I’m a long time C++/Java developer trying to get into Python and am looking for the stereotypical ‘Python for C++ Developers’ article, but coming up blank. I’ve seen these sort of things for C#, Java, etc, and they’re incredibly useful for getting up to speed on language features and noteworthy differences. Anyone have any references?
As a secondary bonus question, what open source Python program would you suggest looking at for clean design, commenting, and use of the language as a point of reference for study?
Thanks in advance.
I never really understood the ‘Language X for Language Y developers’ approach. When I go looking to learn Language X I want to learn how to program in it the way that Language X programmers do, not the way Language Y programmers do. I want to learn the features, idioms, etc. that are unique to the language that I am learning. I want to be able to take advantage of the things that make the language special and use that knowledge to expand my ways of thinking and solving problems. I don’t think I would get the same sort of insights from a tutorial that was framed in the context of another language. If you can learn your first language without a tutorial geared towards something you already know you should be able to pick up a second language the same way (and in my experience, the more languages you know the easier it is to learn new ones).
With that said, I would recommend The Python Tutorial as a good, quick, and easy way to get going with Python and Dive Into Python as a more complete introduction, also available for free here. I would also agree with what others have said regarding looking at the code for the standard libraries as a source of good examples and design practices, the standard python libraries are pretty clean and easy to read.