![[Book Cover]](ora-pp3e-small.gif)
O'Reilly published the 3rd edition of the book Programming Python in August, 2006. This 1500-page edition is an updated and expanded version of the 2nd Edition, with new material on GUIs, systems programming, Internet scripting, databases, C integration, and more.
Although it has been expanded and revised, this third edition retains the applications-programming focus of the prior edition. It's about what you can do with Python after you've learned the core language. As a gradual tutorial for applications work, this edition is designed to be a natural follow-up to the language fundamentals book Learning Python, and augmented by the reference book Python Pocket Reference.
Given its in-depth coverage of each of its target domains, this edition is essentially like 4 or 5 books in one. It comes with some 350 pages on GUIs, 500 on Internet programming, and so on. Along the way, larger development concepts such as OOP and code reuse are put into action in practical and realistically-scaled programs you'll want to refer to and use.
See the following links for more details on this book:
Two details worth noting: first, we opted for an online distribution of the examples in this edition instead of a CD, to allow for updates. Be sure to fetch the examples package from the link above to work along and experiment with the code. It's a free download at O'Reilly's site. After unpacking with Winzip, gzip/tar, or other tools, run its top-level Examples\PP3E\Launch_PyDemos.pyw for a quick look at major book examples.
Secondly, on O'Reilly's page listed above you'll notice that they sell this edition in both paper and PDF file forms. The latter is convenient for searching and cut and paste of code, and when you don't want to carry around a 1500+ page book. The PDF file is only 14M, and fits comfortably on a USB key.
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