Python Programming for Raspberry Pi, Sams Teach Yourself in 24 Hours (Sams Teach Yourself -- Hours)

I have used these " Teach Yourself" programming languages by Sams' several times over the years. I found them well written, easy to understand and full of relevant information. They are my go-to resource for learning a new programming language. Once I am actively using the new language they provide an an excellent reference.

Many of the scripts did not work due to revisions in libraries.

There are many books available that claim to teach Python programming from beginner toexpert. Too many are junk, and show no understanding of what the reader needs to know.Sams Teach Yourself book is one of the best books to learn not only Python programming,but also how to do this with a Raspberry Pi, and most importantly, from scratch. The bookis well written, includes much reference to support material, includes numerous nicely presentedand relevant examples, and can teach the beginner to become a productive Python programmerwith the Raspberry Pi. I recommend this book.

I bought this book because I needed a good introductory Python programming book, and I previously bought the Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Bible by written by this author and found it to be an excellent book. Indeed, I also found This Python programming book to be very good.There are a lot of computer books out there that are rather mediocre, and the star rating system doesn't always paint an accurate picture. I had already bought a few Python books and found them all helpful, but not as clear and easy to follow as this one. I'm not using a raspberry Pi, although, that part is interesting, too. It doesn't matter; if you have a python setup, this book can be used to learn introductory python programming. I'm running Ubuntu, which works well with this book.

The links to course material and/or files in the book usually don't work but that's not a deal stopper. Some of the instructions in the book seem slightly out of sequence... "cut the blue wire... but first, cut the green wire" kind of things. Read ahead before performing the tasks.The 24 hour claim is overselling the concept, so do NOT think you'll be programming in Python in 24 hours. It's more like 24 hours of following the book and 3x the book hours applying the lesson.While the claims of speed and simplicity are overstated, I'm still happy with the book. I'm a retired computer nerd with advanced degrees and decades of experience but my pre-teen son is learning and this book has been instrumental in that process. Grab this book, a Raspberry Pi (or Mac) and get to work!

The younger engineers I work with are using Python almost exclusively, particularly for rapid prototyping. This book provides a great introduction to the language for an understanding of its structure, syntax, and capabilities. At the same time it's a good introduction to the capabilities of the Raspberry Pi. It was a good buy.

Whether you are programming Python on the Raspberry PI or Python on other Linux Distros, macOS or Windows, this book is organized so that each chapter allows you to build on the previous chapters, and what you have learned.You can spend an hour a day and learn it in 24 days, or read multiple chapters per day, the way this book is organized you'll be proficient in Python very quickly.

OUTSTANDING! I have used "Sam's Teach Yourself" books to learn several computer programming languages and they hav ALL been great. This book is no exception. This is a great resource and likely the only book you will need to learn Python for the Raspberry Pi. I particularly like the GUI lessons and the GPIO lesson. Covers everything from simple to complex. The rest of my Python books will sit on the shelf.

