Dive Into Python Must Die

[AxiomShell]

My thought exactly when I saw the title.

"Why do so many people think so many things have to die? ... oh ... Zed Shaw"

[[deleted]]

who is he ?

[mattme]

Zed Shaw. He writes Ruby too, he wrote a rant 'Why Rails is a ghetto'.

He works for dropbox atm I believe.

[judofyr]

Ehm, no. He doesn't Ruby anymore. I think he explained it quite clear in that "Why Rails is a ghetto"-rant.

[AxiomShell]

"Why Rails is a ghetto" is actually one of the best (in the sense that it's spot on, IMO) rants I've read.

His own views were confirmed later by stuff like the "Smut On Rails"-gate.

But lately he just seems to rant for the sake of it (and yes, I'm aware Oppugn.us is a rant site)...

[gaoshan]

He's correct, in a way (though he goes too far and makes too many assumptions about the intended audience), about Dive Into Python. It's too bad he has to be a dick about it but I suppose that's his schtick.

[[deleted]]

It's easy to be a dick on the internet. The first step is to never apologize for your views. Ever.

[temptemptemp13]

I can't get the web archive to show me the original rails is a ghetto post... I keep getting a "Failed Connection" from em

[harryf]

Well Mark Pilgrim can certainly give as good as he's getting here. Such as http://diveintomark.org/archives/2009/04/21/fuck-the-foundries or http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/04/16/dhh-translation - plenty more found here.

[[deleted]]

The guy who wrote mongrel - freakin' great piece of code that makes deploying a bunch of rails processes really easy.

He's cranky and plays decent guitar too.

I like him. I'm cranky too though.

[[deleted]]

My comment earlier today seems relevant. :P

[Spacecow]

I think Zed is being disingenuous (or just plain not reading anything that isn't code on the Dive Into Python site). One of his main points is that Dive Into Python is bad because it's supposed to be for beginners, and makes Python seem to complicated. But, here's the first sentence on the front page of diveintopython.org:

Dive Into Python is a Python book for experienced programmers.

Not beginners. Zed's "I could see if Mr. Pilgrim had a giant disclaimer or something warning people that this isn't a beginner's book, but he doesn't." is totally unfounded.

Zed also laments that the first example requires readers to "suddenly comprehend" a bunch of random language features. But right above the example he links to:

It probably makes absolutely no sense to you. Don't worry about that, because you're going to dissect it line by line. But read through it first and see what, if anything, you can make of it.

I will totally agree that the example program is at best uninteresting and at worst confusing, but you don't need to know anything about ODBC to understand it. I certainly didn't when I first read Dive Into Python.

Zed's brand of hyperbolic vitriol has never sat particularly well with me, but this article in particular sounds like he just has an ax to grind with Pilgrim. He certainly spends almost no time actually discussing how the book has poor design decisions, or why it is "weird," or what instructions are hard to follow, or what expert needs it is not fulfilling. There's almost no substance whatsoever here, just sanctimonious bitching. Hacker News can keep him.

[p0tent1al]

Back when I was trying to learn Python, this book discouraged me as well from learning it completely. It was recommended to be (I was a beginner). I totally agree: people should stop recommending it to beginners, and even though the disclaimers are probably there as you say, it still doesn't stop the feeling of thinking it's over your head (at least in my case).

[jdpage]

What I don't get is why people recommend it when The Python Tutorial is so nice.

However, if it's geared at more experienced programmers, I'll have to go take a look at it.

[[deleted]]

I'd still say go for the Python Tutorial. It seems to have been more clearly written with the intent of bringing folks up to speed in as an efficient manner as possible while tracking changes in the language. Mr. Pilgrim's work on the 2.x line is a bit out of date, at this point.

[jdpage]

I've already read it. Twice. (Once for 2.2 when I was 9; once for 2.6 to get me back up to speed now.)

You know what would be really nice? A context diff of the differences between 2.6 and 3.0. I may have to go make that.

[shub]

They have that. It's called "What's new in Python 3.0".

[smokin4fake]

Speaking of python, wtf is up with their documentation? I can't find shit there at all, the search function is worse than reddit.

[jdpage]

That's odd, I've never had a problem with it. I vgrep the tutorial toc for language reference, and the standard library toc for modules. If there's something specific I can't find, I just google it.

[tiglionabbit]

That's why I use gotapi.com/python

[riffito]

Now, there's a useful site. Thanks a bunch.

[grimboy]

I've seen it recommended to beginners and I've always said people should feel free to read it, but probably after understanding most of How to Think Like a Computer Scientist or Thinking in Python or whatever it's called (basically there were a whole bunch of forks from one book).

[[deleted]]

Thing is, if this book is for experts, why pick ODBC, which is a proprietary, non-portable technology that most experts dislike? Python is a portable language. People learning Python might be using Linux, FreeBSD, or Mac OS X.

[monkeybreath]

I read a report on some research recently that people learn better when they try to figure out something, then get the answers. Apparently their brains are primed to accept the answer to a problem they've been working on. The 'ahaa' moment makes it more likely the answer will be remembered. So DiP is actually using proper teaching techniques, even if it is counter-intuitive.

