[spacecow]

I think Zed is being disingenuous (or just plain not reading anything that isn't code on the Dive Into Python site). One of his main points is that Dive Into Python is bad because it's supposed to be for beginners, and makes Python seem to complicated. But, here's the first sentence on the front page of diveintopython.org:

"Dive Into Python is a Python book for experienced programmers."

Not beginners. Zed's "I could see if Mr. Pilgrim had a giant disclaimer or something warning people that this isn't a beginner's book, but he doesn't." is totally unfounded.

Zed also laments that the first example requires readers to "suddenly comprehend" a bunch of random language features. But right above the example he links to:

"It probably makes absolutely no sense to you. Don't worry about that, because you're going to dissect it line by line. But read through it first and see what, if anything, you can make of it."

(I will totally agree that the example program is at best uninteresting and at worst confusing, but you don't need to know anything about ODBC to understand it. I certainly didn't when I first read Dive Into Python.)

Zed's brand of hyperbolic vitriol has never sat particularly well with me, but this article in particular sounds like he just has an ax to grind with Pilgrim. He certainly spends almost no time actually discussing how the book has poor design decisions, or why it is "weird," or what instructions are hard to follow, or what expert needs it is not fulfilling. There's almost no substance whatsoever here, just sanctimonious character assassination. I will never understand why this guy has an audience.

[scott_s]

Completely agree. The entire premise of Dive Into Python is to throw a bunch of idiomatic Python code at you and explain what it does. It's explicit in the text and implied by the title.

Personally, I found this refreshing. Instead of starting out with "This is an assignment, and this is an if statement..." he shows chunks of code - or whole programs - that accomplish some task. As an already experienced programmer, I would then inspect the code, try to figure out what it did, then read his descriptions for things that weren't obvious. For me, this is a much faster way to learn than for the author to assume I've never programmed before.

Didn't Zed declare a while ago that the aggressive, swearing persona was just an act to demonstrate how geeks gravitate to strong personalities? His current form doesn't have naked girls or guys wailing on guitars, but he's still doing the same thing.

[Scriptor]

He wrote earlier that he's basically doing both, with http://oppugn.us/ for rants, which can be contributed by other people as well, and http://sheddingbikes.com/ for more thoughtful and calmer essays.

[CWuestefeld]

Not to mention that the title of the book is Dive in....

From that, one might expect that the introduction would be abrupt, not just getting one's toe wet.

[timwiseman]

I found Dive Into Python to be tremendously helpful when I was first learning, but I had used Java and SQL for a while before starting to learn Python.

[dood]

Agreed, I made the joyous leap to Python from writing crappy PHP programs, in no small part thanks to Dive Into Python. It took me from curiosity about Python, to excitement and real insight very quickly, I haven't looked back since.