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I agree completely. I made the mistake of turning to this book when I was still getting the hang of both python and programming. It taught me very little and really made my head hurt. I make sure to tell others to stay the hell away when I am asked about learning python.

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In that case, you should have probably paid attention to the beginning of the book which clearly states that DiP is for teaching Python to people who already know how to program. When I read the book, I already knew how to program in several other languages. DiP was perfect for me, and got me up to speed on Python rapidly. I had no trouble at all understanding it.

Some more context: I had been programming for most of year, and I had two university courses under my belt. (OO in Java and Data Structures in C++) I was feeling pretty good with basic Python and had a couple modules in the standard library down. Reading an introductory book aimed at experienced programmers seemed (and still seems) perfectly reasonable, especially when I could not (at the time) find alternate examples of code covered in a couple chapters.

When someone suggests to me that they want to learn Python, I sometimes send them to http://www.pythonchallenge.com. It won't work for everyone, but if you can see that they are the puzzle-solving type, it can be a good primer.

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