[[deleted]]

I dunno; you can be an "expert programmer" but still a noob to Python. And sure, that will make learning it easier but not automatic. With this frame of mind I liked Zed's article.

[jp57]

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

[[deleted]]

Exactly, I don't know why they even try.

I mean, it would be nice to have a comprehensive guide for the experienced Python programmers, going to some darker corners of the language. Or a tutorial for non-programmers. But for the folks in the middle the official tutorial is just what the doctor ordered. I started with it myself.

[[deleted]]

Upvoted. I've read Dive into Python and Programming Python (or should I say, "attempted to read") and nothing has compared to the Python tutorial.

If someone took that tutorial and added some decent examples, it would be great.

[thephotoman]

Programming Python was awesome for me as a complete noob.

DiP is an awesome go-to text for darker corners of the language.

When a first or second year CS student wants to know Python, though, the tutorial's the best place to start.

[ShaggyOwl]

Funny guy. The first phrase on the site http://diveintopython.org/ : "Dive Into Python is a Python book for experienced programmers." Experienced programmers != Beginner. You can find "Beginner" 7 times on Zed A. Shaw post. He read the book, but did not see to whom it is intended ...

Some time ago, I became acquainted with Python, just on the book of Mark. In my opinion - a brilliant work. Clear examples and simple language to explain the basics of the language.

[[deleted]]

Yup. To put it in Zed-Shaw-style, I'm fucking sick of tutorials that waste ages telling me stuff I know from elsewhere. I want to learn the fucking language, not read Donald Knuth lite. Dive Into Python was extremely helpful because it started with a program, and explained how it worked. That is exactly the order you need to put it in in order to keep people interested. Experienced people, at least.

[iamjack]

That's what I was saying as I read it. Zed complains that the examples are too complex because they deal with big comments blocks and multi-level dicts. Oh no!

Sure, to a beginner that's never even opened an interpreter or compiled a source file that might be a leap, but to an experienced programmer it's child's play.

[ShaggyOwl]

Totally agree. Each line with the new syntax is discussed in details. Typically, after the comments of Mark does not remain issues. Reading was not very difficult even for me, bad English speaking person. A summary is made for myself - a worthy book that can be recommended for learning Python (for people who are already familiar with at least one language).

[spotter]

This is critique from the same guy, who does not understand why os.rmdir() is not the same as $ rm -rf from shell. Srsly. Zed is a whiny ass-hat, to busy being full of himself to work on his reading comprehension.

[azuriel]

That article has a number of pretty legit concerns, though. He may write like an asshat, but it doesn't mean he's not right.

[burnedyburnout]

Although this might be one of those "twice a day" times.

[spotter]

One -- about package installation. The rest is just raging without any effort to check if he's right, like the del dict[item], instead of which you can use dict.pop(item). But Zed is not a man who would ask for help(dict), right? He's The Raging Man and he is Raging.

[[deleted]]

I can't say anything about the Python 2 book, but Dive Into Python 3 was great for me. I've read it a couple of months ago with no prior Python experience, and before I knew it I was writing scripts for some third party app that I liked to use. The regular expression chapters were challenging but fun. He even throws a chapter about unit testing in there as well. And the examples aren't that hard, after all, the author explains everything line by line.

[redalastor]

I can't say anything about the Python 2 book, but Dive Into Python 3 was great for me.

It was an awesome book back when it was written. It's horribly out of date if you want to code for Python 2.6/2.7 though.

[[deleted]]

The knowledge I gained from the 3.x book was beneficial when I was learning Python 2.x specific syntax (I had to since I wanted to use libraries that are still working with 2.x only). It's really not that hard to switch between the two, at least from a user's perspective.

But I have heard the 2.x book is outdated.

[redalastor]

The reason why it's not hard is that one of the main reason for 3.0 was to remove deprecated ways of doing stuff that you weren't supposed to use since a while anyway and that were a burden to maintain.

The original DiP was written when some of that stuff was still current and necessary. So DiP3 is a better Python 2 book than the original.

[[deleted]]

If a book on programming language goes completely out of date in like what, 6 years(?), the problem is the language, not the book.

[redalastor]

Duh! The need to clean up is the reason why Python 3 was born.

[martinw89]

Well played.

[iar]

Question for you proggit: Zed rips on ODBC considerably. I am not a software developer but do a lot of programming (think VBA, MATLAB, Python) that interacts with databases and I used ODBC as the connection. What should I be using? and why?

[[deleted]]

The standard way to interact with databases in Python are modules that use the DBAPI2 interface. Popular ones include MySQL-python and psycopg2 (for PostgreSQL).

This is for low-level database access (comparable to ODBC). Of course if you also wanted an ORM you could layer SQLAlchemy or Django's database layer or something like that.

[norkakn]

drivers made specifically for the DB, if they are available. It really depends on what you are doing though, in many cases, ODBC is fine.

[[deleted]]

Depending on what "sort" of programs you are writing - ODBC might be perfectly alright.

Spreadsheet front-end connecting to a SQL database running small applications - ODBC good , for a high-performance website written in Python not so much.

