Month: December 2010

Review: Programming Python by Mark Lutz

Programming Python 4th Edition Cover

It has been a long time coming, but finally this book has been updated. With the 4th edition comes a big change. This edition has been updated to ONLY cover Python 3.x. This is a great book and will make a great addition if you want to learn more about developing applications with Python.

You should note however,  that this book is not a Python reference guide. It is written primarily as an advanced tutorial that is a follow-up to the Learning Python book. Therefore it does not cover any aspects of core Python. For that you would be better of looking at Learning Python.

This book is over 1600 pages long. This makes it particularly heavy. I do not recommend that this book be kept anywhere that it can fall from. It will hurt if you happen to get in its way.

There are a couple of omissions that surprised me. In the chapter on GUI programming. I expected there would be more on using either PyGTK or PyQt. They are mentioned, but that is it. tkInter is covered instead. Personally I have not seen TK used for quite some time.  Most of the applications that I have seen use PyGTK (mostly because I use Ubuntu). Another omission is that there is no mention of Quickly. Which is a framework that allows you to develop applications quickly.

Please note: I did receive a free copy of this book via the O’Reilly Blogger review programme.

I review for the O'Reilly Blogger Review Program

Ubuntu Manual Project Progressing… Slowly.

Ubuntu Manual Header Image

It is now almost the middle of December and the Ubuntu Manual Project has yet to release the Maverick edition of the manual. The project leader has stepped down. I guess there are a lot of people who are questioning whether this project is dead? Personally I can understand why anyone would think that. I have even wondered that myself.  Yet, the project is still here, it is still moving forward, albeit slowly.

It seems the biggest problem that the project is facing is the lack of time. As this is a community driven project, it effectively takes a back seat to everything else that is going on in people’s lives. Personally, I do not know what can be done to change the situation. I too have limited time as well, but I do my best, as do many others involved in the project. Thank you to all those people. Your help is greatly appreciated.

So, what is the current status of the project…

All the writing is complete and now the proof reading is being finalised. After that, we need to begin collecting new screen-shots. Hopefully it won’t be that much longer until we can get the Maverick manual out.

There are still a few outstanding questions with the project. Who is going to take charge of the project? How often are we going to release new versions of the manual? How can we make things better with the next version?

Only time will tell…

…if you have suggestions, please let us know. If you would like to help, please let us know.

Contact us via  http://www.ubuntu-manual.org