I first started with Python when I needed to write an installer for
my software Diamond so that I could make the installation easy. I
had to choose between Python and Perl bindings for the Qt library. I
did some research on the web and I came across an article where Eric
S. Raymond, the famous and respected hacker, talked about how Python
has become his favorite programming language. I also found out that
the PyQt bindings were very good compared to Perl-Qt. So, I decided
that Python was the language for me.
Then, I started searching for a good book on Python. I couldn’t find
any! I did find some O’Reilly books but they were either too
expensive or were more like a reference manual than a guide. So, I
settled for the documentation that came with Python. However, it was
too brief and small. It did give a good idea about Python but was
not complete. I managed with it since I had previous programming
experience, but it was unsuitable for newbies.
About six months after my first brush with Python, I installed the
(then) latest Red Hat 9.0 Linux and I was playing around with KWord.
I got excited about it and suddenly got the idea of writing some
stuff on Python. I started writing a few pages but it quickly became
30 pages long. Then, I became serious about making it more useful in
a book form. After a lot of rewrites, it has reached a stage where
it has become a useful guide to learning the Python language. I
consider this book to be my contribution and tribute to the open
source community.
This book started out as my personal notes on Python and I still
consider it in the same way, although I’ve taken a lot of effort to
make it more palatable to others :)
In the true spirit of open source, I have received lots of
constructive suggestions, criticisms and feedback from enthusiastic
readers which has helped me improve this book a lot.