possible audience in factthat' why the original version of this book later became twowith language basics delegated to learning python moreoverone can make case for distinction between programmerswho must acquire deep software development skillsand scripterswho do not for somea rudimentary knowledge of programming may be enough to leverage system or library that solves the problem at hand that isuntil their coding forays start encroaching on the realm of full-scale software engineering-- threshold that can inspire disappointment at worstbut better appreciation of the challenging nature of this field at best no matter which camp you're fromit' important to understand this book' intent upfront if you're looking for shortcut to proficiency that' light on technical contentyou probably won' be happy with this book (or the software field in generalif your goal is to master programming python wellthoughand have some fun along the wayyou'll probably find this book to be an important piece of your learning experience at the end of the daylearning to program well is much more demanding than implied by some contemporary media if you're willing to invest the focus and effort requiredthoughyou'll find that it' also much more rewarding this is especially true for those who equip themselves for the journey with programmer-friendly tool like python while no book or class can turn you into python "master of the universeby itselfthis book' goal is to help you get thereby shortening your start-up time and providing solid foundation in python' most common application domains python impacts on this book as mentionedthis edition now covers python only python is an incompatible version of the language the core language itself is very similar to python xbut there are substantial changes in both the language and its many standard libraries although some readers with no prior background in may be able to bypass the differencesthe changes had big impact on the content of this edition for the still very large existing python user basethis section documents the most noteworthy changes in this category if you're interested in differencesi also suggest finding copy of the fourth edition of the book python pocket reference described earlier that book gives both and versions of core language structuresbuilt-in functions and exceptionsand many of the standard library modules and tools used in this book though not designed to be reference or version translator per sethe fourth edition of learning python similarly covers both and xand as statedis prerequisite material to this book the goal of this -only programming python is not to abandon the current vast user base in favor of still imaginary one for xit is to help readers with the migrationand avoid doubling the size of an already massive book preface xxxi