Dedication Preface

2. Dedication

To Kalyan Varma and many other seniors at PESIT who introduced us to GNU/Linux and the world of open source.

To the memory of Atul Chitnis, a friend and guide who shall be missed greatly.

To the pioneers who made the Internet happen. This book was first written in 2003. It still remains popular, thanks to the nature of sharing knowledge on the Internet as envisioned by the pioneers.

3. Preface

Python is probably one of the few programming languages which is both simple and powerful. This is good for beginners as well as for experts, and more importantly, is fun to program with. This book aims to help you learn this wonderful language and show how to get things done quickly and painlessly - in effect 'The Anti-venom to your programming problems'.

3.1. Who This Book Is For

This book serves as a guide or tutorial to the Python programming language. It is mainly targeted at newbies. It is useful for experienced programmers as well.

The aim is that if all you know about computers is how to save text files, then you can learn Python from this book. If you have previous programming experience, then you can also learn Python from this book.

If you do have previous programming experience, you will be interested in the differences between Python and your favorite programming language - I have highlighted many such differences. A little warning though, Python is soon going to become your favorite programming language!

3.2. Official Website

The official website of the book is http://swaroopch.com/notes/python where you can read the whole book online, download the latest versions of the book, buy a printed hard copy and also send me feedback.

3.3. Something To Think About

There are two ways of constructing a software design: one way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies; the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.

— C. A. R. Hoare

Success in life is a matter not so much of talent and opportunity as of concentration and perseverance.

— C. W. Wendte