Reviewers wanted
September 28, 2015 8 Comments
If you’ve got a relevant blog and are interested in reviewing my book Python for Kids for Dummies, the publishers have some review copies that can be sent out. Please use the contact form on the About page to drop me a line and say you’re interested in reviewing the book. I’ll get your details and have a copy sent out.
My son loves the Python for kids fro dummy so much! Now he is done most of the books and tried on different projects. He is asking a next level Python book. Do you have suggestions? Thanks.
Hi Sue
Glad you like the book. Do you know that there are additional projects on line? They are still not quite tidied up, so I haven’t announced them on the blog, but they are complete, so if he’s keen, go have a look (the Bonus Chapter downloads, there are some problems with some of the “Related Content”):
http://www.dummies.com/store/product/Python-For-Kids-For-Dummies.productCd-1119093104,navId-322468,descCd-DOWNLOAD.html
I also have a list of other books in the References tab.
Is there an errata for this book online?
Your “Find Pickle Power” code will not work in Python 3 IDLE shell. Without modification it will give the error
TypeError: must be str, not bytes
Because the following modification is required for the code before it can be used in Python 3 IDLE shell:
change (FILENAME,’w’) to (FILENAME,’wb’)
change (FILENAME,’r’) to (FILENAME,’rb’)
And the output will look like this :
b’\x80\x03]q\x00(K\x00K\x02K\x04K\x06K\x08K\nK\x0cK\x0eK\x10K\x12e.’
Can you please update your “Find Pickle Power” code to use in Python 3 IDLE shell , so that it will give the output shown in your book?
Hi Gough
Thanks for reading my book and posting your comment. The book is targeting Python 2.7, not Python 3 (long story and difficult decision) so I’m really pleased you’ve made it through to page 257! Maybe I can convince the publisher to publish a new edition for Python 3, in which case the code in the book as a whole will be updated and I’ll take your errata into account.
In Python 2.7 strings are stored as bytes. However, in Python 3 they’re stored as Unicode characters. Unicode is like an abstract, universal character set and addresses problems to do with representing the many different alphabets and character sets there are around the world. I really wanted to do something on Unicode in the book because it can be very confounding, but there was no space 😥 … and it’s a little abstract for kids.
Best wishes,
Brendan
PS: any more comments, post them in the blog post for the relevant project (in this case project 9)
Thanks for your prompt reply.
Perhaps as a public service and if you have time to burn, just post on your blog or in an errata some of the code to comply with Python 3 so that people like me can learn Python 3 at the same time.
I’ll see how I go. My first tip is to put
raw_input = input
(no brackets – ()) at the top of any code that uses raw_input
Here is one erratum for Python 2 in this book:
For Python 2 , the following lines in “Test the load Method” section of the book need to be fixed in order to work, i.e. need to change address_book to Addressbook
>>> from Addressbook import SAVE_FILE_NAME # changed from from address_book import SAVE_FILE_NAME
>>> from Addressbook import AddressBook, AddressEntry
# changed from from address_book import AddressBook, AddressEntry
Otherwise, if fails to work for me in Python 2.
Thank you very much.
No cPickle in Python 3