Buy new:
Save with Used - Good
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer -no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Python Tricks: A Buffet of Awesome Python Features Paperback – October 25, 2017
Purchase options and add-ons
“I don’t even feel like I’ve scratched the surface of what I can do with Python”
WithPython Tricks: The Book you’ll discover Python’s best practices and the power of beautiful & Pythonic code with simple examples and a step-by-step narrative.
You'll get one step closer to mastering Python, so you can write beautiful and idiomatic code that comes to you naturally.
Learning the ins and outs of Python is difficult—and with this book you'll be able to focus on the practical skills that really matter. Discover the “hidden gold” in Python’s standard library and start writing clean and Pythonic code today.
Who Should Read This Book:
- If you’re wondering which lesser known parts in Python you should know about, you’ll get a roadmap with this book. Discover cool (yet practical!) Python tricks and blow your coworkers’ minds in your next code review.
- If you’ve got experience with legacy versions of Python, the book will get you up to speed with modern patterns and features introduced in Python 3 and backported to Python 2.
- If you’ve worked with other programming languages and you want to get up to speed with Python, you’ll pick up the idioms and practical tips you need to become a confident and effective Pythonista.
- If you want to make Python your own and learn how to write clean and Pythonic code, you’ll discover best practices and little-known tricks to round out your knowledge.
What Python Developers Say About The Book:
"I kept thinking that I wished I had access to a book like this when I started learning Python many years ago." — Mariatta Wijaya, Python Core Developer
"This book makes you write better Python code!" — Bob Belderbos, Software Developer at Oracle
"Far from being just a shallow collection of snippets, this book will leave the attentive reader with a deeper understanding of the inner workings of Python as well as an appreciation for its beauty." — Ben Felder, Pythonista
"It's like having a seasoned tutor explaining, well, tricks!" — Daniel Meyer, Sr. Desktop Administrator at Tesla Inc.
- Print length301 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateOctober 25, 2017
- Dimensions6 x 0.68 x 9 inches
- ISBN-101775093301
- ISBN-13978-1775093305
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more.Read it now
Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.
View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.
Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.
Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
Frequently bought together
Similar items that ship from close to you
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Dan Bader
- Publication date : October 25, 2017
- Edition : 1st
- Language : English
- Print length : 301 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1775093301
- ISBN-13 : 978-1775093305
- Item Weight : 14.3 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.68 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #241,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #116 inPython Programming
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Hey there! My name is Dan Bader and I’m a complete Python nut.
I’ve been obsessed with programming ever since I managed to convince my parents to buy me a dusty old Commodore 64 from the classifieds in a local newspaper. And my love for writing code hasn’t diminished since then.
Today I help Python developers take their coding skills and productivity to the next level. I’m an independent software engineer, author, and speaker. I’ve been developing software for 15 years—and I’d love to help you become a more proficient Python coder.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book easy to use, with clear explanations of even complex concepts. Moreover, it serves as a great resource for intermediate Python users, covering a wide range of subjects and providing useful examples. Customers describe the book as fun to read and consider it well worth the money.
Select to learn more
Customers find the book easy to use, with clear explanations of even complex concepts and concise content. One customer specifically mentions that the code examples are easy to read.
"I enjoyed this book. The author has aneasy and understandable way of approaching subjects that make complex concepts clear...."Read more
"This short book really up'ed my python game.Concise, but sweet code snippets that really come in useful...."Read more
"Great reference for python coders. Short andconcise."Read more
"...The clue of this book is how it is explained (very clear andeasy to follow) with easy examples and tacking exactly the confusing parts of it...."Read more
Customers find the book highly useful, describing it as an amazing collection of tips and tricks that serves as a great resource for intermediate Python users.
"This book is both apractical and useful guide to some of Python's best features and also just plain fun...."Read more
"...Overall,very highly recommended for all levels of programmers."Read more
"Good read for beginners. If you are already doing some advanced python coding, you may not gain much here...."Read more
"Very useful and incredibly clear Python tricks for everyday programming routine!"Read more
Customers appreciate the book's content, noting that it covers a wide range of subjects and provides useful examples.