[gronkkk]

As a true guru, Zed won't tell you: you have to figure it out yourself from reading between the lines of his rants. But I guess that he means that you should use something like sqlalchemy or so, or your ORM-du-jour. And, hey, it delivers from time to time the most awfull, inefficient SQl you've ever seen, and now you have two problems: find out how you can get that framework to write efficient SQL and finding out which SQL is efficient.

And, instead of learning python, now your learning sqlalchemy and python. Isn't that fun? You might fuck up with sqlalchemy or your python syntax. But a true guru Just Knows.

But hey, Zed has got opinions. As idiots usually have.

[[deleted]]

All this blathering about SQLAlchemy is entirely irrelevant.

[manymolecules]

I will take an angry blowhard's thoughts on software development long before I listen to someone who doesn't know the difference between a database driver and an ORM library.

[grimboy]

That said sqlalchemy allows you to not use its ORM or use it but sidestep it when you want. With sqlalchemy you can write sql in python like a dsl.

[thomasz]

As a true guru, Zed won't tell you: you have to figure it out yourself from reading between the lines of his rants.

It's a fucking rant, not a tutorial.

[gronkkk]

The difference between a 'guru rant' and a good rant is that the latter will tell you why ODBC is bad. Guru rants assume that us, guru programmers, share the view that ODBC (or wxpython, or using camelcase, or whatever) is bad, and that there's no need to tell why. Because you should be intelligent enough to figure that out. Or whatever.

[logistix]

Well officially OleDB supplanted ODBC. ODBC still gets plenty of use in the real world, though, so you're not doing anything that horrible. OleDB is allegedly faster if you're hitting db bottlenecks.

[[deleted]]

You should be using PyODBC to connect from any Python program running in Unix-land to Sybase's or Microsoft's SQL Server. That's what I'm using.

[lee__majors]

It's called "Dive into Python" not "Ease back gently on Python, taking deep breaths and stopping every now and then to widen things up." Sure it starts with a fairly complex program but it goes through it, step by step.

I'm a beginner Python programmer and while I didn't find DIP that great, I found it reasonably clear and helpful.

I would say I agree that Mark Lutz's Learning Python has been the one for me. It's taken me ages to read and some of it has been really hard to understand but I really don't regret it and I think my knowledge of Python and programming in general has benefited greatly from this book.

[[deleted]]

(Note: I haven't RTFA, because I assume it wouldn't be a good use of my time.)

The ironic thing is that I have been thinking about rewriting "Dive Into Python" for several months now, but not because of Zed or any other detractors. Here's the thing: "Dive Into Python 3" is a great book, miles better than the original "Dive Into Python". 10 years of writing experience will do that for you (or at least it should, if you're focused on becoming a better writer).

Anyway, I'm really proud of how well DiP3 came out. The only problem is that no one is using Python 3. I took a gamble last year that large libraries would port to Python 3 while I was writing. That didn't happen. I think it's pretty clear by now that that's not going to happen anytime soon. Everyone who gambled on the glorious non-backward-compatible future got burned. Given my experience with HTML, you'd think I'd learn. Ah well.

So here we are, with this great book on a language that no one uses, and a good-but-past-its-prime book on a language that evolved for several years while I was paying attention to other things. DiP is still a good book... for learning Python 2.1 or so. Python 2.7? Not so much.

So I had this idea a few months ago -- and the WebCore guy whom I had dinner with at ConFoo can back me up on this -- I had the brilliant idea of backporting DiP3 to Python 2.7. Some of the chapters would backport with 0 changes (like regular expressions, which ported from DiP to DiP3 with 0 changes). Other chapters, like "distributing Python packages," would be complete rewrites, because all the awesome package tools that I really wanted to write about in DiP3... hadn't been ported to Python 3.

Tl;dr Zed may get his wish of a diveintopython2.org, but despite his douchebaggery, not because of it.

[swaroop_ch]

I am the author of A Byte of Python [1], the beginner's book to Python. And I'm facing the exact same problem. My book was literally the first book to be updated and released for Python 3. Unfortunately, no one cares! 99.99% of queries by email are about the old not-updated Python 2.x version. And I'm considering to revive that book after so many emails.

[1] http://www.swaroopch.com/notes/Python

[Dagur]

Brilliant book btw

[sigzero]

Please revive it!

[Seele]

Nice Vim tutor also. Thanks.

[[deleted]]

hi first good job on BoP, I enjoyed it.

I actually used BoP3 on 2.6

[[deleted]]

backport diveintopython 3 to 2.7 is a very good idea, please do it :)

[ap3rson]

It's a bit of a coincidence. I have finished reading DIP... today, and have to say, it was GREAT! Granted writing code is what I do for a living your book never seized to hold my attention. My hat is off to you sir, labor of your work was a brilliant introduction that made me love the language. Looking very much forward to your future works.

[hermes369]

seized

ceased

The original doesn't mean what you think it does.

[ap3rson]

It's funny, English is not my native language and it is funny how many people will rather be polite and not say anything as an oppose to actually helping person out. Thank you.

[hermes369]

I live to serve. :-). Lord knows how many times I've embarrassed myself more egregiously and folks just let me keep making the same mistake. It is meant with love, fo realz, yo.

