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5.0 out of 5 stars Some great programming exercises.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 October 2019
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The author clearly knows his stuff.
I'd recommend this book if you're struggling to find idea for coding.
5.0 out of 5 stars Focuses on projects using external libraries
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 March 2020
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I found the projects a good illustration for how with a little bit of code and some knowledge of 3rd party packages you can make something in a few hours that does some really neat stuff. Most projects I really enjoyed, however if you're using Mojave OSX you may have a problem with keyboard input for the pygame chapters
5.0 out of 5 stars Genius
Reviewed in Germany on 31 March 2019
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I strongly believe that there are two groups of programmers:
[1] Traditional algorithms and mathematically inclined
[2] Data Science/Machine Learning and more statistics focused
In a way, mathematics and statistics are opposites. The former is about precision while the later is about probabilities.
Group [1] tends to love Hackerrank style projects, which are abundant in the first chapters of the book. I belong to group [2] – so take that into account in my review. Naturally, I don’t like the first couple of chapters.
My Personal Highlights:
Chapter 10: Are we alone? Astrobiology in Python!
This chapter is my personal favorite! On page 192 he simulates the Milky Way, randomly distributes civilizations and uses the Euclidean distance to calculate the probability of
detecting other civilizations. Wow, and all this in beautiful Python code. Mind-expanding!
Chapter 11: The Monty Hall Problem
Almost a cliché in interviews, but the author’s Monte Carlo Simulation is fantastic [I’m a huge fan] and probably one of the most beautiful pseudo code I’ve ever seen.
Chapter 16: Benford’s Law
In compliance books, I’ve always found Bendford’s Law extremely boring and unclear, not so in this book. The Python code makes the concept extremely clear. For
Tableau fans, Benford vs. Enron financial data [page 351] is fantastic.
Highly recommended for any curios [Pythonian] programmer.
5.0 out of 5 stars This is the book to put your python skills into practice
Reviewed in Germany on 20 March 2019
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I am huge fan of No Starch Press, and I think their books fulfill the slogan "The Finest in Geek Entertainment".
Vaughan's book is exactly what I've been looking for. After teaching myself python using edX's MIT Python course, Princeton Univ's Introduction to Programming in Python by Sedgewick & Wayne, I still wonder what could I do with python? Sedgewick's book is more academic, but it is the best reference in python for me. Vaughan's Impractical Python Projects elevates your understanding of python into the level of real-world practice. His codes are fine, though I am only in Chapter 6, there has been no problem at all, I could also modify the codes to print them in the way I want. I am not a big fan of Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 because Palingrams and Anagrams don't intrigue me very much. But, it's perfectly fine if you skip these two chapters and focus on decoding and encoding different ciphers in Chapter 4,5,6. The practices at the end of each chapter are very interesting, and equipped with solutions at the end of the book. But you have to do it in your own way. In the end, I find this book quite good for my use, and it's a straight 5 star.
The design of the book's cover and content pages are also interesting. It's gonna fall apart when you bend the book too much, but it'll stick back together if you press them. So the overall book shape is well maintained after heavy use! Great design.
5.0 out of 5 stars This is the book to put your python skills into
practice
Reviewed in Germany on 20 March 2019
I am huge fan of No Starch Press, and I think their books fulfill the slogan "The Finest in Geek Entertainment".
Vaughan's book is exactly what I've been looking for. After teaching myself python using edX's MIT Python course, Princeton Univ's Introduction to Programming in Python by Sedgewick & Wayne, I still wonder what could I do with python? Sedgewick's book is more academic, but it is the best reference in python for me. Vaughan's Impractical Python Projects elevates your understanding of python into the level of real-world practice. His codes are fine, though I am only in Chapter 6, there has been no problem at all, I could also modify the codes to print them in the way I want. I am not a big fan of Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 because Palingrams and Anagrams don't intrigue me very much. But, it's perfectly fine if you skip these two chapters and focus on decoding and encoding different ciphers in Chapter 4,5,6. The practices at the end of each chapter are very interesting, and equipped with solutions at the end of the book. But you have to do it in your own way. In the end, I find this book quite good for my use, and it's a straight 5 star.
The design of the book's cover and content pages are also interesting. It's gonna fall apart when you bend the book too much, but it'll stick back together if you press them. So the overall book shape is well maintained after heavy use! Great design.
5.0 out of 5 stars Exactly what I was looking for!
Reviewed in Germany on 29 August 2020
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Great book for small weekend projects!