"...2. Great andinteresting topics with intermediate+ level examples. 3. Concepts were very well described. Cons: 1...."Read more
"...Theauthor covers a lot of topics that you will have questions about, and his writing style is superb!..."Read more
"...It was worth it just for that. Thebook covers a lot of subjects but there is a good flow of information...."Read more
"...This book from Dan Bader is the distillation of some of thehighest yield items in Real Python about intermediate-advanced features...."Read more
Customers find the book well worth the money and time.
"...Python books but this is a great reference for anyone and isexcellent value for money. I highly recommend this book."Read more
"...Bottomline, for $10 (currently on sale) this is abargain on the Kindle! Grab your copy today..."Read more
"...It wasworth it just for that. The book covers a lot of subjects but there is a good flow of information...."Read more
"...Well worth the money. It's also a good general reference that I'll rely on for probably many years."Read more
Customers find the book fun to read.
"...I found itfun to read and I was excited to try using some tricks I didn’t know about before."Read more
"Very readable andfun..."Read more
"...But, I can also say that I amdefinitely enjoying the challenge...."Read more
"...I found this book bothvery fun and informative...."Read more
Customers appreciate the tricks in the book, with one mentioning they are up to date.
"...I so appreciate thedive into the hows and whys of these tricks, which offer insights that are often applicable to other Python tools and concepts..."Read more
"...programming in Python every day for 2 year and still foundneat tricks in this book...."Read more
"Dan wrote a great book full of useful andup to date tricks and recipes to improve your python coding skills...."Read more
"Great set of useful python tricks!..."Read more
Images in this review
Reviews with images
Great resource for intermediate Python users to round out their knowledge of the language
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews. Please reload the page.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2017I consider myself an 'early intermediate' Pythonista, with about three years of self-taught experience in the language, bolstered by all the good resources out there online. I first ran across Dan's page/blog through a Twitter link, I think, and have really enjoyed his Python Tricks emails. Some of them aren't news to me, but there have been multiple instances where they've given me a key insight into the behavior of Python, or an idea that's helped me improve my projects.
As he notes in the Introduction, this book grew out of the Python Tricks emails, and it really shows. Dan has a knack for constructing code snippets that illustrate Python concepts in very few lines, and also for writing extremely clear descriptions of why they behave as they do. Further, even though Dan has years of Python experience, it seems clear to me he hasn't lost the sense of the ways in which Python can be confusing to new learners. I've only sampled here and there from his Buffet at this point, but have already gained two new concrete pieces of knowledge: bytearrays are mutable whereas bytes are not; and all it takes to create an abstract base class is to use metaclass=ABCMeta and decorate as needed with @abstractmethod. Even though I'd looked at the Python documentation for both of these before, I never quite understood either of them. But, Dan's phrasing and presentation made them crystal clear on my first read.
One additional thing I like about the book is how Dan has included bits and pieces of his philosophy on Python, programming, writing good code, etc. Some people might be turned off by the editorializing, I suppose, but I really appreciate that the book provides these sorts of "meta" perspectives.
All in all, an excellent resource for someone with modest to moderate Python experience looking to round out their knowledge of some of the more subtle features/behaviors of the language.5.0 out of 5 starsI consider myself an 'early intermediate' Pythonista, with about three years of self-taught experience in the language, bolstered by all the good resources out there online. I first ran across Dan's page/blog through a Twitter link, I think, and have really enjoyed his Python Tricks emails. Some of them aren't news to me, but there have been multiple instances where they've given me a key insight into the behavior of Python, or an idea that's helped me improve my projects.Great resource for intermediate Python users to round out their knowledge of the language
Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2017
As he notes in the Introduction, this book grew out of the Python Tricks emails, and it really shows. Dan has a knack for constructing code snippets that illustrate Python concepts in very few lines, and also for writing extremely clear descriptions of why they behave as they do. Further, even though Dan has years of Python experience, it seems clear to me he hasn't lost the sense of the ways in which Python can be confusing to new learners. I've only sampled here and there from his Buffet at this point, but have already gained two new concrete pieces of knowledge: bytearrays are mutable whereas bytes are not; and all it takes to create an abstract base class is to use metaclass=ABCMeta and decorate as needed with @abstractmethod. Even though I'd looked at the Python documentation for both of these before, I never quite understood either of them. But, Dan's phrasing and presentation made them crystal clear on my first read.
