The Quick Python Book

Last week, I ordered a copy of The Quick Python Book. As a Python developer I’ve bought a number of technical books over the years and was very excited to play around with the latest Python 3000 ‘cus it’s still hot of the oven. So, I did what any self-respecting hacker would do and ordered a copy of The Quick Python Book hoping to see what the fuzz was about.

However, I was very disappointed after a few chapters and decided to immediately put the book back on sale on Amazon Marketplace. In my years of reading and using technical books, I’ve never seen something this woeful and unfocused.  The author was supposed to be a professor at a university somewhere in the US, but I’m afraid he failed as a teacher to use the book to teach something as expressive, elegant and simple.

I mean, this book is so bad that one of my favourite sites has also posted a similar sentiment on their site as well, warning unsuspecting beginners not to bother buying it. I feel cheated having spent my hard-earned money on this book and if I could ask for a refund I would; plus the time spent reading useless chapters. This goes to show that it makes very good sense to research a book, or any other product online before placing an order. If I had seen the review here, I would not have bothered.

So, I thought I would post this here in case some else finds it useful. It’s also worth mentioning that this is my own opinion and should not make your decision based on it – I can’t tell you what to do. It’s entirely up to you to make up your own mind.

That said, I would suggest you are better off spending time on the official Python documentation – it is more up to-date and contains lots of examples and code snippets you could just copy and paste in your terminal. When you are ready, ask around and see which books people recommend, read reviews and see if that helps before buying another book.

Good luck!