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Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner, Second Edition (For the Absolute Beginner)
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List Price: $29.99
Our Price: $13.98
Your Save: $16.01 ( 53% )
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Manufacturer: Course Technology PTR
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.133
EAN: 9781598631128
ISBN: 1598631128
Label: Course Technology PTR
Manufacturer: Course Technology PTR
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 472
Publication Date: 2005-11-08
Publisher: Course Technology PTR
Studio: Course Technology PTR
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Phyton Programming Second edition
Comment: Service from Amazon dot com is excellent. The book was received in good order. The content of the book fulfilled my expectations. I had no direction in any programming language. This book is absolute for beginners and I have some kind of direction to plan and expand my programming knowledge with Python.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Learning how to use other peoples' work as a crutch
Comment: This is a pretty good book for learning basic python... and how to use the basic tools of Tkinter... and how to use a modified version of Livewires... The problem here is that you never learn how to access anything beyond the scope of basic self-contained programming and the highly limited capabilities of these pre-made modules. If you want to be able to interact with your hardware, the internet, or anything other than math and games, you're out of luck. Common sense would tell you not to start a beginning programmer with a reliance on one graphics module and one GUI module, neither of which you expect them to even take a peek at the source of, but then, common sense would require students not to expect to have graphics handed to them on a silver platter. The first nine chapters are good work though... The 10th and 11th simply give in to the students' wishes that they could go ahead and have a graphic interface without doing any of the work, and that's not good teaching.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not very good
Comment: I think there were some errors in this book. I do know it was rather distressing in a way.
The book is full of lessons, and I always wondered exactly where they were going with them.. what were they going to accomplish? Everything seems so unfinished in the book.
I recall a lot of emphasis on games... I don't care about games.
I have a Macintosh computer, and use Poser. I am distressed because some Poser-related utilities don't come in Macintosh versions. I thought I'd try to learn Python and write some of my own.
I gave up after less than 100 pages. I think these people are so caught up in their own knowledge that they forget to see things through the eyes of rank beginners who are desperate to learn programming.
This book joins a collection of other books that are truly disappointing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "TRAP"ped by use of modified open-source package
Comment: Important update 2008-4-23 to review below: I sent the author an email through his website, and within 3 hours he had emailed back to me the modified software I needed. Yes, I still think he should have that software posted on his website, but his quick response certainly helped me out of the trouble I was in!
My daughter is using this book to learn to program for her class project, and the CD is at school. Meanwhile, I am trying to set up the same environment for her on our home computer, which is a Mac. So I got my python up-to-date, installed Pygame, no problem, then for her to do the examples in Chapter 11 on graphics, she needs the livewires package. Only then I encounter the "TRAP" on page 330 - the livewires package on the CD that comes with the book is a modified version of the livewires package available on the web. And the example programs do not work with the standard livewires release. And the book does not give source code differences for the modified package, nor is the modified package available on the author's website or anywhere else I can find (although this entire chapter is available on-line as an assignment for a computer science course, making me feel foolish for buying the book). So I am left unable to create the programming environment at home to match what's in this book. This situation is directly against the portability/openness philosophy of Python, and is causing me a lot of trouble. Mr. Dawson should have stuck with stock, publicly-available packages as the platform for his instructional text. Failing that, he should have tried to get his changes incorporated into a livewires release. Failing that, he should distribute the modified livewires himself via the internet (livewires is BSD-licensed itself), since it is easy for book and CD to become separated, and the book is much less valuable without his own private version of livewires. If you lose the CD, you'll never be able to run his example code in the text of chapters 11 and 12. "TRAP" indeed!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great book for Python beginners
Comment: Very easy to understand and great for first time programmers. A bit slow for those more experienced. Still, highly recommended
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Editorial Reviews:
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Ready to learn Python programming? Are you new to programming with Python? Do you need a solid introduction to the fundamental concepts? You've found it in "Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner, Second Edition," the updated version of the successful "Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner." As part of the for the absolute beginner series developed by computer science instructors exclusively for Cengage Learning Course Technology PTR, this book will teach you the basics of Python programming through simple game creation. You can then take the skills you learn and use them for more practical Python programming applications and real-world programming scenarios. Better still, by the time you finish this book you will be able to apply the basic principles you've learned to the next programming language you tackle. Create simple, fun games while you learn to program with Python.
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