Book Review: Expert Python Programming

Neha Shaikh at Packt publishing sent me a copy of Tarek Ziadé’s new book Expert Python Programming for review and I finally finished it this weekend. Overall, I liked the book.

My first impression was, “Really, a chapter on installing Python in an expert level book?” As it turns out, I’m glad that chapter was there because I learned about setting a default module to be imported when the interactive interpreter starts. I’m sure I’d heard of that feature at some point, but I’ve never actually tried it until now.

The book continues by covering a range topics, alternating between introducing new tools and promoting techniques to make your coding better. The overall themes of the chapters progress from “make it work” to “make it work right” and then “make it work faster” – just as your development cycles should.

There were a few sections where I would have liked him to go deeper into certain topics, but the author was clearly trying to introduce a wide variety of topics and achieved that goal. There are plenty of references to supplemental resources online, so it’s easy to keep digging on your own. And, given the breadth of material covered, there’s something here for everyone.

Although a few minor mistakes slipped through the editing process, Tarek has an errata page online and is making corrections online.

In summary: Recommended.

Updated 1 Dec: Neha sent me a link to a sample chapter so you can check it out before buying>