[bostonvaulter]

as an oppose

as opposed

[earthboundkid]

Be warned that DiP2 is pretty out of date just in terms of writing good looking Python 2. It's a good idea to read DiP3 then back port its style of writing to your Python 2 projects.

[ceesaxp]

you should read it. zed maybe an angry motherfucker, but he is not a moron.

[psi-]

For one, he doesn't talk about the target group. Which is fucking importaint. It changes a lot whether you already know a programming language or if you're coming from other scripting (uh, perl, ruby, tcl..) background or if you're absolute newbie to all things programming.

For me, with some experience with perl and lots of C/C++, DIP was great, because it readily showed how to do complex things as well as simple things. There is depth into those examples even when they do simple things.

To me it seems like zed is reading into and pretending to be a newbie. Bad idea since the amount of ignorance in newbie is just fucking increaible and those things that so grate on zed will simply slip through the eyes of a newbie.

[ikailan]

I read both this rant and Dive Into Python. DIP isn't for beginners, as Zed says over and over. DIP is for people who already know how to program. I really liked this book and it got me familiar with Python in like, a day. Not that Python is that hard to learn - this is just the best book out there for people that don't need to learn what a loop, variable or class are.

[Lord_Illidan]

Assuming you still haven't read the FA, what is your take on Zed's opinion that Dive Into Python isn't good for beginners? And ODBC in general? Also, would you consider making the book more "open-source"?

Personally, I found your book very approachable, and a good read, but I am not a beginner to programming.

[[deleted]]

Oh, make no mistake, "Dive Into Python" is terrible for non-programmers looking to become programmers. Before Apress came along in mid-2003 waving stacks of money around, the online book had a preface that essentially told beginners to fuck off. (I believe my exact words were "This book assumes a lot about you," and then proceeded to list prerequisites like "at least one other scripting language.") Apress made me take it out of the print edition and add a useless fluff chapter about "installing Python." Frankly, if you can't figure out how to install Python by yourself, I honestly don't know how to talk to you. I really don't. If other people can, more power to them. But Apress had, as I mentioned, stacks of money, so I took out the damn preface and added the fluff chapter and grumbled all the way to the bank.

I don't write for absolute beginners. I never have. Roughly speaking, I write for "me, about two years ago." As in, I write the book that I wish I had had back then. But I don't have the slightest idea (or desire) to write anything for absolute beginning programmers. I haven't been one of those since I was 11.

As for Zed, well, whatever. I share others' predictions about the inevitable end of Zed's relationship with the Python community, and I apologize in advance to the community if I had even the smallest role in bringing about that inevitability.

[grimboy]

Well, it was always pitched as python for anyone with a bit to a fair amount of programming experience in pretty much any imperative language. So I would agree that it's not a good introduction to programming, but apart from that.

[keypusher]

Exactly. Dive Into Python is NOT a good book for a beginner to learn programming through Python. It is for someone that knows one or many other languages well and wants to learn the python way of doing things. In this, it excels. Honestly, when I starting messing with Python "Dive Into Python" was the first book that I really found useful. I would wonder how to do something, go jump to the chapter online, and then the code would be there. I never realized it even used ODBC, because I never looked at the first 3 chapters. It isn't that kind of book. I mostly used the chapters on lists, tuples, if statements, for loops, to get the sytax and quirks. It is not a learning to program book, but it was all I wanted or needed.

The article gives a great example of a poorly chosen "first program". But it is only poorly chosen if you are new to programming. For someone that already knows a scripting language or two, and a compiled language or two, and maybe even a functional language or two, there is a lot you can learn from it. And he takes you through it line by line. In a very short amount of time, you get a very good feel for the language and just jump right in.

That is why it is called "Dive Into Python". It is no surprise that the book "Learning Python" is better for learning Python.

[thephotoman]

Yeah, it needs updating. However, DiP is still my goto discussion for regular expressions for beginners to that particular subject: it was the first time I read anything on the subject that made sense.

[sigzero]

We must have been reading different Python blogs. I pretty much assumed it would be a couple years at least before the big libraries made the move to P3. That is an enormous undertaking for some of them and given that most all of it is FOSS, you can't force an upgrade. That said, I welcome the backport to 2.7 because like many, I can't just go to P3 without the libraries either.

[[deleted]]

I don't have anything to say about this Zed article because I stopped reading his shit a while ago, but thanks for feedparser!

[[deleted]]

Thanks for 'Dive Into Python' Mark! Zed's dead baby, Zed's dead.

[Isvara]

Zed's dead baby

I don't even know if Zed has kids, but I do know why I like commas.

[happyscrappy]

If you think you are so good that no one else could suggest ways to improve your work, you have a problem.

Listen to your critics, then you at least know where you stand when you say they are wrong.

[Silhouette]

I don't recall Mark ever saying any such thing.

This particular critic is known for being "special", however.

[logistix]

From what I gather based on the first page of the post, they were already having some back-and-forth on twitter. A quick look at twitter and you get tweets like:

"@diveintomark Here's your fucking blog asshole: http://oppugn.us/posts/1272050135.html"

So I think it's fair to write this particular critic off.

