This post’s been inspired by a wonderful book, “A Byte of Python”1 by Swaroop C H. The book has been revised after a gap of nearly 4 years and the wait is worth it! I thoroughly loved the book, and I’m happy to be accompanied by so many2 others3. This book has filled me with a sense of joy and pride. The pride, of being part of such a wonderful community, a beautiful crowd. Further, it is a matter of pride, the book’s been authored by an Indian - its quite rare to find such books written by people in this part of the world.

I have loved python, the moment I started using it. There are quite a few occasions, where I did something, just because I had the power of Python with me. Python is undoubtedly amongst the best, not just as a first programming language, but to give the user a sense of “do-able-ity” and I am thoroughly enjoying it.

>>> import this
The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters
Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!


  1. A Byte of Python ↩︎

  2. Python - Notes – Swaroop CH ↩︎

  3. Book updated for Python 3000 – Swaroop CH ↩︎