One additional thing I like about the book is how Dan has included bits and pieces of his philosophy on Python, programming, writing good code, etc. Some people might be turned off by the editorializing, I suppose, but I really appreciate that the book provides these sorts of "meta" perspectives.
All in all, an excellent resource for someone with modest to moderate Python experience looking to round out their knowledge of some of the more subtle features/behaviors of the language.Images in this review
- Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2023I am a prior IBM employee & retiree. I coded in Fortran, 360 assembler, Cobal, RPG2 for S/3 and AS400 level systems, Visual Basic, C, C++, VBA for Access, Excel, Word, etc. I was always a "part time" programmer in a consulting role. I decided to tackle, or be tackled by, Python in my retirement. I know I am not saying anything that is unknown by stating Python is NOT an easy learn. But, I can also say that I am definitely enjoying the challenge. This book is my favorite of the many quality instruction offerings provided by Real Python. I know I will be re-reading this book many times over. Great job !
- Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2017The main reason why I bought the book is because I like Dan's blog.
I consider my Python level to be intermediate. I have completed reading 100 pages(1/3 of the book). Although the content is decent, this feels like it is targeted more towards beginner(not an absolute beginner) than intermediate level. I am hardly learning anything new that is already not in Fluent Python (which is a big ass book in comparison but provides better understanding of the Pythonic tricks) or in Raymond Hettinger or David Beazley’s videos on YouTube.
I will update the review once I finish reading the entire book.
Update: I finished reading the book and I still stand by what I said earlier. If you have time and patience, go with Fluent python. Other than the new style string formatting, rest of the content is mostly covered in that.
That does not mean this is not a good book. I really loved some of the chapters like generators, iterators. The examples were more simple and easy to understand. Overall, I found this book to be more of a tutorial than a reference material. Mainly because I use the excellent pymotw website for the Collections part of the book. - Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2023I'm new to Python. This book clarified some fuzzy concepts, and it introduced me to several new concepts.
Dan truly wants to help you become more proficient with Python. Several times throughout the book, he uses phrases such as "Think of it this way …" or "Another way to look at this is …". At the end of each chapter, he summarizes the "Key Takeaways".
Dan recommends "Best Practices". He mentions specific ways of doing things that (although not required) are the way that the Python community expects them to be done.
I'm sure I'll be referring back to this book as I progress as a Python programmer. - Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2019I am not a big fan of reading books in general. But, I just finished reading through every chapters in this book after 13 days of daily reading. I found this book both very fun and informative. If you are looking for something more than beginner python tutorials, this book will surely do a good job to satisfy some of the thirst that you had. Here are some Pros/Cons of the book.
Pros:
1. Good book material quality and size (small but also perfect thickness to carry around).
2. Great and interesting topics with intermediate+ level examples.
3. Concepts were very well described.
Cons:
1. Books lacks colors, It seems like HTMl version of this must have used some Markdown but the book is just plain black/white texts.
2. Wish there were some more examples per topics.
3. Chapters/Topics are short enough that *key takeaways* section can seem bit redundant. Maybe some kind of *quiz* or some kind of *small mission for readers to go find out* type of section would been more useful IMO.
But, I really enjoyed this book. So how about you give it a try as well?5.0 out of 5 starsI am not a big fan of reading books in general. But, I just finished reading through every chapters in this book after 13 days of daily reading. I found this book both very fun and informative. If you are looking for something more than beginner python tutorials, this book will surely do a good job to satisfy some of the thirst that you had. Here are some Pros/Cons of the book.Probably one of the best programming book I've read in a while.
Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2019
Pros:
1. Good book material quality and size (small but also perfect thickness to carry around).
2. Great and interesting topics with intermediate+ level examples.
3. Concepts were very well described.
Cons:
1. Books lacks colors, It seems like HTMl version of this must have used some Markdown but the book is just plain black/white texts.
2. Wish there were some more examples per topics.
3. Chapters/Topics are short enough that *key takeaways* section can seem bit redundant. Maybe some kind of *quiz* or some kind of *small mission for readers to go find out* type of section would been more useful IMO.
