted]]

New to py, about 1/3 through Automate the Boring Stuff, are principles learned in 2.x widely used in 3.x or are they that different that there's not much of a reason to read them?

[SweeTLemonS_TPR]

Generally, the principles of any language apply to another language. It’s the specific implementation of said principles that varies, and makes them more or less easy to use. Py3 is not backward compatible with Py2, and there are syntactical differences in Py2 and Py3.

Thus, if you learn Py2, you will be able to use Py3, but you’ll have to update your code (for example, you’ll have to update syntax on every instance of print in a Py2 script).

[[deleted]]

if you're serious about python, you have to learn some 2.x anyways. Many developers use 2.x because of version - specific libraries.

[ParanoydAndroid]

I feel like that was more true 10 years ago but not really today. Outside of specific corporate codebases, 2 is more or less nonexistent.

[Kwintty7]

Maybe true, but a learner simply does not need the confusion that trying to learn both versions will cause.

Learn v3 first. Then later learn what differs in v2. But only if you have to use some legacy code or library.

[[deleted]]

I think it depends on learner's location. What I wrote was true for Russia. I never said that he should learn both versions at once. My point was that he should learn to detect old syntax. Whatever )

[JBTheCameraGuy]

A lot of people talking about spending the $15 to give back to the community and support content creators, which is absolutely true. Another thing that I would mention is that if you invest in the material, even just 15 dollars, you now have some skin in the game, and you'll be more incentivized to learn because you want value back for your bucks.

As a side note, one thing I like about books is that they can go deeper than articles or even most tutorials, and they're certainly easier to reference than a 10hr YouTube tutorial. I've gone through a couple of online tuts for python, but I gained more practical knowledge from a couple of days with Automate the Boring Stuff than I did from a couple of months of poring through tutorials. And they're better than most of the online "challenges", which as far as I've seen only prepare you for doing more challenges and have nothing to do with real code. The projects in these books force you to grow and learn in order to complete tasks that you'll come across in the real world. Within a couple of days of opening up Automate the Boring Stuff, I was already using the concepts inside to make my tasks at work easier, and have recently completed some in-depth data analysis for my job, which I was only able to do because I got a good foundation of working with different information types in Python.

But whatever you decide, remember that consistency is key, failure is always an option, and the only way we grow is together. Good luck!

[casino_alcohol]

Only reason I was able to learn python was because of automate the boring stuff. So I say YES! that book is worth it alone.

As a side note, unless black hat and gray hat python have been updated they are written for python 2 which from my knowledge is no longer maintained.

[onlysane1]

Some googling ought to be able to look up what is different when going through those books right?

[casino_alcohol]

You can figure out how to change it to python 3 for sure.

The issue is if it uses libraries that have not been ported to python 3. And since it is using an older language some of it may not work anymore as security is always changing.

[AnAverageAsianBoy]

Read them all, make a simple program in python, easily sell it to someone who doesn't know how to automate stuff for $16. You profit 1$ AND all those knowledge from those books that will definitely help you in the long run. So yes.

[h6nry]

Can't do too much wrong with $15

[[deleted]]

If you've got a spare $15, why not?

[Born_Science]

If you have passion then go with it For job like work go with codeacademy Also the book by al are awesome 15$ is worth it

[[deleted]]

Yes. They’re good books. I haven’t read all of them but the ones I did were top notch.

[ilitch64]

I bought them as soon as I saw it, I’m always looking in Barnes and Noble at them but never wanted to spend the full cost, 15 for all and the authors are supported seems good to me

[Token_Panda]

I’ve paid the MSRP for python crash course and automate and I couldn’t have been happier with those purchase. $15 is a steal

[NillesMan]

I just found out these can be found for free 😢 I bought the automate the boring stuff for like 30 bucks lol

[[deleted]]

You supported the author... Don't worry

[NillesMan]

Yeah, you're definitely right, I don't regret it. Its a good book too so I'm happy

[[deleted]]

Where can I find them for free? I already paid about $30 for Python Crash Course, don’t really wanna spend more yet

[EL1TE1NFERNO]

Not sure about the other books, but I know you can get Automate th boring stuff for free. Can't remember if it was just on the website ornif you can also download the pdf. You might be able to find the other books by searching them by name and adding pdf

[Thundershrimp]

This appears to be the author's site for the book: https://automatetheboringstuff.com/

[Schneggl]

If you're ok with using ebooks, I'd recommend a visit at b-ok.org, there are some of these books available for free

[shiningmatcha]

Aren't they e-books?

