Programming the Raspberry Pi: Getting Started with Python

Love this book - great beginner's book for the pi and python. My son, who knew no programming whatsoever before he got the pi, has used this book to set up and boot his Raspberry pi, learn python, and get good ideas of programs to write on the pi. This book covers the python programming language from basics to complex commands, and specifically how to use python on the raspberry pi.This little text is short and concise, a great introduction for an interested person. It is comprehensive enough to take a novice to expert status, but not so dense that it overwhelms the novice. When my son learns a new command from this book, he tries it. If he still needs to know more because the text has sparked additional questions, he researches that command more on Python Wiki. Otherwise, this book alone is thorough enough to get started and learn programming.Chapter titles are: Introduction; Getting Started; Python Basics; Strings, Lists, and Dictionaries; Modules, Classes, and Methods; Files and the Internet; Graphical User Interfaces; Games Programming; Interfacing Hardware; Prototyping Project (Clock); The RaspiRobot; What Next.

If you just bought your first Raspberry Pi, you could be a little lost. A good book to get at that point is "Beginning Raspberry Pi" by Scott Wren (I've also reviewed that book). Beginning Raspberry Pi If you feel SAFE with your Pi, this one is a great book to buy. This is a good book for using your Pi to its full potential. What the GPIO pins are for, why the NOOBS software includes RaspBMC as a distribution (operating system), how to configure a robot; they're all covered in this book. Python is a versatile programming language to make the Pi live up to its potential. and Simon Monk helps you discover how. I downloaded the Kindle Edition of the book; and the one drawback is that the Index doesn't have "page numbers". Thus, you see what's available in this book, but not where to find any of it. Thus the 4-star rating.

By no stretch is this anything more than an introduction to the Raspberry Pi and Python (ver 3) programming. The examples coding and hardware interaction is basic...but thorough. This book will get you interested in going farther with the Raspberry Pi. Python is a great match for this learning platform. Thankfully, the book does not overload you with geek-speak as it introduces the features and functions of programming for the Pi. You get good value and inspiration to move on to bigger and better tutorials from this book. That's exactly what a novice enthusiast needs IMHO.

I would consider the first two chapters in this book on getting the Raspberry Pi setup to be throw away. While I can appreciate the fact it was there as an introduction, I don't believe there is enough information presented in these chapters to give someone who actually needs it enough to go on. If you are looking for guidance in getting up-and-running with your Raspberry Pi for the first time, I would look at using sources other than this book.Chapters 3 through 8 are an introduction to Python, however I would certainly not categorize this as being one of the better Python tutorials I have seen. I consider myself to be an intermediate Python developer and even I found some of these chapters to be more difficult to read through than they should have been for something that is supposed to be teaching the language. I will say the GUI chapter as an intro to using TK wasn't too bad though. It should also be noted that there is nothing in these chapters that is Raspberry Pi specific. As such, I would highly recommend looking at other texts if you are considering using this as your introduction to Python.Finally in the 9th chapter (about 2/3rds of the way through the book) we get to programming for the Raspberry Pi specifically. The first of these chapters is primarily dedicated to interface boards and the Arduino. The next chapter actually starts to cover what I would call programming specifically for the Raspberry Pi platform. The third chapter in the group comes across mostly as a tutorial (or sales pitch) for the authors own hardware interface board.In summary, this was not as good as his Arduino book - I was expecting more. I think the author tried to cover too many expansive topics rather than picking one specific topic (say like Raspberry Pi programming) and digging into it deeper. This book is too short to be trying to cover every aspect of the Raspberry Pi in any meaningful way, and as a result it ended up just skimming over too much of it. To be fair, the book wasn't horrible and it's pretty inexpensive, so if you're looking to add to your Raspberry Pi book collection then go for it. But if you are only going to get one book on the Raspberry Pi - this shouldn't be it.

This is an awesome product to get kids interested in the technical aspects of computing. I got this for my pre-teen son and helped him rig it up to dock on the motorola Atrix docking station. Now he has a sweet "laptop" that he likes to spend time on, and he is programming in python. All his buddies think it is the coolest thing ever, and they want their own now. We're looking at other hardware/software projects to keep things interesting and keep him engaged. Kids are spending all their time on electronics anyway. Why not channel the time and energy into productive endeavours? This is a cheap way to get kids involved and interested in computer engineering and programming.

Small, so easy to carry around and a most very interesting read. Covers RasPi set up as well (so you get two for one) and then dives very nicely into Python without leaving anything to guesswork. For such a small and well written book I was really amazed a how much it covered (from "Hello World" to games and robotics) without leaving big holes in the material. I am pleased with this book and would recommend it to Python beginners and mid level programmers.