.. _book.python:

#######################################
Building Skills in Python
#######################################

How do you learn Python?  By doing a series of exercises, each of which adds a single new
feature of the language.  This 450+ page
book has 42 chapters that
will help you build Python programming skills through a series of exercises.
This book includes six projects from straight-forward to sophisticated that will help
solidify your Python skills.

The 2.6 edition was significantly revised and expanded to cover Python 2.6 and some
elements of Python 3.1.

The current release has benefitted from a great deal of support from readers who sent
detailed lists of errors and suggestions.

Professional programmers who need to learn Python are this book's
primary audience. We provide specific help for you in a number of ways.

-   Since Python is simple, we can address newbie programmers who don't
    have deep experience in a number of other languages. We will call out
    some details in specific newbie sections. Experienced programmers can
    skip these sections.

-   Since Python has a large number of sophisticated built-in data
    structures, we address these separately and fully. An understanding of
    these structures can simplify complex programs.

-   The object-orientation of Python provides tremendous flexibility and
    power. This is a deep subject, and we will provide an introduction to
    object-oriented programming in this book. More advanced design
    techniques are addressed in Building Skills in Object-Oriented Design.

-   The accompanying libraries make it inexpensive to develop complex
    and complete solutions with minimal effort. This, however, requires some
    time to understand the packaged components that are available, and how
    they can be integrated to create useful software. We cover some of the
    most important modules to specifically prevent programmers from
    reinventing the wheel with each project.


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Building Skills in Python
=========================

This is out of date.

`Chunked HTML <http://buildingskills.itmaybeahack.com/book/python-2.6/html/index.html>`_ -- the book broken down into parts and chapters, with search.

`Complete PDF <http://buildingskills.itmaybeahack.com/book/python-2.6/latex/BuildingSkillsinPython.pdf>`_  -- the entire book in a single PDF file.  Size of 2.8M

..  image::  python/images/Cover3x4.jpg
    :alt: Building Skills in Python
    :target: python-2.6/html/index.html

..  include:: footer.inc