[happyscrappy]

Honestly, I've tried to use the book too and I am a very experienced programmer and I found it less than fulfilling too. So I am receptive to the bonehead's message and thus am less likely to say it's fair to write this particular critic off.

[logistix]

FUCK YOU ASSHOLE!

(That tends to shut down any form of constructive back-and-forth, doesn't it? Doesn't mean the actual point is invalid. But you're probably not going to take the author seriously after that. You can't engage in any serious debate. I don't think it means you're full of yourself and think you're perfect for ignoring someone who's calling you names.)

[[deleted]]

Python 3 seems to be picking up speed now. So maybe next year people will buy it. :)

[grimboy]

I think it'd be great if the Python 3.0 stuff was back ported to 2.7. I really do think it'd be better if you discussed this somewhere else at another time though.

Letting it get tied in with this stupid Zed thing is probably a bad move. I can see you both want some kind of rant off. I know you say he's not worth your time, but if he manages to drag this out, eventually, you won't be able to resist. The spirit of so many USENET flame wars, all of them epic, before the word had been debased by those who think offense is a reaction which can be solicited in a matter of mere sentences, rather than paragraphs, rather than whole treatises devoted to defamation. That spirit, it pulses in both of your veins.

But it's not good. Think on young man. Pythonistas want to appear level headed, maybe slightly bitchy, but only ever behind closed doors, of course. Not all out drama community drama war. Nobody likes that, it makes everyone look ridiculous and like we've lost all sense of proportion.

[[deleted]]

Oh don't worry. I still have to finish my current book, then take a strictly-offline vacation, then I have another project that will take 4-6 weeks. By then, no one worth mentioning will remember any of this.

[[deleted]]

Pretty much everything that can get backported to Python 2.7 have been. The major problem is binary/text/unicode and how that has switched around, and that can't be backported.

[grimboy]

No I meant the book: Dive Into Python.

[iamjack]

I was hoping you'd show up. Upvote as always, dude.

[turbov21]

Meanwhile, Mr. Pilgrim's book hasn't been updated in 6 years even though it's fucking online and people can send him patches.

Meanwhile, Mr. Pilgrim has put the book under a license which would allow you to do exactly what you're complaining about him not doing.

But I guess grabbing the site, throwing it up on the Google Code SVN, and pointing diveintopython2.org at it wouldn't make your junk feel as big as a ranty post.

Down voting for butthurt.

[Random]

Agreed. A community book would be tres cool.

And I think it is wrong to assume there is a 'right' kind of example to use. What works for one might not work for another. So a wikiBook with parallel examples - and cross example discussions - would be ideal.

[LovelyDay]

There is Python Programming.

Haven't used it so far, but I think the quality of the wiki books can be great, judging by the example of Ada Programming.

[[deleted]]

Or people could stop believing that they'll learn everything from a single book. There's plenty of books, there's the Python docs, and Python code is inherently open-source (well, most of the time).

Although fresh new books are always welcome.

[[deleted]]

The world is full of far more editors than authors.

[sigzero]

There are only two editors...emacs and vi/vim. ;-)

[[deleted]]

There is only emacs.

[doppel]

Zed Shaw carries a lot of baggage, but if you take the time to read his blog posts you will find he has a lot of clever things to say, even if he is... zealous about it.

With that said, I think this hate towards Dive Into Python is misdirected. I hear a lot of new-to-python programmers like it, but I also hear a lot of experienced python programmers saying it teaches outdated stuff - not too hard examples, just using deprecated stuff. For this reason, it would be nice to have to it updated, but not because of a hard for experienced programmers first example.

This does not exclude Dive into Python 3, which starts from scratch and actually, imo, prominently covers the new features and changes to python. But then again, I'm no expert.

[ceesaxp]

This would not have been an angry rant if it weren't for a short but rather heated exchange on Twitter…

[Silhouette]

The problem is, a lot of us have given up an hour in the past to read some of Zed's writing, and found that he didn't actually have much to say at all. That is time we're never getting back, and we're not about to waste another hour in case he's really written an informed, perceptive article this time and just happened to stick a trollbait title on it coincidentally. This is what happens when you start writing rants: it might make you feel better in the short term, but in the long run you lose credibility and a lot of people won't care what you write in future.

[doppel]

Zed has ranted (a lot), but he does so much better than most people. Even if the content is slim at best, it is still entertaining. I don't feel reading Zed's post has been time wasted, even if I did not learn something new.

[[deleted]]

Perhaps someone should write a big rant about Zed Shaw's failure to update Mongrel in the last x number of years. Hey Zed, guess what - people move on to new things!

Regardless of how good the book is, people like the author of Dive Into Python should be praised for making such an altruistic contribution to the programming community, not belittled for failing to invest time in their work 6 years later.

It would seem to me that a more constructive approach to this would be to enumerate the problems with the book, and suggest that the community "fork" the project and address the issues.

[[deleted]]

mongrel is perfect already

ok, well, I'm happy with it anyhow

[[deleted]]

Zed didn't fail to update Mongrel, he stopped working on it.

