Are you a programmer who wants to get started quickly in a new language? This book is for you. Are you a novice who wants to learn to program? This book is not for you. Are you a Python programmer who needs encyclopaedic information? This book is not for you. Like any mainstream language, Python has loops, if statements, assignment statements, functions, etc. I'll show you what these look like in Python. I won't waste your time telling you what they're good for. Python has features you may not be familiar with--iterators, list comprehensions, maybe even dictionaries. I'll spend more time on these.

I'll cover some of the library functions I found most immediately useful, and tell you where to find more. In short, this book will help you hit the ground running. Next week, you'll be ready to buy that Python encyclopaedia.