Chapter 3 introduces flow of control and covers ifs and while loops before moving on to exceptions and context managers. As already mentioned, there's nothing about pattern matching. Chapter 7 revisits class and here we learn about how to write a class definition, but not exactly how the class works, how methods are created and how inheritance works. We do find out some deeper things later on, but it isn't until the closing sections of the chapter that we discover that a class is an object and learn aboutmetaclass.Getting a clear idea of what is going on with class and instance is difficult. Python Distilled by David M. Beazley is a pragmatic book that presents some of the most important topics about the Python programming language in a concise form, designed to make it easier to find out the most relevant information bits in a context where resources abound and frequently are just too overwhelming. Book Structure and Contents Chapter 2 introduces data and does it as if Python's data structures were like those in Java, or any other object-oriented language. You learn about sets, dictionaries and so on and something about iterables and sequences, but there's no real emphasis on the way Python makes use of mixins to create classes with the characteristics of the standard data types. In Python any class can be an iterable,not just lists, and this has nothing much to do with inheritance.

self = cls. __new__( cls) # Make instance self. year = t. tm_year self. month = t. tm_mon self. day = t. tm_mday return self

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Chapter 6 is about generators and it does give you the basics, but itfailstoemphasizethat generators are just another way to create aniterable. This doesn't matter if all you are interested in is using generators ascoroutines,say, but it does if you are thinking of implementing aniterableeither as a generator or using __next__. The way iterators developed from generators is briefly mentioned in a final section at the end of the chapter as a history lesson.

Throughout the book, the book tends to present small examples and short code samples, as it tries to explain the python programming language itself. So, it does not cover the techniques and design or architectural patterns that are usually required in larger scale projects. But, once again, there are other (some of them much longer) books for that purpose. Conclusions If you're a complete beginner to programming, I'd recommend starting with a different book. But Python Distilled could easily be the second book on your list once you have some experience. Python educator Dave Beazley's concise handbook focuses on the essential core of the Python programming language, with code examples to illuminate how Python works and how to structure programs that can be more easily explained, tested, and debugged. Rather than trying to cover every possible feature and quirk of a 30-year-old language, this pragmatic guide provides a concise narrative related to fundamental programming topics that form the foundation for Python projects of any size including Throughout, the book tends to present small examples and short code samples as it tries to explain the Python programming language itself. It does not cover the techniques and design or architectural patterns that are usually required in larger-scale projects. Once again, however, there are other (some of them much longer) books for that purpose. ConclusionPython educator Dave Beazley’s concise handbook focuses on the essential core of the Python programming language, with code examples to illuminate how Python works and how to structure programs that can be more easily explained, tested, and debugged. Rather than trying to cover every possible feature and quirk of a 30-year-old language, this pragmatic guide provides a concise narrative related to fundamental programming topics that form the foundation for Python projects of any size including Rather than trying to cover every possible feature and quirk of a 30-year-old language, this pragmatic guide provides a concise narrative related to fundamental programming topics such as data abstraction, control flow, program structure, functions, objects, and modules--topics that form the foundation for Python projects of any size. Chapter 1 is a lightning overview of Python from variables to objects. It doesn't go deep into anything - just presents the basic ideas. For example, in the section on functions it just tells you how to define a Python function as if it was any other language and doesn't mention the important fact that a function is an object. There is a later chapter dedicated to functions so this isn't unreasonable. Section 1.8, pg. 15. ['SYM', '123', '456.78'] should include the newline and be ['SYM', '123', '456.78\n']