but then a friend of mine told me that he and a few other people he knew learnt python from that book, so either later revisions got better or my opinion is shit.
Another thing you might be missing is under each exercise is a real piece of programming they're learning. For example, with string formatting I'm actually teaching the concept of named variables. Later on I use the fact they've actually been using named variables to then teach the concept explicitly and then they get it quicker.
a = do_something1(do_something2())
b = do_something2()
a = do_something1(b) void * a = do_something1(do_something2(), do_something3());
int b = do_something2();
int c = do_something3();
void * a = do_something1(b, c);I was still struggling with syntax issues into my second year of school. It's not a good feeling to be debugging null pointer issues and data structures when you're not confident with the syntax.