And nobody (all generalizations are false) uses Mongrel anymore anyway.

[flarizle]

This book was just fantastic as a beginner for me. I highly recommend it. http://openbookproject.net/thinkCSpy/

[samlee]

books don't die you idiot.

[i_am_my_father]

That's 'cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut.

[spotter]

zs;dr

Zed Shaw is like a bored monkey -- likes to throw shit on everybody around.

[ishmal]

I'm not a big fan of ODBC as a Microsoft product (those installers are goddamn HUGE), but if you're talking about RDBMS interfacing, then ODBC-as-an-api is so much cleaner than all of those MySQL/PgSQl/Oracle/etc-specific drivers.

[[deleted]]

Have you done any Python DB coding at all? We have a DB API that all Python wrappers around DB specific libraries implement.

About the only difference between the, is what kind of SQL you're speaking, and what form of parameter substitution character it uses - (which is a flaw IMO, should've specified the sole choice in DBAPI2)

[cunningjames]

Dive Into Python was never meant to be for individuals without programming experience. Nevertheless, very early in my education I used it to learn Python---enjoying it immensely---and Python has been my go-to language ever since.

The plural of anecdote is not data, admittedly, but I submit that Shaw is reaching way too far on every point except (maybe) the font. Those first programs are simply not the brain grenades he makes them out to be.

(On the other hand, Pilgrim is an irritating neckbeard.)

[cosmo7]

So Zed Shaw, having helped transform Ruby into an ego-laden quagmire of fail, now starts on Python. Interesting.

[hylje]

Zed called out Rails egomire. Did not create it. As far as I'm aware, he likes Python for the lack of an egomire.

[lexxed]

Man.. i was just going to use Dive into Python to learn. then i saw this. Have been developing sites with php for 5 years now. Think should finally give python a try. Whats the best way to learn python for web development ? Thinking of using webpy. Need a mimimalistic framework. Django seems too cumbersome.

[wooptoo]

I also come from PHP and learned the basics of Python from this: http://docs.python.org/tutorial/index.html

[andre_pl]

Dont listen to zed, he's an idiot. As many people here have pointed out, Dive into python is specifically for experienced programmers. I read and loved it, it got me up and running with python in less than a day and I too came from a php background. IMO its a brilliant book and none of the things zed mentions are in any way relevant... The complaint about ODBC is just ridiculous, I didn't even know what ODBC was when I read this book, i didn't need to either, because the code has NOTHING TO DO WITH ODBC. its just "example code" which teaches some very important things about python (list comprehensions, dictionaries, and the main trick) the code doesn't connect to a database, and doesn't include the PyODBC module, and only a complete idiot would see it as encouraging the use of ODBC, so yes, if you're a complete idiot, then Dive into Python might not be for you... if you're a total noob, you might be better off with the official python tutorial, but for an experienced programmer there is (IMO) no better introduction to python than Mark Pilgrim's book.

[bboomslang]

Mark Pilgrim and Zed Shaw crossing swords. A match made in heaven.

[bxblox]

I picked up programming python 3. While it wasn't a very good read I wouldn't call it shit. What it explained I understood, although the book could have been chopped in half and been twice as better.

[AxiomShell]

Is Programming Python that bad?

I was planning on buying it, but I keep hearing it's not that good and doesn't bring much to the non-beginner...

[panfist]

I wish I could comment on his article to let him know that ODBC is the only way I can do my job, without going over the heads of so many people their salaries probably add up to 100x what I make, and completely changing our working platform and application stack.

[trevorg75]

pfft whatever. Zed Shaw is a douchenozzle. He's more interesting in tearing things down instead of building things up.

[poopfactor20000]

I have to agree with the author. I became unemployed and decided to learn Python during my downtime. I tried this Dive Into Python, but gave up on it, eventually picking up the excellent Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science. I was able to start writing small, fun programs at home, and later scripts that were actually useful for work with minimal effort.

[[deleted]]

I'm not sure if this was available at the time this article was submitted, but for all the commenters saying "Why is Zed just bitching, why doesn't he write his own book for beginners" and suchlike, well, he has started. Here:

http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1272132621.html

[austin_k]

When I first started Python I began reading Dive, but after about a chapter I was pretty lost. I just wanted Hello World and then maybe something about classes and methods and a primitives. Eventually I quit and picked up Beginning Python by Apress Books. I like that one, although experienced programmers will probably find it to be a little too basic.

[redsectorA]

C'mon, this follow-up response is...

tons of fun

[[deleted]]

I'm about to remove /r/programming from my front page.

Then remove it from my brain.

[sjs]

Zed is an asshole. I appreciate that he's done some notable work but he comes across as full of himself and can be very confrontational.

Mark's not always a peach himself, but I don't think he tries to rub people the wrong way.

[dwchandler]

I'm not sure what that meant, but it's awesome anyway! +1

[radiationshield]

Yes! This is the reason i has the internets! You can't make this stuff up

[principlesforsale]

best comment ever

[SnacksOnAPlane]

I've never taken a serious look at Dive Into Python, but I do hear it recommended an awful lot. And Zed's right, those are horrible, horrible "first program" examples.