But, I really enjoyed this book. So how about you give it a try as well?Images in this review
Top reviews from other countries
- MSTReviewed in Poland on June 15, 2024
5.0 out of 5 starsZnakomita, nadal aktualna
Znakomita książka dla osób które potrafią co nieco programować w Pythonie, ale zdają sobie sprawę, że są w tym języku pewne konstrukcje, które nie wiadomo do czego służą, nie wiadomo w jakich sytuacjach warto z nich skorzystać, do czego mogą być potrzebne i są często pomijane w tutorialach dla początkujących. Autor świetnie nawiązuje do własnych doświadczeń, wskazując na te elementy, których sam do końca nie rozumiał i nie używał programując kiedyś w Pythonie. W bardzo przystępny sposób, na trafionych przykładach, rozkłada na czynniki pierwsze przeznaczenie takich elementów, potencjalne scenariusze wykorzystania i potencjalne błędy jakie mogą wynikać z braku zrozumienia ich mechaniki działania. Dodatkowo do książki dostajemy dostęp do 12-stu dodatkowych lekcji video. Fajny, lekki język, trafiona tematyka, sprawiająca że czytając wstęp rozdziałów czytelnik zdaje sobie sprawę, że ma podobne odczucia co autor na początku jego kariery programowania. Wzbudza to naturalną ciekawość, po co to jest, jak działa i czy potrzebuję z tego kiedykolwiek korzystać. Książka nadal aktualna w roku 2024, warta zakupu. Przyzwoite wydanie papierowe. Polecam. - Gero ZayasReviewed in Spain on February 1, 2025
5.0 out of 5 starsEs un libro MAGNÍFICO y con ejemplos de código espećificos.
Se aleja de platitudes y te enseña verdaderamente cómo mejorar tu nivel de Python. Es un libro que siempre recomendaría a Python developers, 100%. - AlessandroReviewed in Italy on November 8, 2017
5.0 out of 5 starsUn ottimo libro, tanti consigli utili, uno stile accattivante
Il libro si rivolge sostanzialmente a chi il Python lo conosce già, ma desidera aumentare e migliorare le proprie conoscenze scrivendo codice sempre più in stile pythonico
Una serie di piccoli esempi, presentati in modo chiaro e divertente al tempo stesso, illustrano molte delle funzionalità base e non del linguaggio.
Da semplici trucchi a veri e propri design pattern, Dan ripropone in un libro organico e completo la serie di tweet e mail della sua newsletter.
Proprio per la tipologia dei contenuti, il libro può essere letto andando in ordine o saltando da un argomento all'altro.
Come dice l'autore, nel primo caso quando arriverete in fondo, avrete la certezza di averlo letto tutto :)Il libro si rivolge sostanzialmente a chi il Python lo conosce già, ma desidera aumentare e migliorare le proprie conoscenze scrivendo codice sempre più in stile pythonico5.0 out of 5 starsAlessandroUn ottimo libro, tanti consigli utili, uno stile accattivante
Reviewed in Italy on November 8, 2017
Una serie di piccoli esempi, presentati in modo chiaro e divertente al tempo stesso, illustrano molte delle funzionalità base e non del linguaggio.
Da semplici trucchi a veri e propri design pattern, Dan ripropone in un libro organico e completo la serie di tweet e mail della sua newsletter.
Proprio per la tipologia dei contenuti, il libro può essere letto andando in ordine o saltando da un argomento all'altro.
Come dice l'autore, nel primo caso quando arriverete in fondo, avrete la certezza di averlo letto tutto :)Images in this review
- lainReviewed in Japan on October 28, 2020
4.0 out of 5 starsわかりやすい
原書の英語版のKindle版を購入。
文章もコードもわかりやすくて良い。知らなかったコツ、ちょっとした工夫がたくさんあって良かった。
Kindle版ならば、PC版アプリでそれを閲覧しながら、すぐ横に開いたエディタでコードがかけるので利便性が高い。
実際に見ながらコードを書きたい人は、Kindle版を買うほうが絶対に便利。 - Ehsan DaneshReviewed in Canada on March 20, 2024
5.0 out of 5 starsvery well written book with very well thought right to the point examples
Very well written
Small examples right to the point
If you have problem underestanding some books due to large examples they have, this book is right for you. It keeps examples small and exactly and right to the point.
