Programming Python http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596158118.do
and
Learning Python http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596158071.do
Not sure where I fall with these books in terms of skill and knowledge. Looking through the table of contents for Learning Python I recognize everything and know what they are, but don't have a great masterful grasp of most of the stuff but I am afraid too much of it will be stuff I already know. On the flip side, Programming Python might be too advanced for me.
EDIT Seems Programming Python is mainly geared towards Python 3.x but I'm still using 2.6.
Tute: LPTHW by @zedshaw http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/
Tute: Official Python http://docs.python.org/tutorial/index.html
Reference: http://docs.python.org/
and if you must have a book (tutorial) buy @zedshaw "Learn Python the Hardway" or "Learning Python, 3rd Edition" (pink mouse) by Mark Lultz ~ http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Python-3rd-Mark-Lutz/dp/05965... For (reference) get Programming Python (pink python) also by Mark Lutz ~ http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Python-Mark-Lutz/dp/059615...
With a healthy amount of coding, I've gotten very comfortable with python, although I still feel like I'm not quite utilizing it idiomatically. As such, I've been going through Programming Python ( http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596009250/ ) - which is very well written, IMO - as well as reading a healthy amount of other people's source code, notably CherryPy ( http://cherrypy.org/ ), since I use it a lot.
If you're experienced with other languages, I'd suggest implementing something like a tetris clone as an exercise in learning the language. If you're only experienced with web-dev (as is often the case these days), I'd recommend implementing a few small web-apps with CherryPy - it's the most "pythonic" "web framework" I've seen so far.
Oh, and keeping an eye on the mailing lists ( http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo ), particularly python-list, python-ideas, python-dev, and python-3000, can be very enlightening.
To learn how email was invented
- http://www.livinginternet.com/e/ei.htm
To get an idea of how the specifications started
- http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc822.html
and how they are now interpreted
- http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2822.html
and to program a simple client in python read the source code from Programming Python by Mark Lutz ~ http://www.rmi.net/~lutz/about-pp3e.html I mention Python & Lutz specifically because they are covered in detail as a CLI then GUI app in "Programming Python Ed3", pp 766 - 911 ~ http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/python3/ You can download the source examples here ~ http://examples.oreilly.com/python3/
Python circa 2000 was a language that was easy to learn. [1] What you saw was basically what you got. Python in 2018... well... it has grown lots more features, which might not show up in tutorials but a beginner will see them as soon as they look at actual code. List comprehensions, generators, context managers, metaclasses, async/await, decorators, 2/3 split, ABCs, etc. Useful? Yes. Easy to learn or understand for a newbie? Maybe not so much.
Never mind that setting up an environment is no longer as easy as creating a 'lib' directory somewhere in $PYTHONPATH and unzipping files in there. Now we have many package managers, virtual environments, competing Python versions, you name it. Back in the day I started a Python "project" with a single file and worked from there, growing as necessary. Nowadays I see new projects with a dozen files and directories. Again, there are (presumably) reasons for all this, but easier it certainly is not.
[1] Although even then the "Programming Python" book was like 900 pages... http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9781565921979.do