{"id":43,"date":"2011-02-18T22:37:35","date_gmt":"2011-02-19T03:37:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/syntap.com\/blog\/?p=43"},"modified":"2011-02-18T22:37:35","modified_gmt":"2011-02-19T03:37:35","slug":"review-of-head-first-python-authored-by-paul-barry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/syntap.com\/blog\/?p=43","title":{"rendered":"Review of Head First Python, authored by Paul Barry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Head  First Python is an excellent intro to the language. \u00a0The book&#8217;s  teaching method keeps the pages turning, and by the end you will have  built apps on three platforms (PC, Android, Web). \u00a0You will also have  good familiarity with Python&#8217;s bundled editor and command interface.<\/p>\n<p>I  was pleased with the inclusion of Android interface coverage and Google  App Engine (GAE). I had not yet deployed a project on GAE and that  experience added value to the book. The example projects were good  enough for instructional purposes, though after a couple of chapters on  the same project I found myself losing interest&#8230; luckily the author  changes the sample project a few times. \u00a0The exercises had a varied  style to them, which helped maintain interest. \u00a0Some of the exercises  are straight coding to solve a problem, but others present some code and  have you piece code blocks together from a pool of provided code lines.<\/p>\n<p>The  teaching method used aids retention&#8230; before I completed the book I  ran into a need to modify a python program that pulled stock quotes from  Yahoo in order to help Microsoft Money update quotes following Microsoft&#8217;s sunsetting of the product, and I had learned enough to diagnose and fix the issue.<\/p>\n<p>Many  language tutorial books are hard to read from cover to cover and  maintain interest and attention&#8230; I didn&#8217;t have that problem with Head  First Python and was able to read the whole book easily. Anyone needing  an intro to Python should consider this book.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/oreilly.com\/catalog\/9781449382674\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" title=\"Link to book at O'Reilly\" src=\"http:\/\/covers.oreilly.com\/images\/9781449382674\/s.gif\" alt=\"Head First Python cover\" width=\"164\" height=\"190\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many language tutorial books are hard to read from cover to cover and maintain interest and attention&#8230; I didn&#8217;t have that problem with Head First Python and was able to read the whole book easily. Anyone needing an intro to Python should consider this book. <a href=\"http:\/\/syntap.com\/blog\/?p=43\">Read more <span class=\"meta-nav\">&raquo;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/syntap.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/syntap.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/syntap.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/syntap.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/syntap.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/syntap.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48,"href":"http:\/\/syntap.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions\/48"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/syntap.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/syntap.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/syntap.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}