Python and Win32 for Pinheads

If you know nothing about Python, Visual Basic, scripting languages, Win32 API, MFC, COM, active scripting, Windows Networking and NT administration, then after you've read this book you'll get some very general idea of what these all are about: this book covers them all, as well as many other things. But whenever it comes to tell you something really interesting, authors just say: "well, it's out of the scope of this book, so let's stop here..."

However, there are things this book does not cover. For instance, I thought scripting languages are a handy tool for text processing, but throughout this book I encountered only one mention of regular expressions - in the context of filtering file names, and you won't find regular expressions in the Index. From 10-page Chapter "Working with Email" you'll learn what SMTP and POP3 stand for, and from 15-page Appendix(!) "Threads" you'll learn that Python has something to do with threads, and fairly much about COM threading model.

Information in this 650-page book can fit a dozen-page article. Most of all this book looks like a slide show for marketing, trying to convince them that Python is the answer to all questions. And most of the time it sounds like: "It's easy, we won't tell you exactly what and how, but for smart guys like us who can read man pages, it's very easy."

Other Reviews

• An oldie but goodie.
• Required Reading for Python programmers (on Windows)
• COM basics for Python
• Python and Win32 for Pinheads
• Not for learning Python or programmin on Win32