Programming Python is a classic O'Reilly Nutshell Handbook(R) describing the use of the Python programming/scripting language. Python is a popular scripting language freely available over the Net. Like Perl, Python is powerful, but easier to use than a traditional compiler language like C or C++. Although it is used mostly in UNIX environments (including Linux), it is available on Windows and Mac platforms as well. Unlike Perl, Python uses an object-oriented paradigm, making it a particularly useful scripting language for C++ programmers and the Windows/OLE and Mac environments. This book will serve the Python community as our Programming Perl book does for the Perl community. This book complements the online reference material provided with the Python releases. It is endorsed by the creator of Python, Guido van Rossum, who wrote the foreword. The CD-ROM included with the book contains Python 1.3 binaries for most popular UNIX platforms, as well as Linux, Windows, NT, and the Mac. This book is the most comprehensive Python user material available from any publisher. It contains a number of running examples, presented simply at first but becoming more complex as new issues appear. Examples describing Graphical User Interface (GUI) programming use the Tk language. (Tk is usually considered a part of the Tcl scripting language, but is in fact usable with other scripting languages like Perl and Python.) An appendix contains a separate short language tutorial.

Mark Lutz is a software engineer. He earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in computer science from the University of Wisconsin. He has worked on FORTRAN compilers, C debuggers, scripting languages, and development environments. In graduate school, he dabbled with optimized Prolog implementations. Most of Mark's background involves UNIX development tools, though he has been known to admit to having programmed in COBOL on IBM mainframes, in a prior life. Since 1992, Mark has been involved with the public-domain programming language Python because he's a big fan of quality and simplicity. He wrote an expert system shell in Python, developed an integration code generator, and used Python as an embedded scripting language in a gigantic C++ framework. On a personal level, Mark is married, well into his mid-thirties, and has two children in school (budding rocket-scientists, both). He enjoys hiking and camping (when he has time), traveling (when he has money), and playing guitar (when he has no pride :-).