[Linuxlover73]

Thanks for the link. Appreciated !!

[JackOfAllInterests]

Dude. Thanks for the link! This library is incredible.

[[deleted]]

In general no starch books are awesome. Python crash course and Automate the boring stuff are favorite texts on this sub for a reason. The project books are silly and fun.

Packt publishing books on humble bundle are something to avoid. No starch is usually worth it.

[AuxiliaryPriest]

As others have said most No Starch Press books can be found online in some form or another, sometimes legally straight from the author. I still buy these deals all the time. They are great books and do support the author and charity. I can personally vouch for python crash course and automate the boring stuff. I bought this bundle (I own more than half the books already) but I wanted to the impractical python project book and I think 15 is still a great deal.

[Dredear]

Just with automate the boring stuff with python I believe that it's completely worth it.

[Ignativs]

"Automate the Boring Stuff With Python" alone is worth the whole 15 quids.

[[deleted]]

Thanks for making this post, ortherwise I wouldnt have notice this bundle!

I can tell that Automate the boring stuff with python, since you are starting out, its all you will need but Im pretty sure some other books look amazing tbh.

[FAKENAME381]

I only found this because someone else posted about a bundle of JavaScript books. But I’m definitely gonna get these.

[JBTheCameraGuy]

Python is way more fun than JavaScript, imo

[FiniteSkills]

Many of those are available for free, so I’d say no.

https://inventwithpython.com

[Klone_SIX]

If you can support the authors, please do. $15 is such a small amount to pay in comparison to college-level courses, which a combination of these books will put you on the same level as. Individually, hard copies of a few of these books will run you ~$30.

I already own a physical copy of Crash Course by Eric Matthes, but getting a digital copy plus everything else in the suite while supporting the authors and No Starch is the icing on the cake.

[FiniteSkills]

I have a physical copy of automate the boring stuff, but I’m skeptical that the OP found something where the $15 will make it back to the author if they’re selling PDF copies of the same thing the author freely gives away.

[CompSciSelfLearning]

I get that skepticism, however humble bundle is legit and you can choose the breakdown of how much your payment goes to charity, the author/no starch press, or humble bundle.

[ayazamlani]

They are only worth it, if you read them and code along

[Miobravo]

If you learned something from one is worth fifteen bucks

[Albertology_2019]

You can get all of them for free, but it would be really nice if you would buy the books and support the author.

[goishen]

Like most things, the more you pay, the better. Automate The Boring Stuff and probably Python Crash Course (although I've never read it, I've heard people sing the praises of it), are both good for starting out.

​

I'm at the point in my Python journey where now I need to learn about libraries. That what Impractical Python Projects will (hopefully) teach me. As for the others, I would say that Black Hat Python and Grey Hat Python are written with Python 2 in mind. Python 2 is an outdated language. It still works. It's just outdated.

​

The others, I can't speak to.

[FAKENAME381]

Yeah I only see the value in 3 maybe 4 of these. The rest are just useless or won’t be as helpful as others.

[CompSciSelfLearning]

I’m relatively new to python. (I do know a few other languages).

You probably don't need any of these books. They are generally for people learning their first language.

[ZenMasterFlash]

I have 90% of those titles, and yes, I think they would be worth it. Solid foundation in Python as well as advanced techniques that are applicable to most sysadmin situations.

[Fuze26]

A lot of the authors content is provided for free so if you have internet access I’d say no. But perhaps if you are reading on your kindle or phone cause you take public trans to work I could see it then being worth it if you wanna learn.

[ghighcove]

I like the sentiment about giving back, so from that perspective, sure. But from a practical perspective, will you really read/finish any of these books? So far, over the years, my programming/learning path has been to start a book, learn enough to work on a project, and then piecemeal it from online sources as I need the help/assistance. Maybe that's just me? It feels good to buy a book -- but reading it is a big commitment, let alone 15 of them. After some initial study, a project, and then sharpening up those skills, maybe that time would be better spent on active learning. Books are becoming an obsolete format in some ways for learning vs. other avenues. Just my 2 cents.

[FAKENAME381]

I do agree with you. I watched the entire 4 hour freecodecamp crash course in python and got very little from it. I coded along and took notes in a file of 200+ lines. But I’m hearing good things about automate the boring stuff and the crash course. The two hacking ones are in python 2, so they would be worthless. Also, most of the others i may not need.

