Hang around any Python discussion groups for a little while, and you will certainly be dazzled by the contributions of the Python developer, Tim Peters (and by a number of other Pythonistas). His Zen of Python captures much of the reason that I choose Python as the language in which to solve most programming tasks that are presented to me. But to understand what is most special about text processing as a programming task, it is worth turning to Perl creator Larry Wall's cardinal virtues of programming: laziness, impatience, hubris.

As a long time Perl and Python programmer, I'm constantly finding myself using Perl constructs in Python or Python constructs in Perl. Worse, I can suddenly find myself trying to use a feature or system in a Python program that just doesn't exist, or does and works differently. What I needed was some sort of cross reference.

Already the industry standard for Python users, Programming Python from O'Reilly just got even better. This third edition has been updated to reflect current best practices and the abundance of changes introduced by the latest version of the language...