Preface

The Python programming language manages to reconcile many apparent contradictions: it’s both elegant and pragmatic, it’s both simple and powerful, it’s very high-level yet doesn’t get in your way when you need to fiddle with bits and bytes, it’s suitable for programming novices and great for experts, too.

This book is aimed at programmers with some previous exposure to Python, as well as experienced programmers coming to Python for the first time from other programming languages. The book is a quick reference to Python itself, the most commonly used parts of its vast standard library, and some of the most popular and useful third-party modules and packages, covering a wide range of application areas, including web and network programming, GUIs, XML handling, database interactions, and high-speed numeric computing. The book focuses on Python’s cross-platform capabilities and covers the basics of extending Python and embedding it in other applications, using either C or Java™.

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