Dive Into Python reborn
17th September 2003
Sweet. Mark Pilgrim is working on Dive Into Python again, funded by a dead tree publisher for publication in 2004 (hopefully). The free version will stay available as well. I’ve always preferred reading paper to reading a screen so I’m definitely down for a copy.
If you haven’t read Dive Into Python yet, you’ve been sorely missing out. It’s all good, but the sections I’ve found most useful are as follows:
- 1.13. Mapping lists and 2.5. Filtering lists—a full explanation of list comprehensions.
- 2.6. The peculiar nature of and and or—almost a tertiary statement for Python.
- Chapter 6. Unit Testing—the best explanation of unit testing I’ve ever read, with a great practical example of the technique in action.
More recent articles
- Qwen3.6-35B-A3B on my laptop drew me a better pelican than Claude Opus 4.7 - 16th April 2026
- Meta's new model is Muse Spark, and meta.ai chat has some interesting tools - 8th April 2026
- Anthropic's Project Glasswing - restricting Claude Mythos to security researchers - sounds necessary to me - 7th April 2026