The Python Standard Library by Example [Brossura]

If you have ever worked with Python, you have probably come across Python Module of the Week (PyMOTW) or virtualenvwrapper. Both are the work of Doug Hellmann. He has now brought to life The Python Standard Library By Example. If Python gives you the batteries, Hellmann gives you not only an instruction manual but the "on" switch to get you going right away.

The Python documentation is really great, but might leave some with a "some assembly required" feeling. The book's examples aim to be more complete, while still covering a serious breadth of the Standard Library. Do not expect to use all of the examples in your project without some modification, customization and expansion. After all, they are miniature projects in their own right.

By the Numbers:

It weighs in at a whopping 1300-something pages across 19 chapters. This translates roughly to a 2-inch print copy, or a 7.3 MB PDF. The accompanying source is 5.5 MB after unzipping and contains 113 example modules. The examples were tested with Python 2.7. Some of the examples would port to Python 3 easily, others not so much. Even before reading it, I was pretty impressed and somewhat reluctant. Some of those numbers might not be very meaningful as far as the book's usefulness, but it should give you a sense of how much material is covered. In my opinion, you get a lot for the price.

What I Thought:

I use Python as my primary language and I admit that I had never heard of some of the modules covered (e.g. anydbm, asyncchat, pyclbr, just to name a few). Not only that, the modules which I had previously used were probably in the minority and smaller still are the modules which I use regularly. This is in part due to changes made in Python 2.7 that I have not absorbed, but also because there are plenty of places for cool features to hide out if you are not looking for them. I can say that after being exposed to the material, I have a better understanding of some of the most common modules and have added a few others to my arsenal.

I would recommend this book to any serious Python programmer who wants to get the most of what Python has to offer. If you are just starting with Python, but comfortable with another language, you might pick up quite a bit from just a quick skim of everything. You can then drill down into the parts which seem most applicable or interesting. However, if you are new to programming, this is probably not the book for you (as mentioned in the book's Introduction, and several other reviews I found).

I received an electronic review copy from the publisher in exchange for my review. The past two or three days my home internet has been down. This book was great to have around in a time of crisis. But due to the nature of the material I think I would personally make more use of it as a hard copy. I admit to not reading it cover to cover, but I cannot imagine anyone wanting to do so. That said, it is definitely a great addition to my library.

I had pre-ordered this book, as the author's website and blogs have always been excellent in their ability to give concise examples for the usage of Python's extensive standard library. I have now had the book for a few days and I am very pleased with it.

I sometimes wonder when I will buy my last physical book, as digital versions are becoming standard. This book, however, is a great example of some of the great computer books that lived most of their lives right next to my computer: a well-organized reference manual with a great index and table of contents (you can view these on the Amazon page for this title).

I teach Python in my high school Computer Science classes, and have always loved the fact that I can write Python code quickly and successfully for so many tasks that come up when teaching. Learning Python is one thing--being able to utilize the standard library in "Pythonic" ways is another skill entirely. The core language is perfect for introducing students to real programming--the instructor can choose to introduce many of the functional programming aspects of Python after students have become comfortable with the traditional imperative approach (gradually leading to an understanding of abstraction in a natural way). But it won't be long and students will start discovering just how easy it is to utilize the standard library for many of the tasks that are coded from scratch in books that merely use Python to teach the fundamentals of Computer Science and Programming. This book is an excellent reference to have for those students that want to use Python for tasks outside of the usual core language programming challenges that they are learning in class. I have students who have used Python for tasks that I had simply never though of--like my student that wrote a forum bot to alert him via email whenever new posts on our phpBB forum appeared. Other students have created chat rooms and file servers with amazing efficiency using Python.

I highly recommend this book for anyone that 1) wants to learn how to utilize the "batteries included" in Python, 2) need a handy guide for working outside the core language. As an educator, I love how easy it is to simply pick up this book, open to a random spot, and quickly get ideas for examples to use in class that will help students see the amazing potential Python has. Also, although the standard library has excellent documentation, the vast majority of students simply want to see examples and then try altering them for their own purposes. This book provides those examples that are simply not collected anywhere else in such an organized and accessible format.

While most python books teach you how to write code in the language, this book takes a different approach - it shows you how to build python programs using existing code from the standard library. As every python programmer knows, the best way to leverage the power of the language is to use the built-in functionality of the library.

True to its title, the book features numerous examples, each one fully annotated, explaining how to use the modules.

Need to parse text using regular expressions? Python has a module for that. What about searching file system directories recursively? Network sockets? Those and hundreds of other useful tools are available in the standard library. Hellman shows you how to use the existing modules in the library so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

A word of caution for those who are new to python: the book assumes familiarity with basic language syntax.

Overall, this book compares favorably with the other python texts I have read. What makes Hellman's book exceptional is that it concentrates on an important area of the language that has been relatively unexplored by most of the python tutorial literature. Other excellent python books include Mark Lutz, "Programming Python," and David Beazley, "Python Essential Reference."