Python Crash Course: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming

I have experience with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but I wanted to start fresh on a new language. For some reason, Python seemed very attractive and I made a commitment to learn it in 2016. After taking a few courses at Treehouse, I decided I would like a book, because there is something about text that feels more concrete than videos. This book stood out to me so I gave it a shot, and I am glad I did.The tone of this book is very easy going. It's moderately paced, so it feels like you are always learning something new, but not going too fast, and the book also never gets boring. It's very similar to other learning books, in that every new concept builds from the previous, etc...but Eric writes in such a way that there is no intimidation. Just a great style of writing.One of my favorite parts of this book is that every chapter has "Try It Yourself" sections that give you objectives based on what you've been learning about. I know other textbooks have similar offerings at the end of chapters, but these seem to blend in with the material so well, and they're nothing complicated. They're like friendly reinforcements to the concepts you just learned about, and a great jumpstart to get coding.Crash Course covers Python 3, and highlights the areas where Python 2 would be different. Eric also gives lessons on styling, and best practices, yet also says to just focus on getting things to work and go back later to make it more efficient, which I think is excellent advice and as I mentioned before, removes intimidation from anyone who might be worried they aren't up to par to code.I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for an introduction to Python. This will help start the foundation.

I have tried to take several (free) online courses in Python from some of the big names, but never made it past the first screen. I always stopped because none of them explained the bigger picture or gave real-world examples of why something like append is useful beyond completing some exercises in a course. So I can add something to the end of a list? So what?This book, on the other hand, explains how what you're learning might apply to your actual job/life. I'm only on chapter 4, but thus far have learned more than I did completing a bunch of exercises on a popular "learn to code" site or attempting to make it past the first screen in an online course.Other things I like about this book (listed in no particular order, even though I'm presenting it as an ordered list!)1. conversational tone2. lists of common errors3. instructions on how to check for and install Python and other stuff you need to do the exercises4. chunking and organization of the content (he definitely followed the Goldilocks rule--not too much and not too little in each section)5. everything!Maybe if you're fluent in a bunch of programming languages, this book might be too basic. I don't know because I'm not that person. For someone like me, however, who only knows HTML and CSS (which don't really count), this book is just right.

First of all, I'm neither a novice nor an expert programmer. I have successfully programmed in many languages over the course of my career as an electrical engineer. Mostly however, I just learned enough to code up whatever was required to solve a specific problem. This book is a good, from the ground up, organized approach to learning basic Python. It won't make you an expert and I can't imagine it will make you employable, but it is a good start and will prepare you to move on. I liked the programming chapters and to some extent I enjoyed the projects. I found that the projects relied too much on just entering calls to add-in programs and didn't provide much insight into what was actually happening. I successfully built the aliens game and that provided some insight into pygame and the use of python. The data analysis project was very illustrative about the capabilities of using python and graphics addins. The Django section however, was maddening. It is possible that because I used PyCharm as my IDE but I was continually getting hung up on one trivial mis-step after another. I suspect that the only way to get successfully through the project is to use the exact IDE, python version, and Django version that the author used. At one point, for instance I was hung up for several days before I found that some particular Django call was known to not work in Python 3.7 and required 3.7.1. So I upgraded to 3.8 and the latest version of Django then got hung up on something else that didn't work even though I resorted to just pasting in the code from the book ( this occurred in the logins section). So I have now abandoned the book and will move on to something else. Somewhat disappointing to get this far and find a case of diminishing returns.Overall, it is a good book and an achievement for the author. It is clear that he has a lot of insight and has done a lot of work.