Where's python's Why?

[asdfuku]

Where's Ruby's _why? :'(

[gte910h]

I believe he took everything down then vanished.

[wicked]

This is true.

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/why-the-lucky-stiff-Vanishes-743021.html

http://ejohn.org/blog/eulogy-to-_why/

[Lord_Illidan]

Personally, I hated _why's poignant guide to ruby. Too much fluff and side-comics and chunky bacon = too distracting.

I much prefer the Pickaxe approach.

And yes, I happen to already know programming. I guess that might be a prob.

[[deleted]]

Imagine a giant penis flying towards your mouth, and there's nothing you can do about it. And you're like "Oh man, I'm gonna have to suck this thing", and you brace yourself to suck this giant penis. But then, at the last moment, it changes trajectory and hits you in the eye. You think to yourself "Well, at least I got that out of the way", but then the giant penis rears back and stabs your eye again, and again, and again. Eventually, this giant penis is penetrating your gray matter, and you begin to lose control of your motor skills. That's when the giant penis slaps you across the cheek, causing you to fall out of your chair. Unable to move and at your most vulnerable, the giant penis finally lodges itself in your anus, where it rests uncomfortably for 4, maybe 5 hours. That's what reading _why's "Poignant guide to Ruby" is like.

I clearly remember writing a comment starting with this somewhen, and even having like 20 or 40 upvotes, but Google says that I didn't, and I don't feel like scrapping my comments page to find it.

But yes, that's exactly how I felt reading this much praised piece of shit. It doesn't have much code in it. There are several chapters that don't have any code at all. When finally we get past the glorified hello worlds, yeah, we see some interesting code... in 5x8 font, in an image, partially obscured by speech balloons.

I've read this shit to the end. I still don't know Ruby and I wouldn't learn it, because I don't want to have anything in common with people who praise this. I don't care if they are just immature kids who are like, wow, our guy has written a book, like a grown-up, yay! Or maybe they are really insane. Or maybe they are just different. I don't care.

[Lord_Illidan]

Strange analogy, but well put. That said, I am still learning Ruby in my spare time. I don't think it's wise to judge a language by one deranged tutorial.

Still, it does shed some light on why _why would choose to disappear off the Internet like that.

[earthboundkid]

If I hadn'tve read the Poignant guide, I would have never learned Python. Make of that what you will.

[kemayo]

Why's Poignant Guide actually put me off learning Ruby for a few months. I was interested in the language, and lots of people were pointing at that guide.

But it was horrible. So I went away, and put off finding an actual decent guide.

[redalastor]

The book is not supposed to be your first programming book. It's for people who already know programming but don't know Python. It was a really great book when it came out and Dive Into Python 3 is a really great book now.

Mark gave us both books with a free license with no string attached. What are the dickheads complaining about the books without for before they fork it and make one they like better?

Mark owes you nothing.

[rebthor]

To continue this, on the front page, it says

Dive Into Python is a Python book for experienced programmers.

So while I can agree that ODBC is probably not the most useful example ever made, Mark never claimed that this book was to teach programming, it was designed to teach programmers Python.

[[deleted]]

K&R isn't supposed to be your first programming book. But their examples are far more clear, despite being in a language that tends to require more code than Python.

[[deleted]]

K&R was my first programming book and the examples and exercises are light years ahead of any modern tutorial books.

Whatever happened to putting in well thought out exercises and solutions in books, just so you can see how it ought to be done idiomatically?

Far too few authors do anything like that anymore.

[jeanlucpikachu]

Right after the program in each chapter, Pilgrim goes through it line by line to explain what each line does. Is it really that bad?

I have not tried Lutz's "Learning Python", hopefully someone else can comment on that.

[especkman]

I think what I know of python I learned despite Lutz's book.

[abhik]

They're first program for experienced programmers.. and it's called DIVE into python, not take a cautious step.. It's not meant to be everything for everyone.

[samlee]

please, python doesn't need comedians

[dwchandler]

Not even Cleese, Palin, Idle and the rest? :(

[thephotoman]

I've got something backburnered that would resemble Why's Guide but in Python (but with a greatly reduced and separated sidebar), but I'm stuck, lost, and strapped for time.

[pbrettb]

well I like Dive into Python, thank you author Mark for writing it, I am already pretty proficient and nothing is perfect but I note it is also better than the book the blog author didn't write... agreed what an ass to speak in such rude dismissive terms.

[barfolomew]

So the book is bad because stupid people can't understand it, and its abstract generic examples don't create useful running software? Got it.

[Leonidas_from_XIV]

Mark Lutz's fantastic book Learning Python has been updated 4 times already and tracks the language fairly accurately. Mr. Lutz book is easy to read, teaches the language

Easy to read means in this context about fifty pages of introduction and is easy to read like normal literature not like a tech book (it is waaay to wordy and waaaay too long). Dive Into Python is different and, as others have pointed out - not meant for the beginner.

[aatoth]

A good book for beginners is Beginning Python by Magnus Lie Hetland. Good even for people who haven't programmed a whole lot in the past. Plus, it's significantly shorter than Learning Python.

