This book is a brilliant "next step" for people who are learning the Python programming language. If you've read a book or some tutorials about the language itself, or are writing your first programs, then this book is for you. It will expand your awareness of the sort of things you ought to know about, beyond the basics of the Python language itself.

It collects together wisdom from a wide range of topics, such as characterizing good code versus bad, the absolute bare minimum nuggets extracted from a computer science degree that you really might need from time to time (presented very approachably), and introductions to common tools from the Python ecosystem, like the code formatter "Black", or source control with "Git", and why you might want to get to grips with them. Many other topics are covered - see the contents:

PART 1: GETTING STARTED
Chapter 1: Dealing with Errors and Asking for Help
Chapter 2: Environment Setup and the Command Line
PART 2: BEST PRACTICES, TOOLS, AND TECHNIQUES
Chapter 3: Code Formatting with Black
Chapter 4: Choosing Understandable Names
Chapter 5: Finding Code Smells
Chapter 6: Writing Pythonic Code
Chapter 7: Programming Jargon
Chapter 8: Common Python Gotchas
Chapter 9: Esoteric Python Oddities
Chapter 10: Writing Effective Functions
Chapter 11: Comments, Docstrings, and Type Hints
Chapter 12: Organizing Your Code Projects with Git
Chapter 13: Measuring Performance and Big O Algorithm Analysis
Chapter 14: Practice Projects
PART 3: OBJECT-ORIENTED PYTHON
Chapter 15: Object-Oriented Programming and Classes
Chapter 16: Object-Oriented Programming and Inheritance
Chapter 17: Pythonic OOP: Properties and Dunder Methods

Experienced programmers won't find anything new here, which in itself is a testament to how each of the topics presented really are foundational to becoming a better programmer.

For everyone else, this is a sensible guided tour, written in straightforward, demystifying text, that will improve all the programming you do from this point on. Read this book, and add computer programming to your skill set.

The Python community is booming, friendly, and diverse, and includes people from all walks of life, from academics, hobbyist game developers, cutting-edge machine-learning and data-scientist people, commercial folks who build websites and online services, and all sorts of people who just want to get something done, quickly and easily. Welcome aboard - we're very glad to have you.