I was looking for a book that a) would teach me Python to a decent level and b) would do so in the context of the Raspberry pi - and this book together with the reviews sounded like a good option. Having been through the book, however, I'm afraid I was very disappointed and I don't think it does either job particularly well.I was a professional developer many years ago using 3G languages (so no experience of Object Oriented or GUI programming) and I thought I should start off with a "primer" level book that would give me a good grounding in the fundementals of Python, but unfortunately I was wrong. I found this book to be very basic and it gives more of a nod to Python fundementals rather than a good gounding - so don't expect much coverage of how Python fundamentals really work (e.g. how OO features like classes, inheritance, polymorphism, operator overloading etc.). These concepts are mentioned, and there is brief coverage of how some of these things can be used - but I wouldn't say that a good grounding is offered, particularly given that the book is nearly 600 pages long.So, I went through the first seven "Hours" (chapters) in about 90 minutes. Hours 8 to 18 were a little more challenging but were covered in about four hours - and I rarely bothered with the exercises since most were very basic and it was pretty obvious what the outcomes would be.Another problem (for me at least) was that as I said, the fundamentals of Python are only briefly covered leaving the reader with little true understanding of how "good" Python code should be written. In addition, the examples are all based on the reader using a text editor (nano or the IDLE editor) rather than a decent Integrated Development Environment (IDE) like Geany or Thonny (the former of which has been readily available since the first Raspberry Pi was released) and either of which would make life easier for the reader. Part of the reason for the approach taken appears to be the authors wanting the reader to make and correct errors "the hard way" without any assistance from an IDE, but personally I found the approach to be time wasting.Also, the bulk of the material is pretty generic, and although the console outputs were taken from a Raspberry Pi, I believe almost all of the exercises would have run equally well on any modern platform. Hours 1 to 3 are somewhat Pi-specific, but only because Hours 1-2 give basic Raspberry Pi setup information (that is covered perfectly well by raspberrypi.org in any case) and Hour 3 (Setting Up a Programming Environment) is largely irrelevant in my view as a fully functional Python programming environment (complete with two good IDEs) already comes as standard with Raspbian. In fact, the only Hour that is truly Pi-specific and useful in my view, is Hour 24 (Working With Advanced Pi/Python Projects) which covers interfacing with the Pi's GPIO interface.I realise that my circumstances are different to most, but in my view the material covered does not require the nearly 600 pages used by the book, and it's approach is quite outdated. The book may well be more useful for a complete beginner, and I may be being over-critical, but my advice to any professional developer looking to learn Python would be to look elsewhere - which is what I am now doing.

This book sets out the claim that it will teach the reader to write Python programs using a Raspberry Pi computer as the operating platform. Whilst I'm still working through it, I've read enough to be able to provide some preliminary thoughts.Positive Points:-1. If you are a complete novice to both a Raspberry Pi and Python and/or programming in general, then this *might* be a good place to start. It attempts to take the reader through a learning process, starting with the absolute basics.2. It does seem to try to put content in a logical order: for example, object-based Python is discussed before programming a GUI-based Python program.3. Sadly, that's about it...Negative Points:-1. It is far too long and sprawling. It spends an inordinate amount of time trying to teach the reader about the basics of a Raspberry Pi - when there are far better guides available on line.2. The authors struggle to convey useful, practical information. For example, Table 4.2 provides a list of "a few" of the basic data types that the language supports. A type of "int" is given a description of "Integer", followed by a type of "long", for which the description is "Long integer". Really? Most programmers understand the difference, but why doesn't the book actually explain what "long" means, provide the range of values each data type can handle, maybe discuss briefly how such variables are stored?3. The book is dangerous in what it *doesn't* tell the reader: when introducing variables, it uses the analogy of a cup that can be used to hold different drinks - but what it *doesn't* tell the reader is that variables are transitory and the values they are set to will be lost when a program or the interpreter is quit...4. It goes to respectable lengths to explain to the reader the valid syntax that must be adopted for naming variables, but doesn't even mention the wisdom of having a naming style or scheme... These sort of "good practices" are largely absent.5. Where it does try to give advice (the book is absolutely splattered with "helpful" break-out boxes with headings like "Watch Out!", the advice is often a bit suspect. For example, Hour 21 introduces database programming and starts to introduce database access code. One of the "Watch Out!" boxes explains, "You might have noticed that for the connect() method, you must specify the user account and password directly in your Python script. This can be somewhat of a security issue, so be sure to use the proper permissions on your script to protect it from being read by anyone else on your Linux system."See any mention of "this is a bad idea" or "when writing 'real' Python scripts, get the user to enter passwords manually at a prompt, because hard-coding passwords in script files is one of the most dangerous mistakes to make..."? No.It's that last point that provides me the most concern and reduces any rating of this book to 2 stars at maximum. There are simply no excuses for teaching bad or insecure coding practices to a beginner.If you're not an experienced programmer, I'd recommend avoiding this book - the risk is that anything you learn will be accompanied by one or more bad/dangerous habits.

Gives all the information you need to set up your Pi, and gives a step by step tutorial on using Python. If you're new to the Raspberry Pi this book is a must!

Downloaded this after seeing it in a Library. Am finding itr veru useful although the idea that 24 hours might turn you into a fully fledged programmer seems a bit unlikly. I am using it more as a reference source as I already can do quite a lot.

Really good the way it is set out