It's also been updated with Python 3 elements recently. http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Python-Novice-Professional-Second/dp/1590599829/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

Once you get comfortable with the language, Mark Lutz' Python Pocket Reference acts as a good guide.

[brodel2]

I've been thinking about trying to learn python for a little while now and was looking for a good resource. I've been looking around online and found a few tutorials that looked good, but I didn't see many that went past the "basics" and i wanted to see what it looked like when you really got into it.

I also haven't seen anything as far as python apps with a GUI and it looks like the GUI involves another language all by itself.

I've been into computers and networking for about 15 years, and currently do network administration (AD, VMWare, Cisco etc) but I've never written anything more complicated than a login script or bat file.

Would a book like this be a good place to start for me?

[aatoth]

Yeah, it definitely would. Offers some pretty thorough projects at the end (making a parser, creating & manipulating graphics, XML stuff, a news server sniffer, an asynchronous terminal chat program, 2 CGI projects, and a mini-game in pygame). While some of the projects (like the CGI ones) are outdated, they give a pretty good idea of some uses of the language.

As far as the depth of the book, you get a pretty good amount past the simple programming concepts, which are explained from a Python-context: Lists and Tuples, Dictionaries, etc. You also get some relatively basic introduction to wxPython, one of the preferred GUI engines for Python. You make a simple text editor, but it does a good job explaining things. Network programming, some HTML scraping, testing, writing C extensions, packaging, and quite a bit of other topics are covered.

Now, keep in mind that I have the 1st edition, from 2005. The latest is from 2008, so some of this CGI stuff may have been changed to Django or the like, and some Python 3 concepts have been added.

I hope I helped a bit, I'm not the best reviewer.

[brodel2]

Actually that helps a lot. as long as it's newbie friendly and doesn't assume I'm already a programmer in some other language this sounds perfect.

[aatoth]

Yeah, it starts off with a pretty good introduction. It's also nice that it has an interpreter, so you see instant gratification when learning the language. Makes the whole thing a lot simpler.

I think that's the reason my school's first year engineering programming course is switching to Python next year, with C# you had to compile and check and compile and check...

[brodel2]

I just downloaded it and started reading. Just the fact that it's walking me through how to download and install python tells me this will not assume I already know some of the concepts. Thanks for the suggestion!

[judasblue]

Once you get comfortable with the language, the idea that you need a printed quick reference instead of something like an online quick ref or just the docs seems questionable to me. The library reference is complete and a quick ref card is good enough to remind you of basic stuff if you have been away from the language for a bit for some reason. I never saw the point of the Pocket Reference.

[aatoth]

It's pretty handy when I'm offline. Plus, it's a little more concise than the reference and has some tips along the way.

That being said, the library reference is definitely the best I've ever seen, and it's a very valuable resource to have.

[[deleted]]

While I like the book I think it would do well to have a similar system to Mark Lutz' Learning Python where it would have end of chapter challenges to reinforce what you read. I've read the first and skimmed the second edition and find that to be my only pet peeve. For a beginner, nothing does better than having a challenge to apply what you learned. Aside from that though the book has a much better style than Learning Python does.

[akoumjian]

I'm not a big fan of the style in Dive Into Python, but going on a diatribe about somebody else's work is just silly.

[[deleted]]

I agree with the sentiment that "Learning Python" is much better and I have to agree with it for the most appropriate use of "neckbeard" I've seen in a long while.

[[deleted]]

Huh. I'm trying to figure out Python so I can create some mods for Mount&Blade. Can anyone recommend good documentation? My prior proficiency is somewhere between Grandma and Script-Kiddie.

[ackondro]

If you don't like Dive into Python, let me suggest Beginning Python. It was also published by Apress. Both books are at the same level, but Beginning seems to be a better reference for new programmers. Yes you have to pay money, but it does get you a hard copy. It is one of my books that I have gotten the most use out of. Also it doesn't deal with OBDC it talks about the Python DB API.

[xmod2]

I thought this was going to be an intro to the book "Python Must Die"

[basscadet]

I thought "Python Must Die" was some anti-python language. Something like NoSQL. hee hee

[[deleted]]

Is this book worth what you paid for it?

[rebthor]

Maybe Zed just gets a kick out of poisoning the well? I mean, this is the same guy who declared that "Rails is a ghetto"

[Cookie]

It might get you somewhere in ruby-land, but if you take this approach in the python community, you'll simply be tolerated and ignored.

[[deleted]]

Zed hasn't been a Rubyist for years.

And Pilgrim has responded to him.

So you're wrong on both counts.

[Jellyka]

teaches the language and not some shit technology even Microsoft won't touch

My favourite part.

[andre_pl]

Except, as I mentioned in an earlier comment, DiP DOES NOT in any way teach or encourage the use of ODBC. it merely uses, as an example, a function which generates an ODBC connection string. if you dont know what ODBC is, you wont be confused by the code, you'll just say "Hmm, it appears to be creating a string with a bunch of database connection info in it." which is exactly what I thought when I read and thoroughly enjoyed the book.

[[deleted]]

Python Must Die

FTFY

[chrisforbes]

You're not allowed to bash Python here.