I'd like to butt in here and say "Dive Into Python" is a great book, as is "How to Think Like a Computer Scientist"
Both are freely available on the net. "How to think..." teaches python, with pretty good beginner explanations. "Dive into..." teaches from a higher level, but is very well written with excellently footnoted examples. I have both on my zaurus in html format and read them all sorts of places. http://diveintopython.org/ http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCSpy/ Aha. on finding those url's i see there is a "How to think...Java edition" - might be worth comparing the two. http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCSjav/ My goodness, it goes on...logo & c++ too http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCS/ On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 09:17:44 +1300 Carl Cerecke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hugh McColl wrote: > > On Thursday 25 November 2004 08:51, Carl Cerecke wrote: > > > > > >>Python is definitely nifty. I use it often, and it is the easiest > >>computer language that I've ever learned (and I've learned a few). > > > > > > Yes, I quite like Python so far. I decided to learn and use it Yesterday to > > write a script that needs to run on linux and windoze. The language itself > > is relatively straightforward to pick compared to perl or C++ for example > > but > > I'm not convinced that it's a great deal simpler than Java. > > Actually, python may possibly be more complicated than Java. But Java > has a higher entry barrier for a computer language newbie. Just compare > a "hello world" program. In Java, you have introduce concepts for this > simple program: publics, statics, voids, System.outs, a class etc. In > python, you just have: print "hello world" > > > The meta-programming and introspection facilities in Python look > > interesting, > > but I haven't had time to play with any of that yet. > > They are good, and a great deal easier to use than Java's reflection > API. But that is typical of a scripting language. Just today I am > writing python code that is made incredibly simpler by being able to > execute a string as python code. > > Cheers, > Carl -- Nick Rout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
