Jürgen Geuter said
This book is absolutely great if you want to get into the Python language. It's writing is clear and understandable, its examples tie the different aspects of the language together in a way that quickly allows you to be productive with Python.
I think if you have absolutely no previous programming knowledge (in other languages like PHP or Java for example) you might have a hard time to really get the most out of this book, you might either want to check out some generic tutorials out first, but if you do know basic programming concepts, this book will enable you to write great Python code to solve your problems very quickly.
calvinnme said
Python now comes in two flavors--Python 3 and Python 2. The philosophy of programming in Python 3 diverges from Python 2 to the point that print statements written in three don't even run properly in two. Unfortunately, so many of the books written using Python over the last few years are still using version 2.6 - which is backwards compatible with all previous versions. If you are buying this book because you are taking a class in which the teacher is using Python rather than teaching it -bioinformatics or visualization for example - this may cause you trouble. If you need to learn 2.6 or an earlier version of Python 2, please buy the previous edition.
If you are learning Python for the first time and it's up to you as to what flavor of Python to learn, then I suggest you start with Python 3. It does fix some longtime problems with the Python language. In that case, this edition of "Dive Into Python" is what you want.
I tend to learn languages more readily if I write a simple program first then add to its complexity by having more complex aspects of the language revealed to me, which is basically the approach of "Dive Into Python". What worked best for me when I learned Python 2 was to read the free online guide "Dive Into Python" which is incomplete but top-down, then switch to "Learning Python", which is detailed but more academic and more of a bottom-up approach. For example, while this book is about 500 pages, the new "Learning Python" book by Mark Lutz is 1200 pages long.
The author of this book has continued his tradition of placing his book online free of charge if you wish to look through it. I have read this updated version in order to update to Python 3. However, the author realizes that if you like his book you'll want a copy for yourself to carry about and in which to scribble notes. Sometimes you can make more money by being generous.
In summary, I highly recommend this book as a way to get started, but then you'll probably want to proceed to "Learning Python" for advanced topics and as a reference.
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