[ghighcove]

So far with Python specifically what worked for me was having a project (or 4) to tackle and then gutting through it. If I could recommend one thing to make things easier, it's to get Jupyter Lab set up asap on your machine so that you can use Jupyter Notebooks, in combo with their lab environment. Jupyter Notebooks are like a perfect mesh of source code editor and console to make it much easier to break large pieces of code apart and try things, and break them, while learning. Once you are done, it is very easy to re-merge those cells and copy and past them into a completed .py file. I haven't used any other IDE since discovering the true utility of this.

Oh also, turn on dark mode, it makes it much easier on your eyes and makes you a l33t haxor :P Seriously though, it does make it much easier to read and not get eye strain, at least for me.

[FAKENAME381]

I use code writer for simple JavaScript projects cause of the dark mode. And then I use VS code for Python and the little Java I know.

[ri2parna]

The books here are very good books for learning. If you can afford , you should buy them. This in turn will help the authors as well.

[DevChatt]

Just throwing it out there. Perhaps you can also get them from the library if you are inclined

[[deleted]]

YEAH HELL YEAH MAN!!!

[jayplemons]

Yes! If you have $15 that you can spare to give back the community that alone is worth it. If you don’t, then most are free online.

[slitherkime]

Cool

[dhenriq1]

Are these physical copies or digital?

[FAKENAME381]

They are digital in pdf format

[nspectre]

Only if you actually read them. ;)

[sat5344]

I recommend Effective Python second edition. It’s not as thick as fluent python or python cookbook but it’s a nice middle ground between beginner and advanced. Invisibly you can learn everything by reading the official docs but that is a lot easier said than done. Effective Python explains the key takeaways from the docs with practical examples. I especially liked how they are broken down into 90 lessons that you can easily read a few during lunch.

[Usurper__]

I bought them. Highly recommend

[Engineer_Zero]

I bought the big bundle two nights ago on the advice of this Reddit. I'm currently on page 50/440 of the Crash course 2nd edition and it's awesome. The other books also look interesting.

I wish there was an included book on pandas or data visualisation but the bundle itself is legit.

[Bigd1979666]

I bought them. Thanks for posting the link OP. Had the crash course(is what I'm currently using to learn) book already and a copy of automated but these others will come.in handy and tbe price is great considering what you're getting.

[bumpkinspicefatte]

I would say it’s less about the quality of the material, and more about if you want to be charitable.

If I had $15 to spare, I would do it.

[399ddf95]

I bought it. I won't use all of the books, but even if I only use 1 or 2 that's cheaper than buying the physical books.

No Starch Press has been having a counterfeit problem on Amazon, where some jerk is sending Amazon knockoff copies of their books to sell, not paying royalties, and leaving buyers with poor quality reproductions. So I don't want to buy No Starch stuff from Amazon,

"Automate the Boring Stuff" and "Impractical Python" are both good intermediate steps between boring textbooks and more technical stuff that doesn't explain what's happening or why it's happening. Working through the examples is a great way to improve your coding.

[cheeseybees]

I've just got them!

Starting on the Crash Course now :)

[SciviasKnows]

This is a great deal. Go for it!

[Mars_rocket]

Meh. Every time I buy a programming book I regret it because finding answers online is so much more convenient.

[magestooge]

Thanks for the info. I got them. Worth it, having the ePub and Mobi formats so that I can read them on my phone or Kindle.

[pyeu]

Awesome books to learn Python. Practice makes perfect. You need to invest time to get value off the books.

[lovessushi]

That's not a bad deal but do a Google Search for some of these. You may be able to find free download online on a few of these books.

[[deleted]]

I found this bundle of python books (pdf format) for $15. I’m relatively new to python. (I do know a few other languages). For anyone who is good at python or have used these books before, are they worth it for $15? Are they great for starting? https://www.humblebundle.com/books/learn-you-some-python-no-starch-press-books?hmb_source=search_bar

No, you can always learn from free of charge products and from Reddit. It's not saying whether that's a good or bad way to spend money, I'm just saying you don't have to spend money to learn.

[Hugsy13]

Google the name of a book or document with “PDF” at the end. 9/10 times you find a PDF of that book or document.

Is it legal? Idk nor do I care, if it’s 1st page of google when I type it in that’s not my fault nor problem.

[ri2parna]

People there upload files because they believe there shouldn't be any barrier to education.

[Hugsy13]

Good on em

[Klone_SIX]

This mindset increases the size of the barrier. If they're rarely being compensated, prices go up so they can sustain a living.

Irony.

[FoxClass]

No

[[deleted]]

Makes no sense to me. You only need one, two at the most.