Mastodawn

nixCraft 🐧Jan 5, 2025

Python dominates the IT world, especially in automation and many other areas. If you ever need a quick boost to your resume and job profile, try to master it. It's not perfect, but it gets the job done. Python is in demand for everything from writing web apps to IT infrastructure and more. The best part? It is easy to learn. It is the new basic.

myrmepropagandist Jan 5, 2025

Python is actually pretty elegant as computer languages go. I highly recommend "fluent python" if you already know a few programming languages and want to learn to love python. It's also a good book if you have a good understanding of the basics of just python, but want to get a better understanding of WHY the language is the way that it is.

This book also helped me to begin to appreciate the architecture and design of programming languages in general for the first time.

@futurebird @nixCraft As a biologist, I have to ask why the heck there is a lizard pictured on the cover of the book when a python is a snake? Is this some type of inside joke?

Not a Spring Onion Jan 5, 2025

@digitalrodent @futurebird @nixCraft

O'Reilly books each have an animal so you can distinguish "Fluent Python" from "Beginner Python" and from "Why are you still using Python?".

This one is a lizard, so if you ask at the end of the book "What part of this was actually 'clear' or 'concise'?", it can just throw off it's tail and scurry away.

Dan Jan 5, 2025

@digitalrodent @futurebird @nixCraft O'Reilly publishes a series of technical/instructional/reference books. for probably 30+ years the visual theme is a colorful, bold, legible title and artwork of an animal. there are about 1400.

https://www.oreilly.com/animals.csp

Animal Menagerie - O'Reilly Media

What's that animal on the front of your O'Reilly book? You'll find it listed here.

myrmepropagandist Jan 5, 2025

@dank @digitalrodent @nixCraft

So many wonderful animals but there's only one cover with ants. Honeypot ants.

But it's a rare cover with a serious biological error. In honeypot ants the repletes, the ants with distended gasters full of nectar, do not exit the nest. They can hardly walk. The ants that you might find on leaves of these species look ordinary, their grape-like sisters stay underground.

We deserve a revised cover... and also MORE covers with more ants!

justin ferguson Jan 5, 2025

@futurebird
Probably used machine learning to create the cover.

@dank @digitalrodent @nixCraft

Luka Rubinjoni Jan 5, 2025

@futurebird @dank @digitalrodent @nixCraft As reliable as machine learning goes...

Tattie Jan 5, 2025

@futurebird it's all an elaborate ruse to get entomology enthusiasts to out themselves
@dank @digitalrodent @nixCraft

Jocelynephiliac

@futurebird and this is what they used to represent machine learning? thats kinda hilarious

myrmepropagandist Jan 5, 2025

I'm so bothered by the idea of the poor helpless repletes stranded exposed on a leaf... like treats waiting for a passing bird! It's horrible!

IDK if this is ML's fault... but I've never seen an error like this on any of the other covers.

Demian Jan 5, 2025

@dank @digitalrodent @futurebird @nixCraft in the case of a book about python the cover should’ve been a dead parrot 😉

Read along with Matt Jan 5, 2025

@digitalrodent @futurebird @nixCraft All O'Reilly books have animals, almost always with no intended correlation https://www.oreilly.com/content/a-short-history-of-the-oreilly-animals/

And then programmers will often refer to them by the animal, e.g. "have you read the llama book?"

A short history of the O'Reilly animals

How lions, tigers, and tarsiers went geek.

O’Reilly Media

Kumar McMillan Jan 5, 2025

@digitalrodent @futurebird @nixCraft the name Python is pretty arbitrary. Maybe they didn’t want to make a literal connection.

The inventor of Python is the most chill Dutch guy ever and it’s one of my all time favorite languages but calling it Python? Really? Worst name ever. I don’t think he did it from a place of heavy bro / toxic masculinity. That’s what it sounds like nowadays, though.

Dan Neuman 🇨🇦Jan 5, 2025

@kumarvibe @digitalrodent @futurebird @nixCraft He loved Monty Python. It's similar to how we are on Mastodon.

Kumar McMillan Jan 5, 2025

@dan613 @digitalrodent @futurebird @nixCraft oh, ha, I forgot about that. Monty would have been a better name for the language 😅

Fun fact: Python.com was not available when they first hyped the language (it was an adult site).

Michael Baudis Jan 5, 2025

@digitalrodent At least Perl had, obviously, a 🐪 on the cover.

Graham Knapp Jan 5, 2025

@digitalrodent @futurebird @nixCraft also note that Python is named for Monty Python, not for the snake. Its creator Guido von Rossum resisted the association with snakes for a long time!

Prairie_Dog Jan 5, 2025

@graham_knapp @futurebird @nixCraft He appears to have gotten over it as now their logo shows two snakes.

https://www.python.org/static/community_logos/python-logo-master-v3-TM-flattened.png

Graham Knapp Jan 5, 2025

@digitalrodent @futurebird @nixCraft yes, much as he prefers tabs but the community chose spaces... He has a knack for striking a good balance between opinions and inclusion...

Michael Kleber Jan 5, 2025

@digitalrodent @futurebird @nixCraft The Python programming language was named after *Monty* Python, not after the snake!

So the O'Reilly book cover that gets the animal reference right is the one for Allen Downey's _Think Python_, which references the Parakeet Sketch 😂 https://greenteapress.com/wp/think-python-3rd-edition/

Think Python – Green Tea Press

derptron Jan 5, 2025

@Log3overLog2 @digitalrodent @futurebird @nixCraft ... and I've heard Python is a dead language.

llewelly Jan 5, 2025

@digitalrodent @futurebird @nixCraft
no idea, but there are about 46 python books from that publisher. Maybe there might be enough species of python if they went for all the obscure species in pythonoidea?

as it is, Programming Python has an african rock python on the cover, and about five other python books feature other pythons, but most seem to have animals chosen more or less at random, including lizards, amphibians, mammals, non-python snakes, birds, etc.

https://www.oreilly.com/animals.csp?x-search=python&x-sort=animal

Animal Menagerie - O'Reilly Media

What's that animal on the front of your O'Reilly book? You'll find it listed here.

Anke Jan 5, 2025

@digitalrodent @futurebird @nixCraft
They might not have enough python images in the desired style for all their python books? Or maybe they want to keep the books visually distinct, while still using the "18th century engraving of an animal" thing they have with all their books.