Robert OConnor wrote:
What is the BIG PICTURE here? Is Python so good that lot of programming tomes are unnecessary?
As a language qua language, Python is so good in design and implementation that it has few dark mysteries that require a lot of documentation to explain. The existing Python books are quite good, with at least 4 more in the works. More Python books are necessary to explain things like Win32/COM programming, for instance, than the language itself. Perl has lots of books, because for the past 2 years, almost anything that offered to make Perl programming easy was given shelf space. Java has lots of books because almost everything in Java has to be written in Java, and the Java libraries have been a moving target for so long. More important than the number of books (how many Perl books do you really need, after the Camel?) is the level of support/platforms in the Python community, which is quite high. It will probably never attain the proportion of mindshare that Perl or Java has, but is has critical mass, and a lot of compentent people who contribute code. Too many companies now rely upon Python as their core development language for it to go away anytime soon. More importantly: You'll spend more time learning about the eccentricities of whatever your environment demands, be it Unix, Windows, web servers, CE devices, COM, Tk, etc. than learning the language itself. This is Python's great (and under-reported) strength. Best regards, Jeff Bauer Rubicon, Inc.